All of us are more than the worse thing we ever did, None of us are as innocent as we think we are. All of us have some prejudice we cannot justify, None of us live free from unwarranted judgement. All of us see the world as if we are at its center, None of us appreciate how connected we really are. All of us are more than our demographic designation, None of us are free from being stereotyped as one thing.  All of us have received God’s grace, love, and mercy, None of us have deserved it. All of us must accept responsibility for what the Church in America is or None of us will see what it can become.

Going to Church with my Grandmother.

As a child, in the 60’s, Church was not very engaging to me. But like many of my generation, I had to go. Most Sundays, we (meaning me, my sister, and my cousins) went to Church with our Grandmother. The routine was to spend Saturday nights at her house, wake up Sunday morning, dress up in our “Church Clothes”, eat breakfast, and arrive at Sunday School by 9:00am. After Sunday School, we would then walk, reluctantly, into the Main Sanctuary for a LONG… Sunday service.  If one of us dozed off (which happened every week), we would get a nudge from our Grandmother along with a stern whisper, “Wake up!”

Salt, Light, and Leaven are nouns, which are also used as action verbs by the gospel writers to emphasize the influence they have on whatever they interact with. 

Salt seasons, cures, and preserves food, and Light reveals and helps us see what had not been seen. Both are used in the verse below to describe the positive influence that the followers of Jesus are to have on the people they interact with in the world:

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot…what good is it?” You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they set it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. (Matthew 5:13-15)

Leaven permeates dough and changes its composition. It is used in the verse below to describe the negative influence some can have on the followers of Jesus:

“You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. “A little leaven, will leaven the whole batch of dough.” (Galatians 5:7-9)

Wineskins are an ancient type of bottle made of leathered animal skin. They were used to store and transport wine. Fresh skins are needed for “New Wine” that is fermenting because they are still soft and flexible, allowing the gases to expand. They are used in the scripture below to explain how they assist in the preparation of wine:

“…Neither do people 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.” (Matthew 9:17)

This scripture is a Metaphor, referring to the Holy Spirit (New Wine) that will come after Jesus’ ascension, emphasizing that the religious practices, (Wineskin) of that day would not be able to contain it. This Metaphor is central to this message to the Church.

Salt, Light…

“You are the salt of the earth…” You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden…”

Born in 1907, to a family of sharecroppers, my Grandmother had been going to what had come to be known as the “Black” Church all her life. It became the “Black” Church when Richard Allen and Absalom Jones were forced out of the, interracial but segregated, St. George’s United Methodist Church in Philadelphia in 1787; and they became exiled missionaries, seeing themselves as the legacy of those who were the first to be filled with the Spirit in an upper room in Jerusalem. As a child, the “Black” Church (Wineskin) welcomed her into a community of faith that not only taught about the grace, love, and forgiveness of God, the people demonstrated it, by providing the support her family needed to survive those well documented perilous times living in the South.

Later, the” Black” Church supported her family as they migrated from Winston Salem, North Carolina to the promise of opportunity in Columbus, Ohio. By then, “Black” Church had long been at the center of the Civil Rights Movement, and its Gospel Witness included organizing the various forms of multi-racial and multi-ethnic social action activities that often resulted in incarceration, loss of employment, firebombing, or worse, death for those who participated. It led the fight for legislative changes that made discrimination illegal, so her children could get a decent paying job; and her grandchildren could get a college education. For her generation, the “Black” Church and its Gospel Witness, was the Wineskin & Wine that cared for them, providing material support when needed, and challenging the country that promised opportunities for all, while it actively, and often violently, worked to prevent them from accessing those opportunities. So, for her, the “Black” Church Wineskin that included, what I viewed as a LONG… Sunday service, was a reminder of what God, had done for her over a lifetime.        

By the time I began going to the “Black” Church it, like an old Wineskin that had served its purpose, had dried out, and its Gospel Witness (Wine) of life and community transforming social action, had waned. As I got older, I stopped going to Church and I noticed that a lot of other people were not going to Church, particularly those who were younger than me, and I began asking…Why? 

From Generation, to Generation, to Generation…

Most customs and practices in a society are based on values. Those values shape the society’s customs and practices; and they are passed from generation to generation. If the emerging generation embraces the values of the previous generation, the customs and practices often continue without scrutiny. This typically goes on for several generations, but periodically something happens to change an emerging generation’s values, sometimes significantly.

