Pastor Jacob Birch and Thoughts about Vertical Church by James MacDonald

Far be it from me to suggest an edit to the best selling and church-changing book Vertical Church by Dr. James MacDonald. But i will anyway.

My suggestion is that between the Ichabod and the Unashamed Adoration chapter Dr. MacDonald should add a chapter entitled "What Modifies is What Motivates", in my humble opinion.

As i have read and re-read and digested the book for consumption by our people at Glengate Alliance Church this summer it seems that is a truth which I could greatly benefit from James' more fully treatment of.

What invigorates and animates James' teaching and the Harvest movement is not the verbs Adoration, Preaching, Witness and Prayer... but rather their modifiers which bring the power of focus to those actions:  Unashamed Adoration, Unapologetic Preaching, Unafraid Witness and Unceasing Prayer. Those terms and their implications set "the culture" for the actions (Preaching, Witnessing, etc) to take place in.

And as we are learning about leadership... setting the culture (what is and what success be defined by) is the most important long term endeavour of a leader.

The chapter I envision for James' to write would be one making the case - in general - that churches need to get specific not as much about their verbs but about their adjectives.

Who doesn't believe that their church should preach? witness? worship? and prayer? I mean come on.

The important contribution that James' makes is the tone-setting, culture defining modifiers. But most churches want to settle for the doing the right thing (Preaching), instead of doing things right (Unapologetic Preaching).

The fact that they are "negative" is also very attractive to me. My preaching prof said that one aspect which is often under-rated in preaching is having  a clear idea of "who the enemy is" about any particular passage/theme/idea you are preaching.

Setting out to say that our adoration should be unashamed immediately defines both what our worship should be like and who the "enemy" is: Ashamed worship... worship that is ashamed of our God or ashamed of ourselves therefore prone to think more of what others will think of us than what God thinks of us.

So great work Dr. MacDonald and know that your ministry highly valued by this fellow Canadian.