Wineskins and new wine: Preparing for our future
“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’” (Luke 5:37-39)
As I mentioned in a previous blog, pastors and leaders (and, frankly, all Christ-followers) will not have the post-COVID-19 luxury of returning to pre-COVID-19 ministry norms...the "old wineskins." Contrary to what common sense would tell us, however, neither will we have the luxury of combining our pre-COVID and during-COVID practices to chart our way forward; pragmatically stitching two old wineskins together will result in the tearing of the skins and the spilling of the new wine given by God.
This realization forces the question: What should we be preparing for? We can't even plan because we don't fully know what is ahead, but we can prepare so when the future becomes the present, we have been thinking critically and anticipating what could be.
Below is my list of questions I am asking as I consider what could be. Admittedly, much of it could be contextual to my neighborhood (Charlestown, MA) in my city (Boston, MA) in my network (Send Boston of NAMB) and region (New England). Add in the factors that every planter and every church are unique, and I confess that I am perhaps asking about a future that could be unique altogether... but I doubt it. With that said, here are some personal questions we should each be asking concerning practices, convictions, and realities in stitching new wineskins for God's coming new wine.
Should We Consider Remote and Digital Church Membership? This practice is nothing new; churches with streaming services and completely online congregations have been "doing church" this way for a while. But, admittedly, I am a firm believer in the gathered church and, therefore, have been skeptical and even critical of "church" where the believers are not gathered. Dan, Julie, and Fletcher have changed my mind on this one. They relocated to another city with his position in the military and had not connected with a local church when COVID-19 hit. We welcomed them back to Sunday streaming services, Zoom small groups, and any other applicable platforms until COVID-19 subsides and they can resume their search for a church. Yet their situation begs the question: What if COVID-19 is a steady, ongoing reality going forward and visiting various churches to find the one locally that fits isn't an option because of age or immunocompromise? Could our digital church become their home church going forward? Would this be a way to love the vulnerable, serve all, connect the believer with a local church? For many leaders, this question was and still is a loud yes; but for others, we might have said yes but with an asterisk* that they needed to rapidly find a local church. Perhaps we need to drop the asterisk. At the same time, we need to consider the covenant boundaries of online church membership. We need to think prayerfully about small groups, a signed covenant, generous giving, serving locally and living on mission, and much more. These are areas we need to clarify as we consider remote and digital church membership. In a post-COVID-19 world, we must avoid two extremes: counting viewers as members (the average Facebook Live view on a Sunday service is probably around one minute) and refusing to empathize with people's fears and legitimate struggles with finding a local church in the wake of COVID-19.
How Much Should We Invest in Counseling Ministries? We've laughed about some of the more amusing quarantine realities, but one reality is going to hit us when this pandemic recedes: people are going to come out of pandemic deeply changed. Many will have experienced real trauma. Marriages that were kept on life support by overworking and avoiding will be exposed and hanging by a thread when people can step into the sunlight. Kids with overbearing but distant parents will have an unspoken trauma from living for weeks inside the quiet prison of parents they can not escape. Finances, retirement strategies, resumés are all going to be altered or wrecked throughout our communities, and while many will be sheltered from calamity, many will not. Well-intending people who placed their hopes and found their identities in hard work, achievement, retirement portfolios, keeping up with the Joneses, and accumulating stuff are going to come out into the light having found those false gods to be liars who could not deliver. Many of those Christians we pastor, while meaning well, have developed prosperity theology that assumed they would be insulated from tragedy; we are going to have to counsel them through the trauma and devastation of their folk theology and into reconstruction of a biblical theology of grace in the midst of God's sovereignty. Sermons will not be enough! For all of these coming realities, we need to consider staffing, small groups, resources, budget, and more to handle the post-COVID-19 counseling load our communities and churches will need.
Can We Form Shorter Pathways to Leadership? The tech-savvy woman who has been an anonymous but faithful attender of our church may have just become one of our best leaders during pandemic. We need to have people read less books and require less time to move into leadership in our churches. COVID-19 will likely morph into COVID-20 or some other future iteration, and we need as many hands on deck as possible. We must shorten the leadership pathways. Relationships, teachability, and a few other considerations are all that may be needed; early on Jesus sent out the 12 and the 72 to do incredible ministry... and many of them weren't even saved! How can we shorten leadership pathways without watering down leadership standards?
How Much Can We Affirm and Expand Our Non-"Pastoral" Leadership? The greatest and newest heroes of our churches and communities coming out of COVID-19 will come from 3 groups: (1) Healthcare workers: these people have risked their lives to save others -- they have been "table-waiting" deacons serving day-after-day as physicians, counselors, pastors, and more... we must recognize the mission and ministry they have done and affirm and commission them well going forward, perhaps even putting them into formal leadership in our church as non-"ministerial" or non-"pastoral" leaders, meaning they don't work for the church. (2) Similarly, "invisible" workers: including postal workers, sanitation department, police and fire, city meal-site volunteers, fast food restaurant employees, gig employees, and countless others; these people have risked their lives to keep the most humble and basic "essential" parts of the economy and culture going... we will never find a more humble, self-sacrificing bunch of deacons for our churches than these -- and should affirm them in our communities over and over. (3) Technologically-gifted volunteers: these people in our churches have helped us begin streaming, edited and beefed up, created new community, come up with fun ways to connect and powerful ways to pray or grieve together. If this COVID isn't the last COVID, we need to affirm, empower, and release these leaders to help lead God's church.
