LET US NOT SUBSTITUTE ORGANIZATION FOR LIFE
“For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee” (TITUS 1:5)

I have been for years much distressed about the tendency to over organize the Christian community, and

I have for that reason had it charged against me that I do not believe in organization. The truth is quite otherwise!

A certain amount of organization is necessary everywhere throughout the created universe and in all human society. Without it there could be no science, no government, no family unit, no art, no music, no literature, no creative activity of any kind.

The man who would oppose all organization in the church must needs be ignorant of the facts of life. Art is organized beauty; music is organized sound; philosophy is organized thought; science is organized knowledge; government is merely society organized.

And what is the true Church of Christ but organized mystery?

The throbbing heart of the Church is life—in the happy phrase of Henry Scougal, “the life of God in the soul of man.” This life, together with the actual presence of Christ within her, constitutes the Church a divine thing, a mystery, a miracle! Yet without substance, form and order this divine life would have no dwelling place, and no way to express itself to the community.

There is real danger in the efforts of some to substitute organization for life, so that while they have a name to live, they are spiritually dead. Let us be reminded that there is no such thing as life apart from the medium through which it expresses itself!