"How difficult it is for organized Christianity to believe that anything very much of real value can go on without machinery, publicity, and all the framework of organized work! The law of God's highest work is the biological, the law of Life; it is organic." T. Austin-Sparks
Organized Christianity sounds like organized crime.
Every living creature is an organism that has structure and funktion and interact with other organs. Live is impossible with out that.
A church must have certain structures like leadership e.g. elders and deacons. Then there are the ministries of apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers and shepherd, miracle workers, helpers etc.
Finances and distribution of aid all need organizing and Jesus and the disciples had it in place.
I think over-organized Christianity is just a dangerous as non-organized Christianity.
I think the middleground between a religious machine and a wildfire is an organism that breathes, eats, listens and speaks, moves, feels, and reproduces.
The church must be both a house and a movement. I see the movement character depicted in Acts and the house character depicted in the Pauline epistles.
The two things that differentiate a dead organization from a living organism is the headship of Christ versus man and work of the spirit versus human goodwill.
"How difficult it is for organized Christianity to believe that anything very much of real value can go on without machinery, publicity, and all the framework of organized work! The law of God's highest work is the biological, the law of Life; it is organic." T. Austin-Sparks
What Mr. Sparks is hinting at is that if we truly are an organic real-life body of Christ then why do we seek to operate like a business or machine rather then life itself.
He is not against the structure of the body of Christ but rather again it acting in a mechanical way. Such organization will bring death to the organism.
This discussion is locked.
