THE STRONG PULL TOWARD CHURCH COMPLEXITY

“For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth; Proving what is acceptable unto the LORD” (EPHESIANS 5:9-10)

Many church groups have perished from too much organization, even as others from too little. Wise church leaders will watch out for both extremes. A man may die as a result of having extremely low blood pressure as certainly as from having too high, and it matters little which takes him off. He is equally dead either way.

 

The important thing in church organization is to discover the scriptural balance between two extremes and avoid both!

 

It is painful to see a happy group of Christians, born in simplicity and held together by the bonds of heavenly love, slowly lose their simple character, begin to try to regulate every sweet impulse of the Spirit and slowly die from within.

 

Yet that is the direction almost all Christian denominations have taken throughout history, and in spite of the warnings set out by the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures of truth it is the direction almost all church groups are taking today.

 

Churches and societies founded by saintly men with courage, faith and sanctified imagination appear unable to propagate themselves on the same spiritual level beyond one or two generations. In all our fallen life, there is a strong gravitational pull toward complexity and away from things simple and real. There seems to be a kind of sad inevitability back of our morbid urge toward spiritual suicide!

 

  1. W. Tozer