Please read Colossians 3 today. I won’t do it for you, as it is a bit long. But take some time to read it, as it pertains to what we have discussed this week. Well, I will give you just a peek: Colossians 3:3 : “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”Jesus is a master storyteller. So, it is no surprise that the analogy gives us profound and agitating truths about life. The a...  Read More

The Greek words for “new” and “old” don’t merely denote age but “nature” or “essence.” Old wineskins are already stretched, thin, rigid, cracked, and brittle. New wineskins, by nature, are elastic, full of oils, supple, thick, and can be sewn and shaped. "And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, spill it, and destroy it. But new wine must be put i...  Read More

So what would new wine be? I mentioned before that when people want to learn what makes Crosswalk unique, they often go to our process and design. We offer people something completely different from what is usually given in the churches they have attended. The difference is New Wine. Let me explain: When I came back into pulpit ministry and led a church, I had to decide my organizing principle. Th...  Read More

So, what is old wine?In a word, Vinegar. . . That’s not great. One of my earliest memories of being at my wife’s family home was when we had gone on a walk one chilly December morning. We walked a long time, as we often do. We were hungry by the time we returned to the house, but most of all, we were thirsty. We first went to the refrigerator to grab some ice-cold water. Sara, my wife, reached int...  Read More

Let’s talk wineskins for a little. Most of us are not so familiar with wineskins for many reasons. The biggest reason is that the bottle replaced the wineskin in approximately the 1600’s. Those bottles looked a great deal different than the glass bottles and the shape we are used to today. The reason why wineskins were used for so long is pretty robust, but they used sheep or pig bladders to accou...  Read More

“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”Mark 2:22Our first series of the year will be about New Wine. Perhaps this is not an excellent metaphor for a church in a tradition that has a legacy of health and “tee-totalism,” if that is a phrase. While Adventists have tra...  Read More