Many groups of believers today are more dependent upon leadership, training, programs, buildings, finances, etc. than they are dependent upon the work of God through the Holy Spirit. Many believers today are more dependent on good business practices than they are dependent on the Holy Spirit.
If removing leadership or programs or buildings or finances or anything else would cause believers to stop meeting together, stop disciplining one another, stop growing spiritually, then that group of believers is not depending on God.
He then quotes from A.W. Tozer:
We in the churches seem unable to rise above the fiscal philosophy which rules the business world; so we introduce into our church finances the psychology of the great secular institutions so familiar to us all and judge a church by its financial report much as we judge a bank or a department store.
A look into history will quickly convince any interested person that the true church has almost always suffered more from prosperity than from poverty. Her times of greatest spiritual power have usually coincided with her periods of indigence and rejection; with wealth came weakness and backsliding. If this cannot be explained, neither apparently can it be escaped.
<idle musing>
Sad, isn't it? We need to live in such a way that if the Holy Spirit were to withdraw his presence, the whole thing would collapse. He doesn't need structures, programs, committees; he just needs a willing and open heart.
</idle musing>
