Are you saying that church structure is the only thing that really matters and that all you need to do is to get that right?

Absolutely not! Church structure on its own without those in the church growing in the Lord and in their relationship with Him is just a wineskin with a few drops of wine in it. And of course the idea is for us to be all the time being filled up more and more with Jesus himself. Being part of a church is one of the Lord’s main provisions to enable us to grow and mature spiritually, and so it is important that everything about churches should therefore actually be based on what the New Testament reveals rather than on the teachings and traditions of mere men which go against scripture. However, unless Jesus is becoming all the time more and more of our Lord and Life, then it’s all just so much dust and hot air. There’s no and/or here between wine and wineskin, but rather a very definite both/and. The answer for any biblical churches that aren’t very much alive in the Lord is not to become in any way less biblical in their structure and set up, but to become more alive in Him.

Think of a church as being a glove into which the Lord wants to put His hand in order that He might be able to move through it. That’s what it’s all about! However, a glove without the hand in it is pretty useless, and that’s what a spiritually dead, albeit biblical, church would be like. (As I have said elsewhere, I have been in churches which were biblically based in every way in so far as their structure and practice was concerned, yet which were spiritually quite deathly, even oppressive, because of wrong attitudes and lack of love.) Yet imagine, equally, the Lord trying to get His hand in a glove that’s completely the wrong shape. Too many fingers, perhaps! No thumb, maybe! Made of metal instead of cotton or wool! He’ll always do His best, of course, and move through it to whatever extent He can. (We are not in any way implying that the Lord doesn’t use or bless unbiblical churches.) But how much better to just be the right shape.

So the answer is a most resounding No! Biblical church structure on its own is far from being enough. As I sometimes like to say, eleven dead men don’t make a football team! You can lay them out on the pitch in all the right kit and with each player in their respective positions. The whistle can blow to start the game and the crowd can roar all it likes. But nothing can change the simple fact that there’s no life there just eleven corpses lying in a football field! And believe me, if that’s the case then the game just ain’t gonna happen!