In my lifetime, there have been two generational transitions in which the values of the emerging generation were different from those of the previous generation. The first was the Baby Boomers (born between 1946 – 1964), who came of age in the wake of the Vietnam War, the assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King.  Sociologists consider this time to have been one of the most socially, and culturally transforming in our country’s history. They were suspicious of power, politics, and politicians, and fought against the Vietnam War, fought for Civil Rights and Women’s Rights, and started organizations like the Peace Corps and Habitat for Humanity. Boomers scrutinized every political, economic, and social aspect of the previous generation, the Builders (born between 1929-1945), including how they “did church”.

In the late 60’s Boomers were radically engaged by the Jesus Movement, a work of the Spirit (New Wine) that, by the early 70’s, saw thousands of them (then known as “Hippies”) come to faith in Jesus. This movement transformed these restless, rebellious young people, consumed by drugs, sex, and rock & roll, with Jesus’ message of grace, love and forgiveness; and they preached that message, leading tens of thousands of their generation to faith.

…& Leaven

“…You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth?”

Also in the 60’s the Church Growth Movement was introduced to America. The “White” Church first embraced it; and by the late 70’s, it had gotten traction around the country. By the 80’s it had been embraced by the “Black” Church, and while the movement initially helped them to engage many in their generation, it did so by asserting that the church’s Gospel Witness could be broadened by using the Church Growth techniques of Homogeneity, to get more people to come to Church; and they did. These techniques centered on cultural affinity, race, and ethnicity, and though not intended, the Churches produced by using them became precursors to the ideological echo chambers that shape our sociopolitical landscape today.

The “White” Boomer scrutiny of how Builders did church resulted in changes that were influenced by the Church Growth Movement. These included Music, which went from hymns to new contemporary soft rock influenced gospel music; Dress for church, which went from formal to very casual; and Evangelism, which went from in-Church proclamation to more personal and relational engagement with people in the community. “Black” Boomer scrutiny also resulted in changes influenced by the Church Growth Movement. Music went from hymns to contemporary versions of hymns, and new music with an R&B influence; Dress for Church became more informal but was (and still is) more formal than informal; and Evangelism that included more community outreach activities, and though still centered around church attendance, more socially conscious topical sermons that were preached by Pastors to engage their generation.

In just over a decade, churches around the country grew from a couple hundred people attending Sunday services to a couple of thousand. Billions were spent on buildings, AV systems, and other amenities’ that made attending Church “Cool”. But by the late 80’s – early 90’s, the movement had effectively redefined the Church’s Gospel Witness, from that of my Grandmother’s “Black” Church, that focused on life and community transforming social action, to a focus on the size of our congregations, the entertainment value of the Sunday services, and the popularity of Pastors.  

“…Neither do people pour New Wine into old Wineskins…

These New Wine changes put them at odds with the Builders, whose churches (Wineskins) could not contain the Spirit’s New Wine meant for the Boomers (see the movie Jesus Revolution), and they developed New Wineskins. But because they centered Church, as a meeting in a building on Sundays, as they got older, they succumbed to the techniques of Homogeneity; and as their Churches became established, the radical social action that, in the 60’s, shaped their coming of age, became ministry activities that included food pantries, VBS programs, and short-term mission trips. Though these did some good, they functioned more like amenities, assuring that church members could participate in ways that were comfortable and convenient. And when paired with entertaining Sunday services, in a comfortably designed building, and topical sermons preached by a popular Pastor, they helped to increase the numbers of people in attendance on Sundays.  However, despite the movement’s momentum, demographers were reporting that Church attendance was in decline, and more and younger people were indicating that they had no formal Church affiliation or religious belief.

In 1988, at the peak of the movement, I was in Seminary, and I had the time and the resources to begin looking for the answer to the question I asked when I stopped going to Church…, Why?

A New Wineskin… for a coming New Wine

The second transition was the Millennials (born between 1981 – 1996). Millennials came of age in the wake of 911, and the demonizing of Iranians, and/or any ethnic middle eastern people group. They too scrutinized most aspects of the earlier generation; however, with them came a more significant change in values, and in particular religious values. They did not question how the Boomers “did church”, they questioned why do church at all? Since the 80’s, demographers had signaled that we would reach a point in American society where there would be more people who had never gone to church, than people who attend church regularly. This tipping point occurred with the Millennials, as they made a significant shift away from the religious values of their Boomer and Builder predecessors.

