Week 1 | New Wine | Crosswalk Church

Our first series of the year will be about New Wine. Perhaps this is not an excellent metaphor for a church in a tradition that has a legacy of health and “tee-totalism,” if that is a phrase. While Adventists have traditionally not partaken of wine, we understand the metaphor used in this text.
While there is discussion of whether Jesus drank wine that had been fermented, this is not the point of this text, nor is it the point of this series. Our “New Wine” series is essential for us in that we need to look at whether or not we are putting old wine into new wineskins, new wine into old wineskins, or new wine into new wineskins. All of these things have different connotations that we will discuss.
As you know, Crosswalk has become a church far exceeding its walls, and the teaching that comes out of Crosswalk also goes beyond the pulpit. We teach other churches and ministers what it is that we do. Often, their first question is about our process, how we do what we do, rather than what we are doing. They love conversations about the Coffee Bar, the Lights, and the Production as if these are the things that set us apart from other churches.
While I understand this impulse, we must see if we are talking wineskins or wine. If we are talking wineskins, then yes, what we do is undoubtedly new, or at least different from most churches in our Adventist world.
However, should we be talking about wineskins or wine? Should we be talking about how we do what we do or the content and purpose of why we do it? Is it enough to work out new processes if we are giving the same old messages and content that has always been given from our churches, pulpits, and flyers?
When we think about new wine, we have to consider the ingredients and see if there is anything new we should discuss and recognize. We have to think about not only process but content. Are we doing something different or doing the same thing differently? We also have to ask what we should be doing and why.
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