In John’s Gospel, there is a story where Jesus turns water into wine at a wedding in Cana. At the end of the story, it says that the master of the banquet “called the bridegroom aside and said, "Everyone brings out the choice wine first . . . but you have saved the best till now." (John 2:10). Wine is often a symbol of the Holy Spirit. We believe this story was intended for more than merely recounting Jesus’ miraculous powers. It was also a prophetic illustration of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the age that Jesus was ushering in (Jesus symbolized by the bridegroom) ­ and that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the last days of the church era would surpass anything that went before, even though people often assume ­mistakenly ­ that the Apostolic Era, at the beginning of church history, was the best. We believe we are living in a moment of the best operation of the Holy Spirit in history. The bridegroom saved the best wine for last.

Jesus also warned his disciples not to put “new wine into old wineskins.” (Matt 9:17). Leather wineskins (commonplace in ancient times) could stretch to accommodate the expansion of newly-fermenting wine; but once it is old and completely stretched, it bursts if more new wine is put into it. The wine and the wineskin are then lost. Jesus was referring to the religious structures and institutions that hearken back to a previous era. In his day, the Jewish Rabbis were stuck on traditions dating back hundreds of years. Even though these traditions had sometimes begun with great men of God, like Moses or Ezra, they could not stretch to accommodate the important new phase of the Holy Spirit’s work that Jesus ushered in. The religious structures and traditions were like old wineskins. They took their shape from a previous infilling of wine (for indeed God was working in the previous eras of Israelite history). Nevertheless, the wineskins had to be completely replaced for the next batch of “new wine,” the outpouring of the Spirit that began on the Day of Pentecost. New wineskins, or structures, are needed for a new phase or new outpouring. The old will resist, and eventually both will be lost: the Holy Spirit’s blessing as well as the structure itself, as we see with some of the old, crumbling denominations around us.

If the early church’s new outpouring of the Spirit required new structures (the church instead of synagogues and temples), how much more does the final outpouring ( the “best wine that was saved for the end”) require a new structure in our day! This is our commitment: we want to have a new structure that can accommodate this last great outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This requires us to change and leave behind some time-honored traditions, rituals, and even some of our cherished opinions or ideas (scholastic theology, etc.) in order to have the new “wineskin” into which the Lord can put his “new wine.” We earnestly seek the Lord to show us how best to structure our churches, services, and ministries so that His Spirit can operate and expand His work. We hope that you will join us in this endeavor.

Maranatha Christian Fellowship is a close-knit, Bible-believing denomination with several thousand churches around the world. Most of our churches are outside the United States, in South America, Europe, and Asia. Yet this work began with a single congregation less than 40 years ago! In the United States alone, the Lord has helped us establish new churches from coast to coast in a period of less than 20 years. Our American churches attract people from a wide range of age groups and ethnic backgrounds. A typical congregation has members of different races and languages worshipping together and working together to help the church grow. [more ...]

Our View of Other Churches
We believe that Jesus gave the church the Great Commission, instructing them to preach the gospel and establish churches everywhere in the world. (Matt 28; Mark 16). This, of course, has taken place ˜ there are believers on every continent, and missionaries have taken the gospel to virtually every nation on earth. We believe, the Lord wants our Church to continue preaching the gospel and reaching as many people as possible. Our churches around the world focus on reaching the lost with the message of salvation and new life through the Holy Spirit. [more ...]