Too Much Form and Too Much Freedom

People all over the world are getting liberated to be faithful members of the body of Christ and yet not be bound by institutional forms of church. There is a difference between the wine, the church, and the forms church takes, the wine skins. Jesus gave his disciples, and us as his disciples, the wine skin analogy so we would be free from religion and controlling religious leaders, yet know we must have some structure (the wine skin). Minimal biblical structure includes gathering in community, communion/worship, mission, elders/apostolic input, and giving and receiving. Wonderfully, we are given freedom by our Father to follow the leading of Holy Spirit to create and discover new wine skins.

There are two extremes when it comes to wine skins: rigid self-righteousness - "we know how church should be done and if it is not done the way we do it, you are wrong", and formless freedom. The challenge is to find a balance between enough form to build a healthy community, and sufficient freedom for people to re-discover and re-imagine the wonder of being the friends of God who live lives of devotion to Jesus and his purposes in the earth.