It’s worth reading through this point from Stuart Briscoe to get to the summary statement at the end.
So great is our commitment to the thought patters of the modern world that assume every effect has a traceable, measurable, and understandable cause, that we can assume that if we get the causes right or fix them when they are not right, we can guarantee the effects. So we have seven steps to this an five principles of that. We have five year plans full of goals and measurable goals and intermediate goals, all of which we believe can be reached if we take the right steps and organise sufficient resources. Then if we can keep the program running smoothly – – presto! – – the kingdom will be built. But what of the mysterious, unmanageable, uncontrollable, unpredictable, irresistible, indefinable, unmistakable work of the Spirit? He is the dynamic fact without whom our latest state-of-the-art, cutting-edge technology and know-how and our most sophisticated management principles are useless to penetrate the closed minds, to open the blind eyes, to demolish the spiritual strongholds, and to work the miracle of regeneration The Holy Spirit’s dynamic working in the hearts of individual believers and the soul of the community of faith must not be lost in the gloss of our sophistication and the polish of our performance. He works as he chooses, not as we plan. If we overlook this, the more likely it is that we will finish with a manmade system of canals and locks rather than a free network of brooks, streams, and rivers flowing into the brimming river of the relentless life-transforming work of the Spirit of God. True, we will be able to keep control, and undoubtedly we can regulate the depth of the water, organise the times when the locks are open and shut, and manage the order in which the boats pass through. But canals don’t flow; they stagnate.
