Quote of the Day

….It leads us to attempt to organize spiritual forces.  Our love of organization leads us to attempt to fix the place where, and the time at which, and the men by whom, a spiritual movement is to take place.  We fix the place.  We choose what we call a strategic centre and plant there our buildings and our institutions.  There the spiritual movements must take place if we are to be in any way the agents of it…..For spiritual work spiritual organization is necessary; but can we create a spiritual organization of spiritual forces?  Only a divine intelligence can do that.  But we attempt to do the work of that divine intelligence; by fixing our stations and immobilizing our men……But to be God's agents in spiritual movements we must follow, not lead.  We want to lead, and, trying to lead, we are simply left behind.  We say: 'Here we will have our buildings,' but the spiritual movements may be growing unseen by us in another place and by other means.  ….While the organization cumbrously laboring, the time is at hand, and come, and passing away, and the organization has nothing, or little, to do with it.  The organization is always too late.  For we can organize the external results of a spiritual movement, but we cannot organize a spiritual movement."

- Roland Allen

From his book The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church

Quote of the Day

……Adding to the fertile soil for legalistic parachurch gurus to adversely influence churches and individuals is the modern idea that we must have experts in every area of life.  Rarely does a week go by that I (as a pastor) fail to receive a call informing me of a new video series that is "must viewing" for every church body.  The expert on marriage relationships; the expert on child rearing; the expert on interpersonal relationships; the expert on this; the expert on that has made a video series.  Surely no mere pastor can keep up with 'the experts.'  And so, we are encouraged to turn our churches over to Dr. ___________.  After all, he or she supposedly knows more than any of the rest of us, and if we will just do what he or she says, we will all succeed in our Christian lives.  This is not intended to be a blanket condemnation of everything and everyone who is part of what might be called a parachurch ministry.  However, any and every time the parachruch dictates to the church rather than the other way around, parachurch is out of place.  And any individual who follows a parachurch ministry more closely than his own local church has a definite problem with his priorities, since parachruch organizations are never mentioned in the Bible…….If you listen to those trying to sell many of these products you are likely to conclude that pastors just aren't necessary anymore.  And why would anyone in the pew want to listen to old 'what's -his- name' week after week when they could be listening to 'the expert!'

Robert Pruitt