In horizontal church (where the focus is more on serving people than worshiping God), missional activities are pursued with a vague hope of God’s glory being a potential by-product; in Vertical Church, we pursue the manifest glory of God as our goal, believing that His revealing brings about the missional by-products, according to James MacDonald in his book Vertical Church: What Every Heart Longs For, What Every Church Can Be.
The author discusses the problems with churches that try to make themselves too seeker-friendly: “In attempting to make the church something that can attract and add value to secular mind-sets, we have turned our backs on our one true value proposition—transcendence.” He also discusses the problems with watered-down evangelism: “Friendship evangelism, lifestyle evangelism, relational evangelism—all of it flows from our desire to avoid what cannot be avoided.”
The author’s church Harvest Bible Chapel has “four pillars” which explain its ministry philosophy:
- Proclaiming the authority of God’s Word without apology
- Lifting high the name of Jesus through worship
- Believing firmly in the power of prayer
- Sharing the good news of Jesus with boldness
The book and the videos and other material appearing on its companion website provide a helpful and inspirational overview of what it means to be a Vertical Church. I was a little uncomfortable with the extent of criticism of other churches (for example, Willow Creek’s “methods for people-reaching that contradicted my most deeply held convictions”, even though Bill Hybels has given the book a generous endorsement), but I believe that the author has made out a convincing case for the importance of churches pursuing God’s glory as their primary goal.