Book Review: Ordinary

For the last few months I have been digesting a book that I think is one of the most important books I will read for a while. Usually I am someone that reads book very fast and frequently, but with this one I took my time... I read parts over and over, thought about them, and applied them in areas of my life.

This book is extremely important... Horton writes in a way that is applicable yet theologically grounded. There are parts of this book that get down into the details of ecclesiology that some might find boring, but these aspects of church-life are so very important and it hits at the core of modern day consumeristic church culture.

Ultimately, if you are someone that struggles with how God is using you in the every-day ordinary parts of life,  this book is a great reminder that because Jesus was extraordinary for us, that we are free to live a life that is ordinary... This ordinary life is not to be taken lightly though, because within the kingdom of God ordinary lives are making small impacts that will make a lasting difference in the world.

I took some time to write out parts of the book that stood out to me... If you don't have time to read this book at least read these highlights! Here they are:

• "We have forgotten that God showers his extraordinary gifts through ordinary means of grace."

• "What I need courage for is the ordinary, the daily every-dayness of life. Caring for a homeless kid is a lot more thrilling to me than listening well to the people in my home. Giving away clothes and seeking out edgy Christian communities requires less of me than being kind to my family on an average Wednesday morning or calling my mother back when I don't feel like it."

• "Even more than I'm afraid of failure, I'm terrified by boredom"

• "Changing the world can be a way of actually avoiding the opportunities we have everyday, right where God has placed us, to glorify him and enjoy him and enrich the lives of others."

• "We are growing bored with the everyday means of God's grace, attending church week in and week out."

•  "I am convinced that we have drifted away from the true focus of God's activity in the world. Its not to be found in the extraordinary, but in the ordinary, the everyday."

• "Excellence requires caring about someone or something enough to invest time, effort, and skill into it, with God's glory and our neighbor's good as the goal."

• "You pursue excellence when you care about something other than your own excellence."

• "The key is a loving, patient, attentive care to the things that really matter--things that we're likely to ignore in our overachieving rush to relevance and radical impact."

• "In the church today we do not need more conference, more programs, and more celebrities. We need more churches where the Spirit is immersing sinners into Christ day by day, a living communion of the saints."

• "Our tireless service is driven more by a desire for self-justification and self-acclaim than by being secure in Christ enough to tend now to the actual needs of others."

• "When we turn a godly passion for excellence into an idol of our own self-justification, we miss the truly radical thing that God is doing right under our noses."

• "Being 'ordinary' means that we reject the idolatry of pursuing excellence for selfish reasons."

• "We aren't digging wells in Africa to prove our worth or value. We aren't serving in the soup kitchen or engaging in spiritual disciplines because we long to be unique, radical, and different. When we do these things for selfish reasons, God becomes a tool for winning our lifetime achievement award. Our neighbors become instruments in the crafting of our sense of meaning, impact, and identity. What we do for God is really for ourselves."

• "There is a difference between frenetic activism and faithful activity in the daily struggles and joys of life."

• "The power of our activism, campaigns, movements, and strategies cannot forgive sins or raise the dead. "The gospel . . . is the power of God for salvation" (Rom 1:16)

• "God does not need our good works; our neighbor does. - Luther"

• "God's church isn't a stage where we perform our solos. It is God's garden. It is a building that God is constructing in his Son, by his Word and Spirit."

• "We, as modern Christians, living under the alluring lights of a Las Vegas culture, find it difficult to enjoy more familiar, routine, and common pleasures."

• "Happiness is like a cat, if you try to coax it or call it, it will avoid you; it will never come. But if you pay no attention to it and go about your business, you'll find it rubbing against your leg and jumping into your lap. - William Bennett"

• "If you are always looking for an impact, a legacy, and success, you will not take the time to care for the things that matter."

• "Revival is God's extraordinary blessing on his ordinary means of grace."

• "Is the intense longing for revival itself part of the problem...? Is it not remarkable enough that Jesus Christ himself is speaking to us whenever his Word is preached each week?"

• Real growth is "slow growth in the same direction"... "If our Christian life is grounded in a radical experience, we will keep looking for repeat performance... But its the ordinary disciplines and not the extraordinary breakthroughs that make the change"

• "Ambition (in the original Greek NT) is selfish by definition"

• "Ambition is an empty pursuit, because none of us is truly the master of our fate."

• "When we are ambitious, each of us campaigns for the office of emperor. In the process, we're tearing Christ's body, our homes, our workplaces, and our society to pieces."

• "Relationships are more important than ambition: there's more to life than leaving home."

• "What would it say to our youth group if, instead of inviting the former NFL star, we had a couple visit that had been married for forty-five years...? What if we held up those examples of faithful service over worldly success stories?

• "We desperately need more Timothys and a lot fewer would-be Pauls in the church. We need to wean ourselves away from identifying particular churches as 'So-And-So's church,' from identifying the church with gifted speakers and charismatic leaders. 

• "There are no living prophets or apostles."

• "Jesus did no establish a movement, a tribe, or a school, but a church."

• "One example of the tendency to shift our focus from the ministry to the ministers is the proliferation of multi-site churches... My concern is that the model is more susceptible to a greater focus on the minister than on the ministry."

• "There are no apostles today, but ordinary pastors who shepherd particular churches together with the elders."

• "Christ's global garden grows concretely only in local plots."

• "We need to stop adding something more of ourselves to the gospel. We need to be content with the gospel... We also need to be content with his ordinary means of grace that, over time, yield a harvest of plenty for everyone to enjoy."

• "More than heroes we need a Savior."

• "The call to radical transformation of society can easily distract faith's gaze from Christ and focus it on ourselves."

• "Hearing this gospel, from Genesis to Revelation, is the means by which the Spirit creates faith in our hearts."

• "The call to change the world undervalues ordinary vocations that actually keep God's gifts circulating."

•  "God is building his kingdom in this world through his Word and sacraments, but we know that the kingdoms of this age will not be made the kingdom of Christ until his return."

• "True, there are many ordinary people who, precisely through their ordinary callings, sometimes make an extraordinary impact. Yet it is just as true that ordinary lives have an ordinary impact that is beautiful in its own right."

• "it makes a profound impression on a young person to be taken seriously by the minister of the whole flock."

• "We often miss the trees for the forest, looking for ambitious causes instead of actual people God has sent into our lives that moment, hour, day, or year."

• "We need to stop looking for extraordinary callings to give meaning to our lives, which often encourage us to think of others as tools in our self-crafting."

• "On the one hand, they're (women) expected to be Proverbs 31 wives and mothers. That's pressure enough. But on the other hand, they're also encouraged to be everything a boy can be, to do everything boys can do....We place these contradictory and unlivable expectations on our girls."

• "I'm suggesting that the burdens we place on women--even from childhood--make them anxious about life and drive them to expect dissatisfaction with the normal and everyday aspects of life that are so crucial for the development of deep roots, wisdom, and nature for the whole family."

• "Do we enjoy our neighbor? It's a lot easier to serve a neighbor than to enjoy him or her. It's a lot easier to see me and my service as a gift to someone less fortunate, without seeing a 'needy' person as a gift to me."

• "Apart from the surprising announcement of the gospel, we would vacillate between utopianism and nihilism."

• "There are two kinds of prosperity gospels. One promises personal health, wealth, and happiness. Another promises social transformation. In both versions, the results are up to us. We bring God's kingdom to earth, either to ourselves or to society, by following certain spiritual laws or moral and political agendas. Both forget that salvation comes from above, as a gift of God. "

• "Even if I knew the world was going to end tomorrow, I would still plant an apple tree today." - Luther