New Wineskin Structures: A Manifesto Jan. 17,2005
manifesto: a public declaration of intentions, opinions, objectives.
1. The destiny of the church is to be the primary influence upon all the nations of the earth:
Matthew 28: 18-20: Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
God’s plan was that His people disciple every nation to live under the blessing and not curse of God:
“I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me." (Genesis 22: 17-18: God’s promise to Abraham)
2. The church disciples nations by influencing the culture of those nations. Culture is defined as those things that are considered normal in regards to thinking, values, and actions. Once culture is established, it is very self sustaining and self propagating.
We recognize that there are key gateways into any culture, which may be identified as:
Government and Law/Business, Finance, Technology/ Education/Family/ Media and Communications/Arts and Entertainment/Subcultural and Ethnic/ Religion.
Whoever controls these key gateways into culture effectively influences normative thinking and behavior in that nation.
The question we must ask is not “can a nation be discipled?”, but “who gets to disciple the nation?”
Both in history and contemporary times, there are vivid examples of nations that have been discipled by the Kingdom of God as well as nations that have been discipled by the kingdom of darkness.
3. When the church in any society abdicates her God given position and destiny within that region, that society becomes increasingly dark and corrupt. Immorality, anti Christ thinking, substance abuse, violence, corruption abound. When the ‘light of the world’ is put under a basket, the surrounding areas become quite dark.
4. Over the past number of decades, the nation of America has been on a decline in regards to Godly thinking and living. As a result, America is awash with every form of corruption, violence, perversity, and moral decay.
We must conclude that the church in America has, with few exceptions, abdicated her God given destiny and function within our nation. Statistics would suggest that the American church has become very assimilated within the society at large, to the point that there is little significant difference in the lifestyles of Christians and non Christians in America.
5. Therefore, we believe that God is desiring to do a new thing among His people. He is desiring a true ‘reformation’ of His church, to restore her to her place of authority and influence in the gateways of culture.
This new thing is not a continuation of the old thing, so to speak, but a fundamentally different way of living, acting, and being. The analogy of the caterpillar and the butterfly is useful. Though in essence the same creature, the difference between the two might be described as a metamorphosis: “a complete change of form, structure, or substance, as transformation...” (Webster’s)
God is wanting to do a metamorphosis in His church in America, a complete change of form, structure, and substance. He wants to His church to undergo a true transformation.
6. We would describe this metamorphosis as the transition from the pastoral/teaching church to the apostolic/prophetic church.
In Ephesians 4: 11-12, the Apostle Paul describes how Jesus has given five different functions to the church in order to prepare God’s people to live out their Kingdom destiny:
1) Apostolic: that pertaining to the fulfillment of the Christ mission to bring the Kingdom of God to all the nations of the world.
2) Prophetic: that which pertains to the hearing of revelatory communication from God to successfully navigate the mission.
3) Evangelistic: that which pertains to the seeking and saving of those who are spiritually lost.
4) Pastoral: that which pertains to the care and shepherding of God’s people so that they would thrive and prosper.
5) Teaching: that which pertains to the instruction in God’s Word to everyday life.
The current institutional church struggles with recognizing the ministry functions of the apostolic and prophetic and tends to platform the functions of pastoral and teaching. Thus, our churches are largely led by pastors who do a lot of pastoring and teaching.
Despite the pattern of our current church structures, the testimony of scripture is quite different:
“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow- citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” (Ephesians 2: 19-20)
“He appointed twelve--designating them apostles-- that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.” (Mark 3: 14-15)
“And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers...” (1 Corinthians 12: 28)
In addition to the scriptures cited, the words apostle, apostles, and apostolic are used over 80 times in the New Testament. By comparison, the word pastor appears only once.
7. The normative form of church in America in the recent past and present appears to be more pastorally and teaching driven than apostolic and prophetic.
As a result, the normal church tends to focus on pastoral type ministries that care for God’s people as well as teaching ministries that instruct Christians in practical Christian living. The highest ambition is then to create ministries and structures that will tend to the needs of God’s people, whether for children’s ministries, or counseling needs, or for practical Biblical instruction. The church grows when more and more people are connected to the felt need ministries they desire.
Success is defined as more people being benefited by the ministry offerings of the church. The purpose of the church is then defined as the meeting of the needs of people rather than the pursuit of the mission to bring the Kingdom to the nations.
