A Natural Kind of Order. Order Part III

For all of you who have been reading this little series on Order and thought that I was going to write about balance next, I still plan on doing so. I actually did post something about balance but didn't like it so I took it down. Here are some further thoughts on order.


I am all about natural order over planned order. The way that I am thinking of it is similar to the creation of city roads. When you look at a place like the city of Houston that has been around for awhile you will find that all the roads criss-cross, zig-zag, and are all over the place. Now if you were to go visit a city like Omaha Nebraska and you look at a map of it you will see that all the roads are neatly and perfectly set up like a grid. The difference between these two places is that in one city (Houston) the roads were created in conjunction with the growth of the city. As the road was needed so the road was created. In Omaha, the roads were prepared and planned ahead of time before the growth ever happened. Rather than the people deciding which way they should take, with the roads prior creation, their ways had already been prepared for them. A kind of predetermined direction.

It is true that the planned roads would be the most economic and convenient way to go, but they just aren’t authentic. They’re not genuine roads.

Both of these kinds of roads have an order to them but the order of the natural roads unfold through the needs, wants, and growth of the city, and the order of the planned roads post-date the needs, wants, and growth of the city. In actuality the planned order tells the city in what way and in which direction to grow.

What kind of order should we have in our services: A natural order that develops and unfolds through the service, or a planned order that develops and unfolds the service? Surely we have all seen these two orders.

One could say that when the Church gathers together they are like a city (on a hill), and the order of the service is/are the roads on which the Church is traveling. The Church has direction in which it is going. Yes, it has a destination place. But, I am of the opinion that the Holy Spirit doesn’t want the same order for every service. But that He wants to take us into new truths, new dimensions, and into new revelations in Christ Jesus through different orders.

What I am getting at here is that I believe our services should be Spirit led rather than order led. I need to make it clear though that this does not mean order is unimportant, for it is, because God is a God of order (a discussion for a later post). What I mean is that the Holy Spirit should be the order maker.

I once heard that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If this is true need I say what has happened to some of our congregations?

When I say that I am all about natural order rather than planned order I am not saying that I don’t believe things shouldn’t be planned but that things should not be planned shut. Things should be planned from an open-ended perspective. What happens is that plans are for some like children are to parents. To separate them from their plans would be to separate them from their very blood and life. When we have a scheduled service let us not be so disappointed when the scheduled plans get suspended by a schedule much larger and demanding than ours. You never know when a “Suddenly” might happen (And the Lord you seek, will suddenly come to His temple Mal 3:1).

Any thoughts from the readers? I am only developing here not constructing anything-at least not yet.