Product Description

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.)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #231688 in Books
• Published on: 1997
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 177 pages

From the Inside Flap
The words of our Lord:

“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled out, and the skins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins? (Luke 5:37-38) Whenever the Holy Spirit fills people with “new wine,” the structure or organization in which they function must change. Old wineskins rip. New wineskins must be used to hold the additional life and power of God.

We have seen this principle in operation throughout the history of the Church. When Martin Luther received revelation from the Holy Spirit concerning faith and grace, the established church in that day was ripped in two and a new denomination under Luther was born. When John Wesley preached with the fire of the Spirit, a new structure, now known as the Methodist denomination, had to be formed. The same process has occurred again and again as great men or women ministered under a fresh anointing of God’s Spirit. And, of course, we had seen how thousands of churches have formed over the last fifty years as members received a baptism of the Holy Spirit with various manifestations. A new wineskin formed each time new wine was poured in.

God is pouring new wine into us. Christians all over the world have been crying out to God for a fresh outpouring of His Spirit. Our Lord has never failed His Church. Repeatedly, He has brought powerful spiritual awakenings. Many believe that the last outpouring of God’s Spirit that is promised in the Bible (Joel 2:28-29) will soon take place. The time for God to move is at hand.

Therefore, we should expect our present wineskins to rip. Jesus taught that it is impossible to pour new wine into an old wineskin without ripping it. There can be no mighty spiritual awakening in our day without a great shaking of our Church organizations, leaders, and structures. If you are looking for the Second Coming of Jesus, or if you are praying to God to move upon your church, your city, your local schools, your family, or your own heart, then the first thing you must look for is a new wineskin.

How will the present wineskin of the Church be changed? We cannot expect to know the same power to f the Holy Spirit that the New Testament believers experienced unless we have wineskins similar to theirs. One of the major changes will have to do with the full operation of what we call the five ministry gifts: apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher (Eph. 4:11).

Many Christians have thought that the apostle and prophet were only for the New Testament times, but that is wrong. Ephesians 4:11-13 tells us that all five of these gifts were given by God to the Church “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” The Church will never reach its fullness nor any form of unity until all five ministry gifts are functioning together in the Body of Christ.

Today, God is raising up leaders who have these gifts. The Church is now undergoing a major reformation in its structure that will enable it to handle a great outpouring of God’s Spirit.

This is the reason I have written this book. I want to share with you some of the ways the present organization of the Church is ripping and the new wineskin is being formed. We will look first at the ministry gifts and at other leadership positions are to work in unity and power.

Throughout the book I have used the capitalized word Church to refer to the whole Body of Christ, which is made up of all those throughout the world who believe in Jesus. The word church, with lower case “c,” will refer to any local group of Christians who gather regularly for prayer, fellowship, worship and teaching.

About the Author
Winepress Ministries was founded by Harold Eberle, who after pastoring a church in the northwestern United States, began traveling to minister at leadership conferences, Christian gatherings, and churches of many different doctrinal persuasions. He now is engaged in a worldwide teaching ministry, equipping saints for greater effectiveness in the Kingdom of God. He lives in Yakima, Washington, with his wife, Linda, and their three children. Yakima also serves as home base for their ministry operations, which includes the oversight of Winepress Publishing.

This is a ministry directed towards the success and maturation of the Church. It is based on a conviction Harold has concerning the Church rising to a position of unity and glory before the end of the age. We believe that God is now bringing the Church into a reformation. This is demanding great changes in the way we think, minister and live.

Winepress Ministries functions to help the Church make those changes. God has and is opening up tremendous doors for us to influence the Body of Christ. It is our goal to fulfill our role in the maturation of the Church.

Presently we are not only publishing materials, but also building relationships with "Apostolic Leaders" in different countries of the world. It is our goal to work with leaders of our nation and in foreign countries, influencing them and the large number of believers under their oversight. We train up leaders, speak revelation, teach, impart strength and raise the church to a higher level of maturity.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
THE PURPOSES OF THE MINISTRY GIFTS And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ (Eph. 4:11-12). We refer to the five gifts named in these verses as ministry gifts. They are ministries, or callings, that God has ordained to equip and lead His Church We must now confuse the ministry gifts with other gifts mentioned in the Bible. All Christians may have gifts such as tongues, healing, words of knowledge, giving, and so on; these gifts are for serving within the Body of Christ. In contrast, the five ministry gifts are callings for the oversight of the Church.

