In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the
Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let
there be light”; and there was light. And
God saw the light, that it was
good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day,
and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first
day. (Genesis 1: 1-5)
Technically, the Bible
doesn’t begin with God creating everything from nothing. When Genesis begins something is already
there, but it was formless, void, and covered in deep darkness. It was chaos.
The word chaos, derived from transliterated Greek, today refers to any
disorganized, disorderly, dark, and void situation. Every human system and institution---- politics,
theology, science, education, etc.--- is an attempt to organize our chaos because we think that order is the
opposite of chaos.
It isn’t.
It isn’t.
In Genesis 1:2, when the Holy
Spirit stood over the swirling face of the primordial universe, God spoke to
end the chaos. But the creating Word
did not bring forth order. He brought
forth light.
LIGHT is the opposite of CHAOS.
God inspected the light and
verified that it was good. Only then did
He organize the light into categories and types.
God divided the light from the darkness.
Only when there was good
light did God assign titles.
God called the light Day, and the darkness He called
Night
First illumination. Then, a schedule.
The evening and the morning were the first day.
First light. Then order.
Because order without illumination is still chaos.
Jesus is the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.
(John 1:9)
When we set aside
uncomfortable Biblical truths so we can add to our membership numbers, we
organize---- but there’s no light in our organizing.
When we professionalize
praise, departmentalize hospitality, and outsource evangelism we bring forth an
orderly church hierarchy but one contrary to the light of the gospel.
When we take our personal preferences
for how people worship and turn them into culturally institutionalized
requirements, we create systems that draw attention away from the light.
In the church we “let all
things be done decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40) so everyone has
space to see and walk in the light of the gospel.
When we create such order and
superficial decency that people can’t see Jesus for the high walls of the
church, then we have order without Light.
If we love our ways of doing
more than we love Jesus’ way then we participate in “the condemnation, that the
light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light,
because their deeds were evil.” (John 3: 19)
Order without light is still
chaos.
Traditional denominations are
dying because we are focused on preserving our structure and traditions---our order----instead
of walking in and sharing the light of Jesus Christ.
Independent,
non-denominational, and non-traditional churches cycle through scandals of
exploitation and leave their people spiritually empty because they have abandoned the light of God'sWord and become obsessed with their “new” orders of worship.
(Oh, be real. You can talk about “letting the Spirit dictate
the worship experience,” but if you start at 10 A.M. on the dot and finish at
11:10 on the dot every Sunday, that’s not the Spirit; that’s human
scripting. That’s an order of worship.)
We humans, well-meaning as we
may be, tend to tackle chaos with organization rather than illumination.
God gave us a different
pattern.
If we want to create
something for God that ends up good and very good, then we do what God
did. Every day we need to stop and look
at what we’ve made and see if it is actually good.
It may have begun in the
evening, in the dark, but we have to look at it in the light.
When we return our focus to
the light of Jesus Christ then we’ll see which divisions of labor, titles, and
schedules we should use.
If we don’t then we will
become more and more internally focused, more and more obsessed with protecting
what we’ve built, more and willing to censor greater portions of the
gospel. There’ll be chaos.
Order without Light is chaos.
---Anderson T. Graves
II is a writer,
community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural
leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is
pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama; executive director
of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO); and director of rural leadership development
for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
Subscribe to my personal
blog www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
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Graves’ work by visiting his personal
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Support by check or money order
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P O Box 132
Fairfield, Al 35064
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