Letters to the Church

by Francis Chan

A church grows to maturity only when each part is “working.” If we give up on the goal of having all members exercise their spiritual gifts, we are destined for perpetual immaturity.

We have high expectations from spending four years at Harvard. We should expect even greater results from four years (or four decades!) in the Church.

We can get so focused on getting people through our doors that we don’t think about what goes out. The Church’s purpose is not just to exist. It’s to produce. Are we producing mature disciples who imitate Christ by constantly serving others? Are we developing communities that are so deeply in love with one another that the world marvels (John 13:34–35)? If this is not being produced, why do we exist?

Even though there are well-known talk-show hosts, bloggers, and speakers, nobody really admires them. They just talk. Speakers can fool some, but everyone admires the life that’s worthy of following. It seems we have lost some of this reality in the Church. We expect people to be captivated by our speech when our lifestyles are not that compelling.

I had to learn how to limit the use of my gifts in order to make space for others to lead. The result has been an army of equipped leaders who could be dropped off in any city in the world and they would be capable of making a living while making disciples. They have shown themselves capable of starting and multiplying churches. They are servant leaders raising up more servant leaders to be sent out.

Not all of you will hear “Well done” from the mouth of God, but I want you to.

I was deeply affected by a pastor in China who said to me, “In America, pastors think they have to become famous to have a big impact. In China, the most influential Christian leaders had to be the most hidden.”

Some will teach false doctrine because of their desire to be accepted. Others will preach truth while living a lie. Whether it’s their message or lifestyle that is false, both are condemned.

It unveils our pride, showing us whether or not we believe we are powerless apart from God. When we pray, it is an expression of surrender to God and reliance on His infinite wisdom and sovereignty. Even Jesus Himself would not take matters into His own hands when His disciple Peter was being attacked by Satan.

A pastor from India once told me he was researching movements and noticed a common thread: movements of God always start with a leader who knows God deeply, and they always end when the followers know only the leader deeply.

When I asked how he organized this massive army, he replied, “Americans always want to know about strategy. This is what I will tell you: my leaders are the most humble men I know, and they know Jesus deeply.”

Nothing can be worse than the opposition of God. James made it clear: “God opposes the proud” person (v. 6). How effective can a church be if God is opposed to its leader? On the contrary, God promised to draw near and show grace to the humble person who draws near to Him.

Too many pastors are aspiring to be great writers, speakers, and leaders. There are not enough who are known as great moms and dads. And those who serve well as moms and dads never become known because this isn’t highly valued. You won’t be celebrated on a large scale for humbly caring for a group of people.

I am telling the Lord I don’t want to just be kind. I want the kindness only the Holy Spirit can produce. How else can we attract the world? I want the peace that surpasses comprehension. A peace that leaves people confused. If pastors don’t exemplify these qualities to supernatural proportions, what hope do our churches have?

We must stay aware of the billions who have never heard the gospel even once. We can’t just focus on more creative ways to deliver the gospel to those who have already rejected it a dozen times.

I pray all existing leaders would be renewed or replaced. May God continue to raise up an army of good shepherds who love Him above all else and live to make the Church become everything God designed it to be.

There are millions of people in our country who call themselves Christians because they believe the Christian life is about admiring Christ’s example, not realizing it is a call to follow it. If they really understood this, the numbers would drop drastically. The New Testament could not be clearer: we are not just to believe in His crucifixion; we are to be crucified with Christ.

Forget what you have been told about praying a prayer and asking Jesus to be your personal Savior. Read what Jesus demanded and ask yourself whether you still want to follow Him.

He said, “What we call sanctification, they call prerequisite.” In other words, we act as though surrender is a lifelong process where we slowly decide whether or not we will give up certain things to God. Meanwhile, the believers in Iraq teach the way Jesus taught. They are required to count the cost, surrendering everything up front; otherwise they cannot join the Church.

By having a large service, people began coming just to listen to a sermon. Once they grew accustomed to merely sitting and listening, he had a hard time stirring the people to action. It was almost as if the Lord used them being torn down again to rebuild even stronger. So they went back.

If this isn’t commonplace in your life and you can’t think of anyone outside your family you’d sacrifice for, you need to seriously examine your life. This is what separates Christians from the rest of the world. We suffer because we love people, even our enemies.

They talked about the good old days, when their people were risking their lives and radically sharing the gospel, making disciples. But now these pastors were lamenting the way their people attend services and expect the leaders to feed them and cater to them.

What started as a movement became a bunch of people sitting safely in services.

He told me he used to send missionaries to the United States for Bible training but he would never make that mistake again. He explained that once these would-be missionaries spent time in the US, they never came back! Once they tasted the comforts, they came up with all sorts of reasons they were called to take a nice salary from a church and raise their children in America.

Alan Hirsch said, “In so many churches the mission of the church has actually become the maintenance of the institution itself.”

