Stephen and I have just returned from our 10th annual camping trip to the New Wine Summer Conference at the Bath and West Showground. In glorious contrast to last year’s experience, we were blessed this year with good weather and good health, which when added to some excellent worship, teaching and prayer ministry resulted in a wonderfully refreshing week, a week in which we met with God, as well as with many old friends.

But New Wine is much more than a Summer Conference. What it stands for as a movement goes a great deal further than the few short weeks in which it takes over various camping sites during the summer. New Wine has the strapline ‘Local Churches, Changing Nations’. It seeks to equip local churches to play their part in the work that God is already doing in touching hearts and changing lives. And whether we are ‘New Winers’ or not, I think that this has something very important to say to us as the local church in Bramshott and Liphook as we seek to be God’s people in our community.

 I was reminded recently of Archbishop William Temple’s famous quote concerning the church, in which he stated that ‘the church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members.’ (William Temple was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1942-44). I think that in essence the New Wine strapline and ethos reflects something of what the Archbishop was expressing. I’m sure that each of us benefits greatly from being part of a fellowship in which we experience together the love of God.

But it doesn’t end there.... Because we are called to take that love out beyond the ‘walls’ of the church and our own community of faith, and to share God’s love more widely, so that others might benefit, and know God’s saving power in their lives.

And I believe that by doing just that we can make a difference to the lives of people in our community, and in fact there are some many wonderful ways in which we are doing just that already- through our ‘Urban Saints/Godzone’ groups, through ‘Little Lambs’ and ‘First Babies’, through ‘Lunch Break’ and ‘Tea and Company’– and all those who are involved in any way in those areas of ministry should feel greatly encouraged.... But there is always more to be done.... and it is always worth reminding ourselves that when we leave through the doors of our churches each Sunday we are entering the mission field... the place where, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we might be the ones through whom God changes lives.....

Reading Recommendation

Much of the Bible teaching at New Wine was provided by Simon Ponsonby, who is Pastor of Theology at St Aldate’s, Oxford. He has written a number of excellent books which I would highly recommend:

God Inside Out: An In-depth Study of the Holy Spirit.

More: How You Can Have More of the Spirit when you already have everything in Christ.

And the Lamb Wins: Why the End of the World is Really Good News

The Pursuit of the Holy: A Divine Invitation