Nor should we confuse the ministry gifts with the ongoing ministries that every born-again Christian has. For example, every believer should be involved in evangelism, but only a few have the gift of evangelist. In the same way, all believers should exhort, teach and care for one another, but not all have a calling as a pastor or teacher. Paul tells us that all Christians should desire to prophesy (I Cor. 14:1), but this does not mean that all are called as prophets. Even apostolic work, which will be described later, should be done to some extent by every believer, but few have the ministry gift of apostle. The gifts of teacher, pastor, evangelist, prophet, and apostle are leadership positions from which we should all learn so that we ourselves can be involved to a lesser degree in the ministries of teaching, pastoring, evangelizing and so on.

This unique characteristic of a ministry gift is the anointing of God. The word anointed means “having oil spread upon.” A person becomes anointed by experiencing God’s Spirit coming upon, and transforming him or her in a special way.

In the Old Testament it is especially clear through numerous examples that men and women dramatically changed when they became anointed by God. Just before Saul is anointed, Samuel says to him, “’Then the Spirit of the LORD will come upon you mightily, and you shall…be changed into another man’” (I Sam. 10:6).

The moment a person becomes anointed, a transformation takes place. Every leader with a ministry gift has been touched, or gifted, by God, and hence changed by the work of the Spirit. These changes take place in two areas of a person’s life. First, a gift from God changes the person’s heart. The Bible tells us that the instant Saul received his anointing “God changed his heart” (1 Sam. 10:9). So also a pastor receives a heart to shepherd people, and an evangelist receives a heart full of compassion for the lost. It is God’s own heart for a specific area of ministry that is placed within the gifted individual.

Second, a gift from God also allows the Holy Spirit to flow through a person in greater measure and in a certain fashion. Jesus explained that the Holy Spirit flows out of believers like rivers of living water from their innermost being (John 7:38-39). The Spirit will work through any Christian, but the person who has received God’s heart for a ministry has an open channel for the Spirit to flow in a unique way. The Spirit comes forth from the pastor in a different manner than the way He works through the teacher. It is the same Spirit, sent by God the Father, but the different gifts allows God to pour out His grace in different ways.

As the Holy Spirit flow through an individual, those who are receiving the Holy Spirit’s ministry are set free in various areas of their lives. Isaiah tells us that the anointing of God breaks the yoke (Is. 10:27 KJV). The anointing of a pastor allows the Holy Spirit to flow to other people and break certain yokes and bondages that have held them captive. Likewise, an evangelist can break other kinds of bondages and bring freedom to people.

This anointing—which transforms a person’s heart, creates a channel through which the Holy Spirit can flow, and releases power to break yokes of bondage—is what we need to consider as we study each of the five ministry gifts.

Customer Reviews

The Complete Wineskin
I read this book twice. It opened my eyes not only to my own anointing, but to the anointings of other leaders in our church. I took it to our pastor and he intends to follow the structure suggested in the book. The part that got our attention was that pastors can only shepherd 50 people, so a mega-church must have shepherds for each 50 people. If you are praying for church growth, this book gives the necessary foundation on which to build the growth.

Harold Rocks!
Harold Eberle annihilates the status quo and explores the reasons why so many feel "discontent" in the church today. His explanation? The church is spiritually out of order and structured in a way that is ineffective for a New Testament people. But what does "out of order" mean? Harold explains, he also explores the high calling that God has placed on the Body of Christ and the reformation of mind, body and spirit that He seeks to implement. Yet, according to Harold, so much of what goes on in church government, both spiritual and physical, acts as a limiting agent that stifles Gods creative energy that He is birthing in the hearts of His people. Have you ever felt discontent with church even though you are head over heels in love with Christ? Have you ever wondered if there was something wrong with you for thinking "outside of the box" or felt guilty for wanting more? Have you ever been told that you are too much of an idealist and that you need to be more of a realist? If so, I highly recommend you check out The Complete Wineskin. Harold writes in a profoundly simple way that will have you looking up from the pages and crying out for God. Harold biblically explores and lays the foundation for the deeper things that you are feeling in your spirit. Try it out and test his words, you will see. The Complete Wineskin rocks!

Potentially Liberating
Eberle presents an overview of the five gifts listed in Ephesians 4:11-12 and refers to them as "ministry gifts". He holds that there are only two offices in the church: i.e., elder and deacon. Those who function in ministry gifts comprise the eldership of the church. The author encourages a revolutionary rethinking of church structure to make room for the five-fold ministry. The book is potentially liberating for "pastors" who do not feel that their strength is in the ministry gift of pastoring. This paradigm makes room for those senior church leaders whose strength may actually be in the other four ministry gifts.