Ambition: from vice to virtue

I started reading this book because I wanted more. And note the subject. I wanted more. There are days, as much as I love my congregations, that I look out and say to myself. "Wouldn't it be great if..." And the tick off the lists of wants...worship band...new faces...energy. And then I shake my head, and proclaim the stirring message of God in my own feeble way.

And it is the next two chapters in Horton's book that deal with this topic of ambition and the next big thing. He talks about it in terms of churches and  Christians. He condemns the church for its constant quest for relevance, which can lead only to disappointment. He quotes A.W. Tozer,

The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect . To the self-assertive it says , “Come and assert yourself for Christ.” To the egotist it says, “Come and do your boasting in the Lord.” To the thrill-seeker it says, “Come and enjoy the thrill of Christian fellowship.” The Christian message is slanted in the direction of the current vogue in order to make it acceptable to the public. (quoted by Horton, p.102)

This is the ultimate deconstruction of the statement, "Meet people where they are." But there is a world of difference between individually meeting people where they are, and bending and shaping the church, its worship and its theology to meet people where they are. "Evangelism is not something reserved for unbelievers we invite to a special service. It's the weekly mission to the saved and the lost alike."(p.81, emphasis added).

If a church is trying to build disciples, and not just add numbers than it must at some point proclaim the message that we are sinners in need of grace, God's grace. And that can be dangerous depending on how people are brought into fellowship in the first place. He writes,

There is no bait -and-switch. You don’t start with “what people want” in order to get them to “what they need.” The same means of grace that bring them in keep them in. We are passive recipients of Christ with all of his benefits, but this makes us active in everyday ways as we live with and love others. (p.85)

Those means of grace: preaching, sacraments, discipline. Accountability to God, to the church and to each other. Imagine. Those things have been so lost in our rush to a democratic culture. Christ's church demands attachment. And that attachment, in this age, means I will be attached to other sinners. Other sinners whose salvation depends as much on grace as mine does. Sinners whose minds may wander in the middle of the sermon. Sinners whose minds may be constructing a shopping list during the pastoral prayer. Ordinary sinners in an ordinary service of worship.

But even in the most ordinary service, Horton reminds us that something extraordinary happens. God shows up. And reminds us "I saved you by grace...love me...love your neighbour..." It doesn't make the service better. It just makes it God's.