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church not a supermarket

"Many churches became more like voluntary associations: a supermarket of personal spiritual identities."

"A church that fails to diagnose its own cultural infections will be absorbed into the bloodstream of this age that is passing away."

"The church is neither a central agency with branch offices nor a group of individuals who decide to follow Jesus and therefore decide to start a church. Rather, it is a supernatural and eschatological reality that descends from heaven in the power of the Spirit through the means of grace (see Rev 21:9 – 27)."

"Just as each believer’s salvation finds its origin in God’s sovereign grace, so too the church collectively is the result of God’s gracious plan, not ours. It is not simply a voluntary association that exists as the result of people choosing the same preferences."

"Its words and actions are always provisional and fallible — ministerial, but not magisterial. The church is the servant, not the Master. And yet it is through the ministry of this visible church that Christ’s kingdom is present, growing in depth and breadth in all times and places. The church’s ministry, not the authority of its servants or the piety of those who are served, determines whether there is a church."

~Michael Horton, from "The Church" in Pilgrim Theology (Zondervan, 2013)


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