While these are certainly spiritually profitable activities, they lack the context for which these activities are to be pursued.
This context, we would contend, is an apostolic context.
8. The apostolic/prophetic church is mainly concerned with the fulfillment of the mission of Christ to disciple the nations.
The word apostle is the translation of the Greek word ‘apostolos’. The meaning of apostolos was derived from the Roman empire, who would send fleets of ships to conquer a region and then to colonize it for the kingdom of Rome. The apostolos was the word used to describe this conquering/colonizing fleet of ships.
Jesus was the first apostolos: “Just as the living Father sent (apostello) me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.” (John 6: 57)
He was sent from heaven on a mission to displace the rule of the devil and to colonize planet earth with citizens of His Kingdom:
“Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent (apostello) me, I am sending you." (John 20: 21)
1 John 3: 8: The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work.
The church in Acts was birthed in the context of apostolic mission and vision:
Acts 1: 8: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
The power that the church received was not meant primarily for the meeting of their own personal needs; it was given to demonstrate the reality of their proclamation, that Jesus was indeed alive and mighty to save.
The apostolic/prophetic church does not suppress the ministries of the evangelistic, the pastoral, and the teaching. Rather, the apostolic/ prophetic church puts these ministries in their right context, as necessary elements to complete an apostolic mission.
For example, Jesus was certainly the good shepherd, who cared for His sheep. He was certainly the great teacher, who communicated the mysteries of the Kingdom to His followers. And yet, He shepherded and taught the twelve within His overall vision to prepare them to fulfill the Great Commission and disciple the nations.
In fact, Jesus chastised the crowds for following Him just because He miraculously met their needs: "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. “ (John 6: 26-27)
Instead of fixating on Jesus’ ability to miraculously meet their needs, Jesus was encouraging them to rightly perceive and partner with the eternal mission for which He came to earth.
9. The goal of the apostolic/prophetic church is to raise up apostolic Christians who possess the Kingdom of God and will take the Kingdom of God to every sector of society.
I would differentiate an apostolic Christian from a Christian who is more or less consumed with selfish concerns about their own lifestyles, happiness, and self fulfillment. An apostolic Christian is one who lives to fulfill the mission of God.
A Biblical example of an apostolic Christian would be Philip in Acts 8. Although Philip did not hold an apostolic office in the Jerusalem church, he carried with him the apostolic DNA to aggressively advance the Kingdom wherever he went.
While fleeing from persecution, Philip journeys into a city in Samaria where he begins to preach about Jesus. The following is an excerpt from Acts 8: 6-8:
“When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. So there was great joy in that city.”
What is remarkable about this account is that Philip went by himself and without any preconceived plan to bring the Kingdom of God to this Samaritan city. Philip was so full of the Kingdom of God that the Kingdom could not help but leak out of him!
10. When describing the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus compared the Kingdom to a living bacterial culture, like yeast:
Matthew 13: 33: He told them still another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough."
Yeast are very tiny organisms that have the ability to permeate throughout much larger systems, like dough.
In other words, the culture of the Kingdom of Heaven is able to permeate and dominate other larger cultures. Philip is just one example of this. Though he was just one man, the culture of the Kingdom was able to take over the existing culture of that Samaritan city.
An Old Testament example would be Daniel, who along with his three friends, was a conduit to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to three pagan empires. Because of their influence, the fear of God permeated these empires to the point that official decrees such as were described in Daniel 6: 25-26 were issued:
Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations and men of every language throughout the land: "May you prosper greatly! "I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel. "For he is the living God and he endures for ever; his kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end.”
That is a powerful example of how God’s people can disciple nations!
An interesting aspect of living cultures, like yeast, is that they are relatively self sustaining and self propagating. Thus, a little yeast in dough will multiply itself until the whole loaf is permeated. Very little outside intervention or support is needed for yeast to do its job.
The Kingdom culture is meant to operate like a yeast culture. When the Kingdom culture is authentically reproduced within a person, the Kingdom culture is not only sustained within that person without massive amounts of outside support and intervention but the Kingdom culture also propagates rather naturally and organically.
For example, when Philip is led by the Spirit to leave the Samaritan city, he meets an Ethiopian eunuch, a high ranking official in his country. The Kingdom culture within Philip is then imparted to this eunuch, who ends up taking the Kingdom culture back to his nation. Church tradition holds that this eunuch became the starting point for a sweeping move of God that established Ethiopia as one of the first Christian nations.
