The Safety of Wisdom and Proportion

We are blessed to be in the fifth decade of a community movement that has had remarkable success with young people, families, marriages, and the evidence of a life filled with joy, love, peace, and the presence of God. It is a movement for which only God can receive the credit and glory.

However, we take nothing for granted. Such community movements, enjoying widespread renown and sustained success, are rare in recent history. It is difficult to find one that has flourished into its third or fourth generation without losing its way, devolving into factions, turmoil, and disunity, thus undermining the very essence of community. "If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand" (Mark 3:25).

Therefore, it is fitting that we look with humility at those who have succeeded and those who have failed. As Paul says, “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). How could we live with ourselves if we were to betray the beautiful, full, fruitful, flourishing life we have inherited and leave our grandchildren something splintering, cracking, dividing, and failing?

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Generational Continuity

Believers often look at us and say, “That’s really beautiful, but I was once part of a similar community, and it failed.” Others will ask, “What makes you think you won’t go the way of these other movements with similar aspirations?”

Even within our own numbers, we frequently ask each other why certain groups fail and what could cause us to lose our way or disintegrate. Generational continuity, keeping the lamp burning, is a primary imperative in our service and obligation to Jesus. "The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps" (Matt. 25:4).

A Jewish man from Israel who does not believe in the Messiah visited our community recently. He made an unbelievable yet perhaps encouraging observation: “I believe it is quite possible that in 200 years, you may be the only Christians left in this world.”

I do not for a moment believe that. I believe God is giving wisdom, answers, patterns, and fruit to believers across the globe. It is only when we come together with all this accumulated wisdom that we will be able to withstand the future’s onslaught – not alone or in isolated pockets, but united as one fully integrated body of Christ. We pray our posterity may bring some measure of grace and faithfulness to that ingathering of the saints in times ahead.

Nonetheless, the Israeli visitor perceived something we might not have considered. He understood that we are playing the long game, not evaluating things strictly through the lens of personal expediency or liberty, but thinking generationally and culturally, anticipating the trajectory of issues—good or bad—and how they will play out over years, decades, or centuries.

Of all the successes in church movements, the one I am most interested in is generational continuity. Are the sons and daughters carrying on in the footsteps of their fathers? Are the grandchildren continuing in the same, progressing into greater holiness, unity, and power? The church will rise or fall based on this factor alone. This is what it means for the lamps of the five wise virgins to remain lit—generational continuity. Conversely, this is what it means for the lamps of the five foolish virgins to go out. "The lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out" (Prov. 13:9).

How Do We Avoid Failure?

People always have theories about why church movements fail. Some say they were not conservative enough, others because they were not evangelistic enough, too connected to the world, or too isolated. Each agenda claims that unless you follow its way, you will go extinct like all the rest.

This raises the question: if we would avoid the demise of others whom we sincerely respect, what must be different for us? Of course, as soon as you even suggest finding a different way, other Christians accuse you of having a superiority complex, thinking you’re the only believers, or imagining the whole body of Christ fits only in your local congregation. But one could not keep his sanity listening to such reckless and dishonest handling of truth.

In short, we MUST find an approach and way different from all the options around us that have epically failed. That is not pride; that is humility. Humility is confessing the sins of the fathers, not assuming success based on some untested creed. Humility is begging God for the answers that have eluded us in part or in whole until now.

One example often presented to us of communities that have lost their way after fracturing is the Anabaptists. People will say, “How can we be sure we are not going in the same direction?” I respect the question. However, it would only frighten me to see the demise of these movements if I saw no distinction between their foundation and ours.

I ask—which of these movements started with the foundational truths that define our faith? A restored understanding, belief, and relationship with the one true God of Jewish monotheism, revealed in Jesus Christ; the bedrock necessity of radical repentance—uprooting self from the center, dethroning the tyranny of selfish will in submission to Christ; the nonnegotiable necessity of each one experiencing a powerful immersion in the Holy Spirit as described in the book of Acts; baptism as a sign and a pledge and commitment into Christ’s death in its corporate expression; church government through the five-fold ministry – a team of all essential gifts working together with no hero leaders but interdependent collaboration and ministerial wisdom; a view of eschatology recognizing the kingdom is for today, though spiritual, not political, and coming with the noncoercive authority of Jesus Christ against the spiritual powers of the enemy; an understanding of the essentiality of the body of Christ—not as a collection of haphazard stones, but a temple fitly framed together, a body joined and knit together by what every ligament and joint supplies.

I have never—and I mean NEVER—found any Christian group holding even a majority of these positions, as stated. I can find all these positions in one Christian group or another, but never together. Since the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, there is something to be said for re-examining, re-articulating, and reasserting the foundation stones in this distinctive manner.

