Quiz: Is Your Church Vertical?
I am really starting to enjoy this blog. I am learning so much about people and what is on their hearts. Several have asked what I mean by the subtitle for this blog, “first vertical and then missional.” If I ever get to that book about the church, that book about what we have been trying to be about for the past 21 years, I think I will call it Vertical Church. That’s what we have been going for, and from the very beginning it has been an experiment that asked these important questions:
• What if there was a church that believed God actually wrote a book called the Bible and that human souls were profoundly altered in hearing its truths proclaimed with passion and practicality, as the very words of God?
• What if there was a church that believed God was actually listening when we prayed, that He considered the pleas of His people when they cried out to Him from their hearts in faith and powerfully moved in people’s lives in response?
• What if there was a church that believed the fields are truly “ripe to harvest,” and that authentically being the hands and feet of Jesus to people in pain was far superior to seeing the gospel as a horizontal transaction of human persuasion and cultural savvy?
• What if there was a church where the people had as their first and most fervent focus, the adoration of God’s Son? Where worship was not part of the service or part of the week, but the consuming passion of the congregation and its leaders—not for themselves or even for the good feeling it brings, but truly for blessing the heart of God and inviting His presence in the midst of every ministry involvement?
Harvest Bible Chapel is not all of those things, not perfectly, but it helps from time to time to remember what we are shooting for. We want to be a vertical church. Just that. If we get the vertical right, the horizontal takes care of itself. People who are truly intimate with God the Father will have a genuine heart to transfer that love relationship to those around them. People who have God’s heart must have a heart for lost people. People who love the Word of God and seek to obey it will always have a powerful impact on the lost around them. Yes, YES! I believe it with all my heart and I am seeing it before my eyes. Make the focus and consuming passion of your church a vertical one, and the missional elements of ministry will happen as naturally as breathing.
“Yes, when I, even I, the Son of Man am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all peoples to myself” (John 12:32).
10 Question Verticality Quiz: (Give 5 for the strongest yes and 0 for the weakest yes.)
1. Are the songs we sing about God or about what God has done for us?
2. Do the people on the platform come across as ministers or as entertainers?
3. Is the sermon coming clearly/continually from what the Bible actually says and does it cover the hard parts of Scripture, not just the popular ones?
4. Does the sermon challenge me to change and grow, versus just something to know?
5. Am I pressured over time to join a smaller group where I can express and experience biblical community?
6. Do I find the people I meet to be humble and overt in their love for Christ, or more guarded and private about their faith?
7. Am I challenged to find a place of ministry where I can use my gifts and shoulder weekly kingdom responsibility in working for God?
8. Do the leaders of my church find ways to draw the focus away from themselves and onto Christ and what He is doing?
9. Does my church invite me into sacrificial work for Christ that does not benefit our church at all: feeding the poor, church planting/missions, etc.?
10. Does my church seek to follow the biblical pattern for church governance and elevate the Word of God in all it does, including church discipline?
SCORE:
Vertical Church: 40+
60-Degree Church: 30-40
Horizontal Church: 20-30
Find a New Church : 0-20 
Categorized as: Church, From James, Ministry
