"Life" Must Be Organized« Back to Blog

3/13/2008

Posted By Pastor Jeff Noblit

Organization within the church has often been viewed as the death nail to spiritual life in the body. Whole denominations have rebelled against any idea of organization fearing it will diminish the “spirit” of life and excitement. But organization is not death! In fact, if we desire “life” within the church, there must be organization.

We must pray and ask God to bless all of our endeavors with His power. Without the power of God within our church there will be inevitable death, but this does not mean that there cannot be organization.

The Bible is filled with examples of God’s view of organization. In creation, God brought order to a world of chaos (Genesis 1:1-2:3), the Old Testament congregation of Israel was organized through Moses (Exodus 18:13-36), the early church was organized into small groups (Acts 2:41, 46), and the metaphor of a body to describe the church shows the need for organization. (Romans 12)

One key organization that is needed in the body of Christ is small groups. Our strategy statement for small groups has served us well through the years. It reads: “The Church organized into small groups to evangelize the lost, to equip the saved, and to provide fellowship to meet individual needs.”

Can death be organized? Yes! Go down to the local funeral home and you will find a well organized system for the dead! Unfortunately many churches look the same! At the same time remove the organized functional system of your physical body and you will become sick and possibly die! So will the case be in the local church. Good, God ordained structure is essential to life and prosperity within the body of Christ. Death can be organized, but life must be!