How elastic is your church?

 When Jesus talks about the problem of putting new wine into old wineskins He is referring to the way the wine expands as it ferments. An older wineskin is rigid and won't expand as the fermenting wine expands.  The result is that the old wineskin breaks and becomes useless. A new wineskin is still flexible and elastic allowing it to expand with the wine. 

For decades the church has operated with an attractional model. We invited people to attend our worship services and tried to provide incentives to get them to come. We might have changed our musical styles, offered new programs, changed the name of the church, and a host of other things that we thought might attract people to our church services. Unfortunately, what happened more often than not was that we were just swapping people with other churches. Our programs often did little more than entice someone to leave the church they were attending to come to ours. When another church began to offer a newer program or ministry, these same people often left to attend that church. There was little impact on reaching persons who were not yet Christians.

People who are not Christians have little interest in our programs or ministries. They could care less what name is on our signs or our musical styles. They are not interested in our branding. They are living their lives without the church and see no reason to add it to one more thing they need to introduce into  their lives. The attractional model of church is seldom going to be effective as we continue into the 21st century. We have to find new ways to minister to people where they are both physically and spiritually.

One of the lessons learned from the Covid pandemic is that organizations have to be flexible if they want to achieve their mission. Schools have had to adapt to online learning forcing teachers and administrators to scramble to provide that education to their students. Many businesses have struggled to have employees, and many have reduced their hours due to manpower issues. Churches who never thought they would have an online presence had to take crash courses in Facebook and YouTube to provide worship opportunities to their congregations. This same flexibility will be required if we want to reach our communities for the Kingdom of God.

If people won't come to our churches, we must go to them. Incidentally, this is what Jesus told us to do in the Great Commission.  We are to go into all the world, not unlock our church doors and ask people to come to us. The question for each church is where do we go? Who are the people God has given us to reach? How do we take the Gospel to them in a way that is relevant to their daily lives, and how do we earn the right to speak it to them? Is our church elastic enough to move from an attractional model to a missional model?

Some churches will be like old wineskins. They are simply too rigid to allow the necessary changes to occur. They will continue to function as they have in the past until the day comes when their doors are locked. Other churches will have the elasticity to allow the expanding changes to occur that will permit their ministries to be more effective. They will find new ways of relating to people who do not yet know Jesus and learn new methods of sharing the Gospel with them. They will try some things that may not work, but rather than becoming discouraged and quitting, they will try other methods of reaching those God has given them.

Your structure is perfectly designed for the results you are getting. If you are in a rigid structure, you will keep getting what you've been getting. If you are in an elastic structure, you can accomplish far greater things than you can imagine. How elastic is your church?