How Decentralized Can and Should We Make Our Discipleship Pathways? In other words, worship, discipleship, and mission can not be Sunday or small group dependent. We have to restore the priesthood of the believer. We have to empower and release people faster to self-feed and live on mission. Pastors and leaders, we have to make the Christ-follower "in the pew" the second-hero of his or her story again (where Christ is their ultimate Hero of their story) and not ourselves. Perhaps COVID-19 has revealed that, more than we care to admit, we've loved the co-dependent Christians we've created, as well as the limelight and the glory of leading them. We must create thorough, thoughtful, biblical discipleship pathways that pull new believers away from the teat of our feeding and allow them to feed themselves.
Where Do We Need Kingdom Collaboration? The Church of our community has never needed to cheer for and collaborate with one another as much as now. As much as I love Christ Church Charlestown and am proud of those I pastor, I accept also that the Body of Christ in Charlestown -- the followers of Jesus in our neighborhood's churches as well as those in Charlestown who worship in other communities -- is stronger collaboratively than our church is individually. If the Kingdom of Jesus in my ZIP code loses while the church I pastor wins, then I did not win. We need to collaborate as churches and Christ-followers in a post-COVID-19 context whenever and wherever possible.
Should We Reconsider Individualized Communion Packets? I scoffed at these individually wrapped packets of juice and wafer for years as if the elements wrapped in plastic were less spiritual or meaningful than our elements we bought at the grocery store. I would have asked, "Is it even "communion" if we aren't sharing from the common loaf and common container or bottle?" In post-COVID ministry will we see this practice as less spiritual or more pastoral? I am challenged to think that the most communal and community-loving thing I might do during Communion is receive the bread and fruit of the vine individually.
Are Individual Baptisms the Way Forward for Celebrating New Believers? Could dunking more than one on a Sunday in a post-COVID-19 church endanger the second, third, and so on to get in the water? Could it be we need to put one person per Sunday in the tank to ensure the safety of the second or third person being dunked? As a church, we receive communion each Sunday as we remember Jesus' death, our forgiveness, and our common identity as a redeemed family. What if a commitment to love one another by individual baptisms allowed for a similar weekly practice of celebrating baptism and remembering Jesus' victorious resurrection, our salvation, and our confident hope for eternal life.
Should We Pivot to Online Giving Only? Could passing the plate endanger the health of all or the weakest of our givers and attenders? What if a box in the back of our worship space is more loving than each person touching the offering plates or baskets as they go by? Would the peace of mind we give and statement of love we make by online-only giving outweigh the extra dollars we could receive by in-person giving?
Will We Be Vigilant to Aim for Development Over Relief? Years ago, I was introduced to Bob Lupton by his books and then personally through some connections while we were in South Carolina. I can not recommend his books Toxic Charity and Charity Detox enough. One conviction I gained from these books is that relief happens immediately after a crisis or tragedy, but development happens quickly thereafter. We as leaders, pastors, and entire churches can not create a generation of people who depend on us for relief when we need to liberate them to re-develop their lives. We will come alongside during and after COVID-19 to help with economic relief, stress relief, relational crisis relief, relief from fear, and other areas; but that relief must pivot from dependence to development. What will that look like in our communities? Each situation and context will be different. But creating perpetual relief ministries does not engender or spread God's shalom or human flourishing. For a further consideration of this idea -- which I can not recommend strongly enough...that's why I put it last -- please read Lupton's books.
Obviously, the list of questions could go on and on. What would be on your list? Does one of these resonate or is the Holy Spirit bringing something else to mind? In truth, what emerges as opportunity and reality and "new wineskin" could involve all of these or none of these. Either way, God will not give us the skins, but he is bringing new wine!
COVID-19 will not get the last word. The COVID curves will crest. Like the dove leaving the ark to find a livable new world, we will soon emerge to find different realities for life, ministry, and mission. And as God serves us this new wine of opportunity, we will be held responsible to stitch the skins of discipleship, worship, mission, ministry, and leadership. Please -- I beg of you! -- do not pragmatically and naively stitch the old skins of pre-COVID ministry and during-COVID ministry together thinking they will hold the wine of a post-COVID culture. You will lose the skins and lose the wine. Please remain prayerful, attentive, malleable, humble, and understanding of your unique gifting, calling, context, and opportunity.
JD Mangrum is the church planting pastor of Christ Church Charlestown in Charlestown, MA.