What is called “orthodoxy” is crumbling into the sea. What is called “tradition” is being abandoned in a mass departure from the church. These abundantly failing models of truth hold no intrinsic value in our minds. We build our entire approach on the assumption that truth has been confused, misapplied, misunderstood, and misconstrued—and that restorative revelation is the starting point of the repentance that could get us back to the New Testament church.

"See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?" (Isa. 43:19).

We cannot alter Christ's equation: we must know doctrine by its fruit, not vice versa. "By their fruit, you will recognize them" (Matt. 7:20). Doctrine should be the explanation of an abundantly fruitful life. If it’s anything else, you’re likely deceived and manipulated by mind games: "Beware of false prophets" (Matt. 7:15). But when you find what cannot be faked and undeniable fruits of the Spirit—love, joy, peace—unity, and life, you can trust the design, interpretation, and doctrine that stands behind it (Gal. 5:22-23).

But I don’t want to sound like we’re quibbling over doctrine, and I don’t even believe that is the central issue here. We must answer the question – “What will keep us from failing?”

What is the Most Important Part of an Orchard?

To answer this, I go back to my childhood. My siblings and I were sitting around the living room, reading books and chatting with each other. My dad was working in his study. He came out and gathered us all around to ask us a question. “Kids,” he said. “What is the most important part of the orchard, apart from which it will fail?” We had a beautiful, flourishing peach orchard outside, and we children had the responsibility of dragging our wagon from tree to tree, filling heaping baskets with peaches that were then eaten fresh or canned and preserved for later use throughout the year.

My dad continued, “What is the most important part of the orchard? Is it the sunlight and photosynthesis, or is it the water system? Or perhaps it’s the tree’s vascular system, through which the nutrients travel up from the roots to the leaves. Or is it the soil providing the carbon and nutrients to the roots? Or maybe it’s the fence that keeps the predators out.”

To me, this is very similar to the question about why churches fail or succeed—we’re asking which element of the church is the essential one that will hedge against calamity.

On that particular summer day, we wrestled because we couldn’t think of any element of the tree or orchard that was more crucial than another element. We were stumped.

My dad’s answer was simple – “It’s the design ordering and balancing all the elements.”

That lesson has stuck with me until now. You see, we know that sunlight is essential for plant growth, but what if the sun stayed high in the sky for 24 hours? Your plants would wither and be dead immediately. We know that water is essential, but would the trees survive a flood? No. Every critical element of the orchard is vital in its proper portion relative to the whole. This ability to prescribe proportion and precision in quantities and the relation of the elements is the order of design.

Wisdom: The Order of Design

This order of design is also called wisdom. Wisdom doesn’t just know the pieces—truths, necessities, facts. No, wisdom understands the relationship between the elements and composes them into a design of wholeness and life. "Wisdom builds her house" (Prov. 9:1).

So how do we know when we found wisdom?—When we find a living orchard from which we take nutritious fruit that transcends appearances and imparts the spiritual energy of life, generation to generation. As the Scripture also says, "Wisdom is proved right by her children.” We reject the "wisdom of this age,” the wisdom of the scholar, the instructor, and the academic. Show me the children and grandchildren. Show me the orchard and the life flourishing in it, and I will accept that wisdom must have designed it.

I contend that what has been missing from failed church movements for millennia is this design, this wisdom that knew how to hold the essential pieces in their proper place and tension relative to the whole. I believe that the master builder—wisdom, apostolic gifts—have been missing or sadly inactive.

I see church movements that venerate, celebrate, and exaggerate one essential element or even a few elements, but they don’t see the holistic picture of the living body of Christ – the whole of the kingdom and its purpose. They don’t hold the pieces in proper proportion. What’s going to protect us from demise is the wisdom of God, administered through the instrumentality of the five-fold ministry. There’s no magic elixir, no single doctrine that’s going to safeguard everything. But there is a vision of wholeness and life that will give us the goal, and there is wisdom of design that will help us hold each piece in proper proportion. If we want to avoid falling apart, we must not prize this element or that element but the whole – the end product of the living, flourishing, vibrant, anointed community of Christ.

If the church can successfully adopt a plural form of ministry that sees the five essential offices working in concert with each other, with order and mutual submission one to another, and can build not according to private agendas but the design of the wholeness of life of the body of Christ as a cohesive temple and dwelling place for God – this will be an unprecedented effort that has not been attempted in this manner since the first church.

How will we keep from falling apart? Is it this piece or that, holding onto this or letting go of that? We can fall apart through loving a piece too much or loving a piece too little. But only the wisdom of God, administered through the five-fold ministry, can give us the unprecedented chance of realizing a design focused on wholeness and life. There are no guarantees. But if we love His voice and value and understand our successes and failures, we might become part of something that stands the test of time – not by the cunning or will of man, but by the grace and mercy of God and by submitting to the design He has already given.