New Wine – New Wine Skins!

Mark 2:22

“And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins.”

On the national news at the end of April you may have noticed an item about the Church of Scotland. This item indicated that the church is facing something of a crisis in funding its ministry costs. Every church is asked to pay an annual amount to the national church based on its income. Over recent years something like 65% of churches in Scotland have not been paying the full cost of the ministry they enjoy. As a result not enough money has been coming in to meet the stipend bill for the national church. This has come to the crunch now and something like 300 posts will have to be taken from the national church’s compliment of ministries. This will affect every Presbytery and a lot of congregations very directly. It will mean an increase in the number of unions and linkages and it may mean that where there is a team ministry that will be cut back – unless extra local money can be found to pay the full cost of the extra post. All of this change has to be implemented by the end of 2013. So many difficult decisions will need to be taken starting at this year’s Assembly where the proposal to create a 1000 ministries program will be presented. If this comes about what will this mean for us here in Camelon. I can’t say it will be good news it depends on the approach that Presbytery takes to get down to the numbers of staff they will be allowed but it is likely that the team ministry which we took 6 years to fill will be reduced over the next three years. What shape the final team will be we simply don’t know yet. But we can be sure that change WILL happen and we need to think about how we will respond to that. For too long the church has focused on the role of the minister with ideas that nothing can be done without them, they do everything and organise everything. You will know that I don’t subscribe to that view and over the recent years I have been heartened to see more people getting involved in the life and ministry of the church and I would love to see more of this. We could take this imposed change as en excuse to get discouraged or we could see it as an opportunity to change the way we do things and who is involved and brew a new wine that is the church in Camelon, but that needs a new skin. In the ancient world the wine was fermented in the skins as well as stored in them and so it had to be soft and flexible to expand with the pressure of fermentation without bursting, but an o9ld skin was stiffer and would spilt if reused. I hope most members would agree that the changes we face can also be opportunities, but they are only that if we are willing to put the new things we do in a new skin. This means that we all need to accept the ministry of everyone. For example some hold the view that a church visit is not a real visit unless it is the minister that does it. I would love to visit more but the reality is with the funeral workload we have in the area and the number of school and other things I cannot get as much visiting done as I would like. There are a number of people who visit in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church and perhaps the thing we need to discover is that these are real visits, spiritual encounters. Perhaps the biggest new skin we will be challenged to see and use is the ministry of everyone. Being a part of the church is a call into community and participation, and not simply to “get” something from the church but to give something to the church and not just your monitory gifts but also the gift of service. So we are looking for people to get more involved each week. Get involved in the groups. Get involved in the service through taking a reading, doing a prayer, perhaps doing a children’s talk and even a sermon! The ministry team wants to and will support anyone who wants to get more involved. We can support you with a little training, identifying resources and giving the opportunity to try and you never know what you can do until you try!! So through the difficult and challenging times ahead we pray that you will not get discouraged but instead get motivated to make sure our church her in Camelon has a long and lively future – so lets make some new wine and put it in new skins to make sure it will last and not end up all over the floor.