It is amazing to note how quickly the Kingdom of God spread throughout the Roman empire during the first century. The Christians accomplished this without a New Testament, without organizational strategies, without buildings, without Christian books, radio, or conferences! The Kingdom grew naturally and organically as the believers infected their communities with the virus of the Kingdom.
While we may be tempted to relegate such organic, viral growth to the pages of the book of Acts, we must ponder the example of the church in China who grew from 1 million to perhaps 100 million during a fifty year period of intense persecution where believers were not only denied Bibles but jailed and even killed for their faith. With few of the resources and privileges that Western believers take for granted, Christianity has spread like wildfire in the harsh climate of China .
11. The example of the church in Acts and in contemporary China reveals that the culture of the church in America may not exactly be the culture of the Kingdom of God. While the authentic culture of the Kingdom is relatively self sustaining and self propagating, displacing larger existing cultures, the culture of the Western church seems anything but self sustaining and self propagating of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
American churches expend tremendous amount of human effort and financial resource to sustain the faith of the believers. We spent untold billions of dollars on building projects, Christian books, conferences, radio and television programming trying to minister life into the Christian in America. And yet, the sad commentary is that the world culture seems much more prevalent in the church than the authentic culture of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Like the church in Laodicea, it is possible to live a form of Christianity that is self deceived about its true condition:
Revelations 3: 17: You say, `I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.
How might we describe this culture of the Kingdom of Heaven? Any attempts on our part are bound to be limited but I will list several elements that appear to be necessary aspects of an authentic Kingdom culture:
1) Missional and apostolic: A Christianity that lives out the apostolic mission of Jesus to bring the Kingdom to every sector of every nation. Not a Christianity that lives for self gratification.
2) Communal: A Christianity that is lived out in the context of missional community, where lives are shared in love and mission. Not a Christianity that is highly individualistic and personal to the point of being non communal.
3) Obeying the Lordship of Jesus in the everyday aspects of life: A Christianity that embraces the commands of Christ in our relationships, our finances, our schedules, our vocations. Not a Christianity that is lived on Sundays and Wednesday nights when religious meetings occur.
4) Heavenly minded rather than worldly minded: A Christianity that lives for eternal things rather than temporal, worldly concerns. Not a Christianity that seeks comfort and success in this life but comfort and success in the realm to come.
5) A Christianity with power: A Christianity that is truly Holy Spirit filled and empowered to live out the mission of God. Not a Christianity of talk but of powerful living and power to minister.
12. Summary of points
Prior to launching off into the practical application of these concepts and revelations, a simple review of the point may be helpful.
1) The church has been given the mandate and destiny to disciple the nations. This is accomplished by influencing the key gateways into the culture of a particular nation.
2) This destiny can be abdicated, to the detriment of that nation in which the church lives contrary to her calling.
3) America and much of the West appears to be on a downward slide towards moral decay and corruption. Such would be considered evidence that the church has abdicated her destiny.
4) The Lord is wanting to bring about a fundamental change in the church in America, a metamorphosis, to transform her from an impotent institution and into a powerful agent of Godliness in our nation.
5) One aspect of this transformation would be the shift from a pastoral/teaching church to an apostolic/prophetic church.
6) The apostolic/prophetic church is consumed with the Great Commission and thus seeks to raise up apostolic Christians who possess the Kingdom culture and thus can infect the world with the Kingdom of God.
All these points now lead us to the central question that confronts us as a local congregation:
HOW DO YOU RAISE UP APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANS WHO POSSESS THE KINGDOM CULTURE AND ARE POSSESSED TO VIRALLY INFECT THE WORLD WITH THIS CULTURE?
13. To answer this question, one must look at the ministry of Jesus Christ, for He was the one who originated the vision of the Great Commission, of a people of God who would disciple the nations in the ways of the Kingdom of God.
When Jesus gave His disciples the Great Commission shortly before departing for Heaven, it must have seemed to be a bit of a joke. How could Jesus give 11 men a commission to disciple all the nations of the world when they had barely ever left the tiny nation of Israel? And how could Jesus leave them without a strategic plan or program to fulfill this mission?