This was meant for us all. But it isn’t something we can just teach in a sermon. This type of faith requires real prayer. We need to spend less time catering to the felt needs of people and spend more time praying Paul’s prayers in Ephesians 1 and 3. We need more solid Bible teaching to remind them of these deeper truths so they don’t run to shallow pleasures or cling to familiar comforts.

Could Jesus’ language be any harsher? And He used this strong language to speak against those who mistreat—or even undervalue—children!

Listening to the kids talk about what they learn from their devotions is uplifting and encouraging. Having the kids pray over the adults has been humbling and powerful. The faith of their prayers and the simplicity in their sharing accomplish something adults cannot pull off.

Don’t you find it even a bit discouraging that these kids are transforming villages while our kids are watching puppet shows on Jonah and learning songs with hand motions? Are you sure this is what we have to settle for because of our geographic location? It could be that we have been wasting our most precious resource. It could be that we have been treating our greatest assets as obligations.

We don’t believe the Spirit is capable of working through the people around us. We believe we are wiser. May God forgive us for building our church empires on the foundation of our own arrogance!

We know we weren’t made for cages. It’s time to stop building and maintaining zoos. It’s time for us to figure out what it means to be the Church in the wild.

“The theology that matters is not the theology we profess but the theology we practice.”

I think we would be surprised by how much more we would experience if we had less. Imagine if the Church purged until all that was left was a group of people with a Bible, a cup, and some bread.

Suffering Sojourners. We want to be people who are eagerly waiting for the return of Christ. We are willing and wanting to suffer because we believe in heavenly rewards. Far from seeking comfort, we thrive on hardship, refusing to become citizens of this earth.

If we continue to promote a model where people flood to a church building to congregate around a preacher, how do we expect to reach the billions of people who live where that model is illegal?

Each time I went through this, I thought to myself, There’s no way Jesus would do it this way! Would He really halt Kingdom growth until He found more land, appeased the city officials, raised money, and built a bigger place? It never made sense to me, but I couldn’t think of any other options at the time.

The alternative is worse—I could preach more politically to keep the masses coming. Not to be dramatic, but I would honestly rather die. I have seriously prayed for God to take me off this earth before He allowed me to dishonor His name, and that would include teaching aimed to please the crowds rather than God Himself.

I’m obviously not arguing that we change the gospel or water down the truth. I’m simply asking us to reconsider the vehicle we use to deliver it. I’m not even trying to argue that we “keep up with the times.” I’m actually calling all of us to go back to Scripture and recover what we’ve lost. If we find ourselves lost on a detour, why not go back to the right path?

The goal is not saving money just to save money but to literally save lives.

Virtually every denomination we have today began as some sort of reform movement meant to pull the Church closer to God’s intention.

There is no reason we can’t join with those who have gone before us and be the ones who restore the missional focus of the Church. What else would you rather do with your days?

As we have been stepping out in faith in San Francisco, we have seen encouraging signs of growth. People rarely talk about a great “sermon” but often discuss what they’ve discovered in their Bible readings. Fellowship over the Word has become normal. People regularly take hours and even days to be alone in the presence of Christ. They enjoy Him. Prayer gatherings go longer than planned, and rarely are people anxious to leave. Families are opening up their homes to others.

There is no substitute for undistracted prayer. Our country needs to encounter churches that cannot be explained by strategic planning. And I believe everything inside you wants the Holy Spirit to move through you and do more than you can currently imagine. Start praying for this now.

You are going to see God soon. There’s no way I can exaggerate how overwhelmed you will be. The most tragic mistake you can make on this earth is to underestimate how vulnerable you will feel when you see His face. And the wisest decisions you will make in life will be the ones you make with that final moment in mind.

Father, thank You for choosing us to be part of something so sacred. Forgive us for the times when our laziness weakened the Church or our pride divided her. Give us childlike faith to have an impact on the Church with Holy Spirit power. May Your Bride become attractive, devoted, and powerful beyond earthly explanation. May we each become consumed with her, all for Your glory. Keep our minds fixed on the battle, courageous and humble. Stir our affections daily so we can be found serving Your Bride faithfully when You return to judge. Amen.

He was a humble leader and a humble follower. There was nothing weak about His humility. The Church would become so attractive if His humility could be seen in all of us.

It was handed to him. He has nothing to brag about. In the same way, if you have even an ounce of humility, it is only by of the grace of God. He blessed you with it. If we truly believe this, then it makes no sense to be angry at others for not having received the same grace. Thank God for any insight, wisdom, or humility He has graced you with. Quickly forgive anyone who has hurt you and pray God, by His mercy, would open their eyes.

We can cause real damage to our churches when we want our feelings validated more than we want His Bride elevated.

If you hear anyone speak negatively about another believer, bring them directly to the person they are attacking. Be courageous enough to lead reconciliation. “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt. 5:9).