With the Millennials, came the steepest decline in Church attendance in U.S. history and began the rise of a group called the Nones’. They not only do not share the same religious values of the previous generation, they have abandoned the idea of church or formal religious belief of any kind. Like their Boomer predecessors, they are also suspicious of power, politics, and politicians, but they tend more towards virtue signaling via social media, not participation in the work to address social issues. However, in the wake of the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others in 2020, they showed a willingness to raise their voices in protest and demonstrate at the risk of being pepper sprayed and going to jail, to demand changes in the way policing is done in the Black Community. More recently, they have raised their voices and demonstrated, with similar risk, to challenge institutions (universities, large corporations, etc.) and the government’s 80-year policy of aid to Israel and its ongoing support as War rages in Gaza.

There is a New Wine coming to engage the Millennials, and the “Alpha” generation (born between 2010-2025); one of the same vintage of the wine that served the “Black Church” of my Grandmother’s generation. My read on the social action impulses of this emerging generation is that they provide a glimpse of what they could be, if there was a Church (Wineskin) with a Gospel Witness that again focused on life and community transforming social action. A Gospel Witness that would risk jobs, incarceration, and reputation by speaking out against power, politics, and politicians, that serve the interests of the “One Percent” by exploiting the poor and marginalized; and… preach the message of God’s grace love, and forgiveness, while demonstrating a radical commitment to serve the poor, marginalized and exploited.

“Boomer” Churches, large and small, co-opted by the leaven of the Church Growth Movement, that continue to center buildings and Sunday services; and continue to center Pastors, (popular or not) have been unwilling to risk their comfortable place in society to utter a full-throated critique or protest against these, because to sustain their perceived “success” requires being tacitly complicit, as they are dependent on the income generated by the exploration of the poor and marginalized. And in recent years, divided by identity politics, it has lost any remaining Gospel Witness of God’s grace, love and forgiveness, that Jesus said would be evidenced by our “Unity” (John 13:35); and by choosing social and political sides, or remaining on the sidelines as these issues harass the harvest of marginalized people consumed by them (Matthew 9:36-38). Its Gospel Witness poses no threat to the principalities and powers of the established culture in America; and is often a willing proponent of it. This is very different from the countercultural force introduced to the world from that “Upper Room” in Jerusalem, that embodied the love of God for all people (John 3:16-17) and was sent out to share that love with all people, and not condemn them because of their race, class, religion, cultural, sexual or gender orientation, poverty or wealth.

I believe that the best chance of engaging this emerging generation is with a New Wineskin that does not center comfortable buildings, entertaining Sunday services, and Pastors, popular or not ; as these have complicated the perception of God and created artificial barriers to experiencing something that is intended to be accessible to every person on the planet. This Wineskin would facilitate the use of the collected tithes and offerings, not on buildings to house Sunday services, AV systems or Pastors who preach entertaining sermons for those who attend Sunday services, but to meet the material needs of the marginalized and exploited (Act 2:44-45). These could include:

• Paying the medical bills of those who cannot afford healthcare.
• Assuring that children, orphaned by the consequences of poverty, drug addiction or violent crime have a safe place to live and an opportunity for a quality life.  
• Securing housing for the homeless and pay the rent and utility bills of those on the verge of losing their housing.
• Coming alongside those working to break the cycle of generational poverty, providing resources to fill the gaps while they develop personally and vocationally.   

And finally, this Church Wineskin should help folks learn how to “Be the Church”, not “Go” to Church, by living a transparent life of faith (trust) in God… daily, humbly, and honestly. Teaching people to share the burden of each other’s brokenness (Galatian’s 6:2), which leads to healing, and a deeper connection with God and a stronger relationship with each other. Then together we can demonstrate that healing through a Salt and Light Gospel Witness, that impacts the world the way the “Black” Church of my Grandmother’s generation and Jesus Movement of the Boomer generation did. By sharing God’s grace, love and forgiveness in ways that make it possible for people to see and believe that any person on the planet can experience that love, learn to trust that love and be liberated from brokenness, isolation, and fear, to a life of faith, hope and love.

All of us are more than the worse thing we ever did, None of us are as innocent as we think we are. All of us have some prejudice we cannot justify, None of us live free from unwarranted judgement. All of us see the world as if we are at its center, None of us appreciate how connected we really are. All of us are more than our demographic designation, None of us are free from being stereotyped as one thing.  All of us have received God’s grace, love, and mercy, None of us have deserved it. All of us must accept responsibility for what the Church in America is or None of us will see what it can become…  

For those with an ear to hear, let them hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church…(Revelation 3:22)