In truth, Jesus did not lay out a strategy for them because they already had what was necessary to fulfill the mission: the authentic Kingdom culture, complete with the ministry of the Spirit, had been reproduced within them. All they had to do was go out in the world and leak!
But to return to the earlier question, how exactly did Jesus reproduce the Kingdom culture in His followers?
We know that Jesus could have chosen any program or design He wanted to raise up apostolic Christians. He could have started a mega church or a seminary. Instead He chose a small group of 12 to be with Him.
That was the context and structure by which Jesus imparted the culture of the Kingdom to His twelve. They lived together as an apostolic community where the twelve would be prepared to be Kingdom missionaries who would carry the culture of the Kingdom to the four corners of the earth.
To the disciples, going to church did not mean sitting in a rented meeting hall and listening to Jesus lecture. Rather, church meant sharing a missional life with Jesus within a small, tight knit apostolic community.
14. When Jesus states in Matthew 16: 18 that He will build His church and that gates of Hades will not prevail against it, what kind of church was He envisioning?
Was Jesus envisioning what we would call church in America? Was He picturing a large meeting room filled with people listening to one man speak? Was He prophesying that He would fill these rooms to the point that multiple meeting times would be needed? Was He speaking of church as a dynamic institution that could offer all varieties of ministries to the spiritually needy?
Or was He envisioning what He had with the twelve? Was church to be seen as an event that one goes to? Or was church meant to be a shared life together for the purposes of the mission of God? When Jesus envisioned church growth, did He see more people coming to spiritual gatherings? Or more people sharing in the life of small apostolic communities?
Might it be possible to see a congregational gathering as the coming together of apostolic communities within a region to celebrate their oneness in Christ with the other apostolic communities as opposed to the primary vehicle for individual believers to gather to celebrate their oneness with other believers?
What did Jesus think church was? Did He consider what He had with the twelve authentic church?
These are more than just thought provoking questions but are intended to force us to define what church was meant to be and to accomplish and then to live in that fashion.
15. There is a saying that has worked itself into popular culture: “The medium is the message.” Another way to state this is to say: “Do as I do and not as I say.”
What we do sends a clear message that may be more powerful than the words that I speak.
What does the average congregational church service communicate about what we believe church and Christianity is all about? What messages are being sent out without words?
The average church service has seats facing towards a platform where a small number of individuals are center stage throughout the service time. Although people are gathered in close proximity, the level of interaction between them can be as little as those attending a movie or a play. Sermon messages are taught in lecture style, with little forum for coaching or accountability. New material is taught every week without any follow up to ensure that old information has been assimilated into one’s everyday life. Although a number of individuals are involved in the action of the service, such are a minority, with the majority as mostly passive recipients of religious programming. As long as the programming and ministry offerings are satisfactory, the average church member stays put and contributes their time and money to support the church.
The medium is the message. What messages are being sent forth about the true nature of Christianity?
As one pastor recently shared: “I say that church is all about relationship but I spend most of my time trying to come up with a better program to attract more people.”
16. Contrast the tight knit, committed apostolic community that Jesus had with the twelve. What messages did this structure communicate about the true nature of Christianity and the church?
Christianity/church requires commitment, to the Lord, to the mission, to one’s community. Christianity/church is meant to be lived communally, not individually. Obedience matters and one is held accountable for their actions or non actions. Christianity is meant to be lived 24-7 rather than for a couple hours on the weekend. Christianity costs a lot and takes up all one’s life. Christianity/ church is about being trained to be a Kingdom missionary. Christianity/church is not meant to be confined to the four corners of a meeting facility but to be lived out at weddings, funerals, dinner parties, traveling journeys. Christianity/church is about being transformed from a selfish person to one who lays down their lives for their friends. Christianity/church is about being a part of a true spiritual family.
17. This manifesto is not meant to be a criticism of any other church or church structure. Rather it is meant to communicate the decisions and rationale for those decisions for structural changes that we feel God is leading us to make.
As Jesus stated in Matthew 9 :17: “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."
When Jesus wants to do a new work in a church, He occasionally must totally revamp the existing structures to make them agreeable to the changes He is wanting to make.
We believe that Jesus is in the process of reworking our wineskin structures to better support the formation of apostolic Kingdom missionaries who will infect the world with the virus of the Kingdom.
Mark Hsi: hsi.mark@gmail.com