Insights Into The Covid-19 Church Era – Part II
“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear results. No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins as well; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.” (Mark 2:21-23 NASB)
Can “new wine” be put into a 2,000-year-old wineskin? Historically Christian revivals have tried but have been unsuccessful. What are we to do with new Covid-19 era structures that demand “new wine”? The Covid-19 pandemic has taken away many of our old wineskins. Church buildings were rendered useless by a “Stay-At-Home” order. Typical Sunday School classes, children’s churches, youth rallies, and nurseries have vanished. Church picnics, Bingo night, bazaar, senior centers, and going out after church to eat disintegrated. All evaporated when isolation, being self-quarantined, and stay-at-home orders were in place. How is the church to cope when so many of their old wineskins have been taken away?
The church is attempting to place old wine into new wineskins by immediately streaming (new wineskin) “online” Sunday (old wine) Services. Parishioners still sit on their derrieres on couches to watch a “worship block”, receive a financial giving pitch, and listen to a professional sermon. This old “order of worship” continues to add old wine “passivity” into the mix. Old wine will continue to produce the same results: a typical Sunday morning “Groundhog Day” experience. Passive parishioner will race back to their previous complacent old structures or old wineskins in which they are comfortable as soon as Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.
Relying on new wineskin technology, Zoom, the church immediately turned it into old wine experiences: Bible Study, prayer, or Discuss-the-Sunday-Sermon groups administrated by the local church staff who hoped not to be furloughed. Unfortunately when new wine is poured into old wineskins, both the wine and the wineskin get destroyed which produces hurt, pain, sectarianism, and division.
Jesus’ first miracle was changing simple water into phenomenal wine! If we supply new wineskins, He will supply the new wine, the better wine, supernaturally. What kind of new wineskins might we produce? How about a fresh, new way of looking at worship? Worship can be simple if it is defined as “giving back to the Lord what He has already give you.” We are only His stewards. Do you have children? Give them back to the Lord as Hanna did with little Samuel who became a mighty prophet. Got a job? Give it back to the Lord. How about your house, car, heirloom, your stuff? Give it all back! God will either consume it, regenerate it, rebirth it, discard it, or give it back to you totally renewed.
Worship is a continual ebb-and-flow, give-and –take experience. The Lord gives something to us; we give it back to Him. He returns it in a new form; we return to Him, etc., etc. Back-and-forth worship can be the “heartbeat” of God! Corporate worship is when everyone can contribute their story, share a scripture, evangelize, comfort one another, nurture and care for each other, give a prophetic word, or network people with different giftings. The new wine could be the Holy Spirit releasing the five-fold grace gifts of Ephesians 4 to equip the saints for works of service. This new form of revival, this new wine, old wineskins have never experienced nor can understand because they want control.
If this Covid-19 generation embraces new structures, new wineskins, and allow the Holy Spirit to fill them with new wine, they will experience revival! In upcoming blogs, we will examine some possible new wineskins that want to be filled with new wine. As the great doubter Vizinni of Princes Bride fame cries out, “Inconceivable,” but with Jesus “all things are possible.”