Churchianity

I often hear church leaders using the end of Chapter five in Luke as justification for all the changes in the form of church services.  They are anxious to attract the waning youth audience for the next generation of believers.  Sadly, sometimes I think they are just anxious to attract the next generation of collection plate fillers. Unfortunately, I think they misuse Luke in the whole context.  I believe Jesus was referring to something far more significant when he told them to put “new wine in new wineskins.”  He wasn’t just talking about singing Chris Tomlin songs instead of Bach.

Now don’t get me wrong, I really don’t care if you want a church that sings hard rock and rap and serves coffee in armchair recliner seating. What I believe is important is the relationship we have with God and the fruit that comes from that relationship.  Jesus lived in a time when the Pharisees made the forms of their religious system the “object” of their faith.  They stood on the principle that doing these forms would make them righteous and God (and more importantly their fellow men) would then benefit them and hold them righteous.  Jesus came with a whole new message that didn’t fit in their format at all!  He said God actually loved them regardless.  He said that their relationship with God was what was at issue and important, not the forms of their religiousity.

In fact, Jesus actually intended for our faith to be carried out beyond the walls of church.  I don’t think it is coincidental that most everything in the Gospels happens outdoors or in homes in context with other people’s daily living.  In fact, every time Jesus is shown to have spoken in “Synagogues” it was a disaster (overturning moneychangers, having them ridicule or try to stone him…or even just having his parents scold him.)  He demonstrated a “living faith” that transcended the idea of its containment in a building on Sunday.  It needs to be shown in your life every day.  If God is only a Sunday event and the message in your worship is tailored to entertain without substance and doesn’t point you to a relationship with God, and if your music and your coffee is really what you get out of Church and go there for, you’re in the wrong place.  If your church doesn’t develop your fellowship with other believers and support you in your faith so you can be a Christian in relationship with God in the real world 24/7, you need to look for a place that does. 

Make that your new wineskin.