Juan Carlos Ortiz

Below is an excerpt of an interview by The Wittenberg Door. Juan Carlos Ortiz was asked about church structure and church renewal. The interview was conducted in 1980 but his responses are still relevant today.

Door: In your books you also talk a lot about church renewal. Can you describe the renewal that went on in your own church?

Ortiz: We had experienced tremendous numerical growth in our church. But we discovered that we were running the church like a business. We were promoting Christ like we would promote a product, like we would promote Coca-Cola…We realized that simply increasing the number of people that attend church is not growth-cemeteries grow that way too.

One of the things we did right away was to change the focus of our message. Instead of urging people to come to Christ for all the blessings they would receive, we began to talk about Christ as Lord. We began to preach that people should come to Christ for Christ alone, not for a miracle, a blessing, or even heaven. We simply went back to preaching the person of Christ.

Door: What is your concept of church structure?

Ortiz: Jesus did not come to start an institution. He never intended to buy a piece of land and build a headquarters. We have to ask the Spirit today how to meet the needs of today. I must say that all structures are a hindrance to people in their search for God. If people have to accept Christ plus a pipe organ, the piano, the program, the television ministry, millions will reject Christ.

So often when a person comes into the church structure, it alienates them from their family and friends. Anything that takes the place of the Lord is wrong. For lots of people the structure takes the place of Jesus. They become meeting-centered instead of Christ-centered.

Rather than having deacons and elders, who function like the members of a board, and a minister, who functions like the president of the board, you strive for a group of people who become friends. Just like the disciples-they work together, love one another, and take care of one another.

Door: When we hear the word discipleship we think of a strong authority figure who becomes the discipler while exercising control over the disciplee, if there is such a word.

Ortiz: I would not use the word authority. That could be dangerous. I would use the word love. In my house, for instance, there is authority, but we never use the word. Authority is like soap, the more you use it, the less you have. The more you say you are the boss, the less authority you have. There is a kind of authority that lives in love, but we’re talking about a love relationship, not a military relationship.

Door: What are the signs of immaturity in the church today?

Ortiz: [One] evidence of immaturity in the church is the need for rules and laws. Children live by rules. They take a bath or brush their teeth because they are told to do it…Suppose the Lord tells me to eat an orange. So I eat the orange and sincerely believe that God has led me. Tomorrow, the Lord tells me to eat an orange again. So what happens? The next day I write down a rule to eat an orange every day. And do you see what that does? Now I don’t need the Spirit anymore. I have a law instead. Laws kill life. Laws stop growth. You end up staying with a concept, a principle, or a doctrine rather than life. What we did yesterday in the Spirit, we do today in the flesh.

Door: Can you summarize your suggestions for helping the church become a healthy and viable expression of Christ today?

Ortiz: We need to clean the church of all that is not essential or necessary. So we don’t need to waste our time on shakeable things like buildings. Buildings are just monuments to the people that build them. They are a symbol of division in the church. They are a symbol of the church’s self-centeredness.

We should strive toward a very simple structure of the church that could go underground any minute. Nobody on the payroll. No secretaries. No letters to write. We should create a church that can live through relationships so that we are connected person to person. And we can attain that by dividing our churches into small cell groups where people can build each other up.

If the church is always singing the same hymns, saying the same prayers, performing the same liturgy, and giving the same messages, it is because there is no growth. The wineskins of the church have to be elastic so we can always put in new wine.