The Complete Wineskin: Restructuring the Church for the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit

by Harold R. Eberle

God is pouring out the Holy Spirit and our wineskins must be changed to handle the new wine. How are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers going to rise up and work together? Where do small group meetings fit? Will the Church come together in unity? How does the anointing of God work and what is your role? This book puts into words what you have been sensing in your spirit. (Eberle's best seller, translated in many languages, distributed worldwide.)

Genres: Theology

177 pages, Paperback

First published December 4, 1993

Reviews

[Dave Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

if i could give this a 10 out of 5, i would. this book is incredible. easily one of the most visionary books on giftings, annointings, and offices of the Church. of course, almost everything that Eberle writes and teaches has an edge to it that will challenge your beliefs in some way--but in the best way possible. in this book, he goes to the Word and sees how the book of Acts and Paul's writings described the structure of the Church. typical churches today are led by a pastor who does most of the work, but Paul talked about how the foundation of the Church is first on apostles, second prophets, third teachers, and then lists other offices, with the cornerstone being Christ. this is admittedly a pretty radical concept, since the ideal structure in the Bible is not adhered to much at all. is this a good thing or a bad thing? well, Eberle's argument is that if you want the Holy Spirit to do his thing, putting a person who is called to be a pastor--or, worse, a pastor who is gifted in administrations--limits God.

he goes on to describe the roles of pastors, evangelists, apostles, teachers, prophets, helps, administrations, healings, gift of tongues, and so forth. he also talks about how in order for God to move and pour out the New Wine that he wants to pout out, God needs to change the wine skins that will contain it. today, if God moved in the way that we really want him to, and one day look forward to, our churches would be destroyed because our modern "wine skins" of our church structure arent entirely his design.

i have to say, this book really excited me. i see myself in many of the pages of this book, and i've briefly talked to my "pastor" who recommended this to me, and it is really on his heart to shift our church in this direction. i am so, so, so thankful to have this book. this book is a game-changer, for sure. i think that probably 80% of the modern-day church is unwilling to accept the truths from this book, but i believe that this is the ultimate direction that God will move in. and if it is, this is so exciting. man, this really blew up in my heart. i cant wait to see what happens with it.

[Marilyn Y.]

Awesome Book. A complete eye opener of the Order of the church explained from the Word.

[Brandon Stiver · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book that had some compelling and challenging material. Eberle does a good job of pointing out how the current structures of our church don't really match what was going on in the church leadership that Paul and the early church followed. Beyond just pointing it out, he divulges of where the current system breaks down and how the five-fold ministry offices (apostle, prophet, teacher, pastor, evangelist) ought to work together for the advancement of the Kingdom and the edification of the church. I've always been grieved by many churches lack of elder boards and they end up just following the pastor or taking votes which can be divisive or superfluous depending on the church. Eberle takes it a step further and really emphasizes God's authority through His chosen apostles and how ministry can flow through that source. I can definitely say that I'm thinking about church leadership with a different perspective after reading this book and I think it'll continue to be something that I come back to.

A couple critiques would be that it definitely seemed that Eberle repeated himself a bit and beat a couple dead horses. Also the structure with all the small chapters, often had me wondering where the book was going. It can be helpful to the reader if we have an idea of where the ending conclusion is going to land. Speaking of which, I appreciated the humility he showed in the epilogue, but was a it bit thrown off by it as he kind of put parentheses around the entire book in saying that this wineskin of five-fold ministry is more of an ideal and not really attainable in this day and age, but something to be worked towards and will be perfected when Christ returns. Nonetheless, it's always a sobering reminder to focus on what God is leading us to personally and not try to fix everything and everyone in one fell swoop, which is basically his final assertion in the book. Definitely worth a read and I do recommend the book.

[Barrie Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are dissatisfied with 'church', and have a real, deep desire to see it really 'work', I recommend this book. If you are not prepared to have your thinking change, or to perhaps move from a church where you have been stuck for years, don't bother.

If we are asking God for new wine, new life, an outpouring of the Spirit, then we need a new wineskin, a new church structure to accommodate it. It needs to be flexible and yet be consistent with the principles we find in scripture - and everything flows from a real relationship with the Lord.

Short chapters. Easy to read. Easy to understand. Challenging. Verging on the idealistic. A book I would happily give to anyone coming into our church and asking "What's your vision here?"

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Complete Wineskin offers a picture of what the church should look like today. Eberle encourages congregations to move past the ineffective model of pastors running a church to a more balanced model where the five-fold oversees the congregation. He theorizes that this will allow greater involvement and greater numerical and personal growth in the body.

In addition to scripture, he supports his views with practical applications and wisdom.

I'm sold. Let's do this. The world is waiting. 5/5 stars.

[Kim Zimmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

new wine needs new wine skin. this book is the authority on why when God is doing a new thing in you, the church, it doesn't fit in the old system..and why you feel like you are sitting there dying...READ THE BOOK

[Ben Chenoweth · Rating 2 out of 5]

As I read this book, I couldn't help but mentally compile a list of criticisms. So I was pleased that the author's epilogue, written for the fourth edition 4 years after the first edition, basically acknowledges that the content of the book is "ideal" and not something that actually works in practice. It would have been better to have moved this to the start or, better still, rewrite the book completely so as to give a more balanced presentation.

There was some good stuff in this book: a recognition of the limited scope of a pastor (they can realistically only manage to look after about 50 people), group decision-making through dying to self and focusing on God (p160), the call to "love" in the epilogue. However, I was constantly annoyed at his eschatology (why does every generation think they are the last generation?), his exegesis, and some of his conclusions (such as his insistence on a hierarchy of offices based solely on his exegesis of 1 Cor. 12:28). His description of an evangelist made me laugh out loud: he made them sound like spoiled children with attention-deficit disorder! And his discussion of new-wine versus old-wine preaching topics (chapter 15) just made me angry: where is the place for the maturation of believers, the moving away from milk to meat? (After all, what's wrong with old wine? I'd rather drink old wine than new wine any day!)

So, in conclusion, I would say that there is some useful content in this book, but it's difficult to see and appreciate it.