Francis Chan on the Wierdness of Our Generation

Catalyst East 2010: Francis Chan from Catalyst on Vimeo.

Francis Chan on Half-Hearted Devotion to Christ

Read Your Bible As Though You've Never Heard of God Before

Tonight I had the opportunity to listen to the sermons Francis Chan shared on the topic of Faith and Family over at Focus on the Family.  Click here to listen, you'll be glad you did.  In one of the sermons he something on the side that is so important, I think, for the church today to hear.  He said: 

"Read (the Scriptures) simply.  Read them like you would if you were on an island by yourself and had never heard about God before.  ... what would be your natural conclusion if the American church world hadn't given you your theology.  What conclusions would you come to?"

I really dig what he's saying here.  It's a simple idea, which is the point.  We often come to the Bible with an attitude that we already have it all figured out.  Especially in Reformed circles, where an intellectual Christianity is fashionable,  everything about God is presumed to be known and neatly organized into predefined categories offered by the American church, i.e. T.U.L.I.P.

I think it would do us a great amount of good to step away for our American, intellectualized conceptions of who God is, and read His word like it's our first time ever hearing about God, allowing the Holy Spirit (not tradition or social influences) to guide us to our conclusions.  We might be surprised to learn that we don't know as much about God as we think we do.  We might even learn something new.

Francis Chan on the Importance of Love for the Lost

HT: Resurgence

Francis Chan: Watch Out For Others

 

This should blow your hair back.

Ezekiel Is Israel's Watchman

33:1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, speak to your people and say to them, If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and make him their watchman, 3 and if he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people, 4 then if anyone who hears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. 5 He heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life. 6 But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand.

I Dare You to Pray This By Francis Chan

HT: Francis Chan

Francis Chan on Engaging in Authentic 24/7 Community

Here is an excerpt from Francis Chan's message at the Exponential Conference:

A little over a year ago, we baptized this guy who came out of the gangs. I remember loving his fire and passion. A while later, someone came up to me and said that this guy had stopped coming to Cornerstone and had told him, “I had the wrong vision of church. I thought that when I got baptized and joined the church, it was going to be like when I got jumped into the gang. Immediately, we became family. They had my back 24 hours a day. If I was sleeping in the street, they were sleeping there with me. We didn’t get together just once a week; it was all the time. I guess I just didn’t understand church. It’s like Satan stole God’s playbook, and people are attracted to gangs because they’re doing things biblically—except for the killing part.” That kills me! It’s so sad that gangs are a better picture of family than the body of Christ. And it just makes me say that it’s not this guy, it’s us—we are the ones who don’t under­stand church. And I’ve heard the arguments. I know people say that even though it’s biblical, you can’t pull off that kind of bold community in today’s culture. And to that, I ask, Have we for­gotten who the Holy Spirit is? If Jesus could look at 11 people and say, “You’re going to get the message to the whole world without Internet access,” then we can grab 11 people and reach these three or four blocks. It’s the same Holy Spirit. I’ve got to believe that the Holy Spirit still can and will do these amazing things. We’re going through this as a church right now. The leaders of our church are my best friends. I trust them. I know that if I die tonight, these guys will take care of my family. They’ll treat my kids like their own. We’re seeing that type of bond happen. Today’s Church can foster bold and authentic, 24/7 community.

Click here for the rest from Exponential.

Do You Love Christ? Loving God in a Lukewarn Church by Francis Chan