New Wineskins

In my last post I talked a bit about George Whitefield and his ability as a preacher. As a contemporary of Wesley he is one of the key figuresin the birth of Methodism. However, without John Wesley Methodism would have never existed. It was Wesley's organisational ability that allowed the move of the Spirit to flourish. Placing people into small accountability groups that encouraged purity and witness enabled those who came to salvation to continue in their relationship with Jesus. Whitefield's preaching may, arguably, have been more effective but his effectiveness as a revivalist was hindered by the fact that once he had left a town or city new converts were left to themselves. Wesley drew new converts into accountability groups and so allowed the missional effects of the revival to continue way after he had left.

Every move of God should change the Church. It is unrealistic to expect the church structures to remain unchanged when the Holy Spirit visits! Jesus says in Matthew 9 "Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."

We at St Andrew's have at different times experienced the power of the Holy Spirit at work amongst us that has changed much of the nature of who we are as a church. We also need to continue reshaping the structures of the church. Our move to Missional Communities is a way of establishing new wineskins in response to what God is doing amongst us and, to some extent, in preparation for what he is going to do in the future. As with Wesley's groups they need to have the same focus on discipleship and mission. In that sense what we are doing is not new, we are part of a history of pioneers who want to work with what the Lord is doing.

What is sad about reading through God's General's is to see how quickly those within methodism began to lose their focus on purity and proclamation and reduced themselves to political squabbles about church order. We cannot lose sight of the call of Jesus to 'GO and MAKE disciples", the moment we do that we become less than we ought to be.