THE ORGANIC CHURCH
The word organic is related to that which has life. Recently I have stretched and challenged my aged brain by reading Stephen Meyer’s fascinating book, The Signature in the Cell, which is all about the mind-blowing facts of the incredibly complex codes in our DNA and about the very origin of life. Meyer is convinced, from all the evidence he so thoroughly and scientifically investigates, that we are obliged to conclude that the only reasonable explanation for the initiation of life is that an intelligent creative divine mind was at work.
LIFE IS DIVINELY CREATED
In simple terms, life is divinely created. Much has been written in recent years about organic church as opposed to institutional church. But what is organic church? Just as life is a divine creation, so is true organic church. The New Testament church was not the product of man’s ingenuity. No human mind conceived it. It came into being as an act of divine creation at Pentecost. By the outpoured Holy Spirit those first believers were welded into a family of Jesus, a truly organic church. The apostles had no command from Jesus to plant churches. Jesus had told them, I will build my church. Their responsibility was to proclaim Christ and as they fulfilled that calling the Lord Himself created and built families of believers. Within a few short years these cells of life spread through the known world. They belonged to no centralised organisation. They owned no buildings. They had no ruling hierarchy.
They were vitalised and sustained by the Holy Spirit. It follows that organic churches are planted, not by any deliberate intention of man, but by a creative act of God. For ten years or so I experienced life in such a church. No one turned up to plant it. It just came about by Father drawing together a number of believers who desired to meet together to deepen their relationship with Jesus. I have pointed out elsewhere that in all the scriptures concerning the building of the Church believers are in the passive. They are built by the Lord into His Body, His temple. They do not build it and you cannot build when you are in the hands of the builder!
(Taken from The Pilgrimpath by Jack Gray)