Think on These Things

Grenadian Arrogance and the Spice Factory
Oliver R. Phillips

Grenada is a small island in the tropical Caribbean, known as a place frequented by tourists, but also distinguished for the spices (nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cinnamon and allspice) that are grown and traditionally packaged and stored.

There is a parable about a family that owned a factory that had prepared spices for more than two hundred years. Tourists came from various parts of the world to visit and taste these spices. The large wooden vats that contained these spices produced the best essences one could find anywhere in the world.

The factory was now owned by an elderly family member, and she was doing quite well. One day it was discovered that the product had acquired a strange putrid taste. The workers became concerned and brought this matter to the owner’s attention. Customers began to launch complaints. Sales began to dwindle.

The lady brought in consultants who all came to the same conclusion – the vats had outlived their usefulness, and must be replaced. Outraged by such a prognosis, she refused to part with family tradition. Although she was aware of the need to change from the old ways of doing things, she lacked the courage to be divorced from tradition and move into new vistas of production that could save the very factory that was a result of family pride and tradition. The factory died because the owner refused to change the vats.

Churches and organizations run the same risk. We could be so rigidly anchored to the old, outdated, irrelevant, obsolete, and sometimes useless moorings of the past that the new explorations of technology and paradigm shifts fail to rescue well meaning programs and initiatives. It was Jesus Christ who advised, “neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved” Matt. 9:17.

God is calling the church to find new ways to apply the message to a hostile world. As the United States is proclaimed the new and emerging mission field, we are not permitted the luxury to do ministry as usual. The challenge before us all as the community of faith is to muster the courage to change the old wineskins.

What are some of the wineskins that are no longer relevant?
Do we have the courage to name and claim the old wineskins?
What are some effective strategies to change those wineskins?
What are the outdated cultural wineskins in this the second decade of the 21st century?