New Wine Collective

New Wine Collective: White Paper

New Wine Collective: White Paper

People are longing for deeper spiritual and relational connection. We want to do more than just sit and watch church. We want to be seen and heard... Many of us sense there must be a better way of following Jesus in the world and want to participate in shaping that new future in community with others! However, the status quo of top-down consumer-driven Christianity has left many of us feeling dissatisfied, bored, and burnt out — or simply, left out.

More

The Way to Greater Truth Is Greater Love

The solution to misinformation and the lack of critical thinking in the Church and society as a whole is not more information or making better and louder arguments than our opponents. It's love.

More

A Taste of New Wine! (Third Thursdays Season One)

Curious about what we’ve been working on? Watch this Youtube playlist of short clips taken from our first season of Third Thursday webinars (Aug-Dec 2022)!

More

Ecclesiology 101: How To Be The Church (According to 1 Corinthians 12 & 13)

Most churches are organized as hierarchies with leaders at the top and followers or workers at the bottom. Some voices matter and some don't as much! But can we imagine a way of being the Church in which every person is truly an indispensable part of the whole?

More

The Kind of Innovation the Church Needs

There are many doing the work of spiritual innovation but not all innovation is the same. We need a fundamentally different approach to church, which means systematically rethinking WHAT we do, HOW we do it, and even WHY we do it!

More

How Real Change Happens

Christianity is in crisis. We believe the Church can and must do better. But how does change actually happen? Start a revolution!

More

New Wine Collective: Executive Summary/Case Statement

A brief summary of the mission, vision, and strategy of New Wine Collective. We're creating a new way of doing church that makes spiritual community more accessible to all.

More

How Movements Move (And Also Get Stuck)

A framework to help us understand how grassroots movements become institutions and why institutions sometimes need to die.

More

Rethinking Church "From the Ground Up"

The problems the Church is facing will require more than surface level pragmatic solutions. What do we mean by reimagining church and spirituality "from the ground up?"

More

Rethinking Church Part 5: Church Business

Our discipleship model is often just our business model in disguise. If we change the business model, we change the Church. And if we change the Church, we change the world.

More

The Future of Spirituality

Authentic spirituality is a journey that continually expands, integrates, and includes. Therefore, we must create a more flexible "open architecture" for church and spirituality that empowers people to grow and learn from a diversity of voices, traditions, and experiences.

More

Rethinking Church Part 4: Beyond Belief

The core of discipleship has always been the practice of love. In other words, if it’s not loving, it’s not Christian. How did we lose sight of this?

More

Rethinking Church Part 3: Empowerment

It’s about empowerment and mutual connection, not hierarchy and control; distributing power, instead of hoarding it. In other words, we’re not trying to build a platform for ourselves so that everyone will have to listen to what we say. We’re building a platform for *you*, and for friends and neighbors, for connectors and content creators, and for anyone willing to come together around common values. The goal is conversation, not conversions.

More

Rethinking Church Part 2: Love First

We’re reimagining church from the ground up, based on a simple foundational premise: Love is what matters most. And if love is what matters most, then anyone can do church! You don’t need someone’s permission. You don’t need a degree, a title, or special qualifications. You don’t need to belong to the right group or even believe the right beliefs. Jesus never seemed to care much about any of these things.

More

Rethinking Church Part 1: Why?

Throughout my 25+ year ministry career, I’ve worn almost every hat there is. I enjoyed my work and like to think I was pretty good at my job! But this year, I made the difficult decision to step outside the familiar territory of church as I’ve known it. Why? Because I believe we need to do better. I long for the Church to *be* better. And sometimes in order to move forward we must first go back and start at the beginning again.

More

A Question About Hierarchy In the Church

Most of us can't imagine a practice of Christianity that isn't top-down, hierarchical, and dependent on people in power. But I believe the Scriptures make a strong case for something very different!

More

Worldly Empire vs. God’s Kingdom

God’s invitation is to live into a new alternative reality– God’s Kingdom on earth. But worldly empire can be so deeply embedded in our operating systems and structures, we can barely recognize it. It can be obvious when we observe outright abuses of power and oppression of others. But can we recognize empire when it’s more subtle? Or within ourselves? Or even hiding in plain sight?

More

Our Name & Logo

New Wine represents the radically new spirituality Christ embodied that transcended and challenged the religious structures of his day. New wine requires new wineskins– new forms and practices that serve as containers for a new way of relating to God, to one another, and to the world.

More

June 2020: Time for Justice, Time for Change

It has been a heavy and tumultuous month. We are clearly living through a time of significant upheaval and change. But some changes have been long overdue. Systemic racism and injustice have been embedded in our culture for centuries. Black and brown communities have always been aware of it. Now it seems like the rest of society is merely starting to catch up!

More