God is Not Spontaneous, Nor Should We Be

In the first several books of Genesis, God orders creation into place by his Word. He creates humanity to help him order things, such as naming the animals, and then to keep order. Yet, mankind sins and is exiled into the wilderness -- disorder and chaos. This makes exile tantamount to death. And when Jesus came, he re-ordered things, making them new. Jesus' baptism in the Jordan sanctified the waters, and his quieting of the storm re-ordered the chaos into calm. What was dangerous and death-filled became life affirming. Jesus is the bridge back from exile.

One verse that stands out in the New Testament is "For God is not a God of disorder but of peace" (1 Corinthians 14:33, NIV). Yet, many Protestant churches (especially Holiness, Pentecostal, and Charismatic churches) accept and anticipate the spontaneous move of the Holy Spirit to be a sign of authenticity. They might even cite the apparent unexpected move of the Spirit in Acts 2 as proof of God's random interjections into humanity. Yet, even that was planned as Jesus promised that he would send the Spirit in his stead (John 14:15-21). 

So, is there a place for spontaneity in church? After all, John 3:8 tells us that the wind (referring to the Holy Spirit) will blow where it wants to. 

This much is true: God is God and will do as he wills. Yet, malleable church services with differing orders of worship from week to week seems out of step with the Judaic roots of Christianity. The Early Church liturgies were modeled on and a continuation of Old Testament sacrificial/temple worship, re-visioned for dispensing the Eucharist. There were no specific and random baptism Sundays, youth group Sundays, worship music or prayer focused Sundays, etc. There was only the Lord's Day. Liturgy included a schedule and lectionary, and the hymns and songs remained fairly consistent, moving only with the seasons and feast days. This made it accessible for the congregation in offering their prayers as members of the royal priesthood.

All this to say, since God is thoroughly proven to be an ordered God and we are partners in keeping that order, church worship ought to have a structure too. We ought not be so loose in our approach of worship. Can the Spirit move in his own ways? Surely. However, the Spirit moves through the life of the Church, be that the people in prayer and offering. It should be expected that when a worship service is orderly, there is real authenticity, as a platform is made appropriate for the Spirit's movement. It becomes expected. If it was random, we would need to continually test whether it was the Spirit, our imaginations, or something nefarious and misleading.