Cinemas and Church

Happy New year! This year we packed the whole of Golden Sands Baptist PD and beyond! I love watchnight services. And we've just had a great watchnight service. Now we are into yet another brand new year and for many, it's like starting over while others are building on what they have started off in 2009. Whatever, time doesn't move backwards, but forward. If you and I are going to progress, that's the direction we have to go ... forward, not backwards.

I am especially excited about this year 2010. I am sensing change, both on a personal level and church wise. I am sensing like God is doing something new and we need to gather new wine skins as God pours forth new wine! I am expecting things to be different in a very good sense and I am enthused at the possibilities! But here's the thing ... we need to do away with old wine skins.

Ever since I was introduced into church life since 1976 when I was bornagain, I have known church to be what it is today. Come to think of it, it's been what it is today like generations ago! Church has been, and still is today (as I see it) like a cinema. In cinemas, they have pop corns, special discount days, more cosy environment, state of the art visual and audio, all these just so they could gather as big a crowd as they could and to compete with other cinemas. So it is with a church. We meet in a building on fixed days. We have programs, special days, state of the art visuals and audios and lighting. Our sermons are carefully parceled to woo the crowd. We have theatrics in our presentations of the sermons, etc etc and the bottom line is, we are doing all that we are doing so as to get as many parishioners as possible, to grow our numbers, to "compete" with other churches. In fact, we even brand our churches today into household names! Like the cinemas, we are into getting as many people as possible to patronize our services. One church even offered $100 for each person who attend church. And yes .... that's my point, church today is all about getting people into our services. It's about attending service on Sundays. About attending Bible study on Wednesdays and prayer meetings on Fridays and youth services on Saturday. It's about "bringing them in" ... into our buildings.

Now I am not saying that this is wrong. In fact, how do we know what is right or wrong when church has been like this since hundreds, if not thousands of years before us! Come to think of it, church is like an institution with it's fixed traditions of doing things, etc. We even propose that our building is "the house of God" and so we say "Welcome to the house of God." Well, honest truth, Jesus did not come 2000 years ago to build church like it is today. He didn't have a building. He didn't have membership roll. He didn't have fixed day services. See, to Him, the world is His church. His pulpit can range from a market place to a boat. He wasn't seduced by crowds. In fact He spent His entire ministry life investing in small groups, meeting in homes, sea shores, gardens, by the streets. He didn't wear Sunday clothes, preacher's clothes. He didn't have a title. In fact, His attitude was servanthood even though He was then the Son of Man. There's no air about Him. He was the image of God!

Again, I am not saying that the way we perceive church as church today is wrong. However, I am suggesting that the trend of church today, if we are not careful, can become like a commercial cinema where it's all about gathering and competing. It is vital today that we rethink what church actually is. This is my challenge for this 2010 before we enter into a new decade in 2011. We cannot be doing the same things over and over again, year in and year out and yet expect different results. It's illogical. Today, we need to gather new wine skins. We cannot put new wine into old wine skins. It will not hold.

In Isaiah 43, at one point in Israel's history, God said "I am doing a new thing". I believe (and speaking for Vineyard) God is pouring out new wine (something new). I am excited. I am enthused. Things will inevitably need to change. We are not into major overhaul or total make over. Change is about making minor adjustments. It's gradual. I understand, like in Luke 5:37, people are not apt for change for they say, "the old wine is still better." So change will have to be gradual. You and I will need to be bold to embrace change. We are not changing for the sake of change. It's because God is pouring out new wine. And I like how Albert Einstein defines insanity: "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

That's my "prophecy" for 2010. God is doing a new thing. Let's gather new wine skins.

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." (Isaiah 43:18,19)

Change or be changed. In this last year of the decade, as we take this year to prepare for a new decade, let's poise ourselves with the Holy Spirit and take on new frontiers like never before in the history of our church, The Vineyard Church.

Blessed new year.