Letters to the Church

by Francis Chan

  While many pastors boast of how many children sit under their care, doesn’t it make more sense to boast of how many have graduated from their care? Isn’t it more a sign of failure when children are unable to leave the house? Raising thousands of consumers is not success.

  THE SPIRIT-FILLED PASTOR

  When you hear the word Spirit-filled, what do you picture? Who do you picture?

  I said earlier that we all have a concept of what it looks like for a person to be possessed by a demon but less so by the Holy Spirit. Let me put it this way: we all know that there’s a massive difference between a demon-possessed person and one who isn’t. Shouldn’t there also be a huge difference between the Spirit-filled person and the nice person who doesn’t know Jesus? Let’s not confuse theological knowledge or general kindness with being Spirit-filled. Is your pastor Spirit-filled? Are you?

  Disregard how you imagine a Spirit-filled person acting. Ephesians 5 describes the Spirit-filled person this way:

  “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

  Ephesians 5:18–21

  Paul compared it to being drunk. We can all picture a drunk person—the way their speech and movements are impaired. When your body is filled with alcohol, it affects everything. In the same way, when we are filled with the Spirit, we can’t do anything without His influence. We open our mouths and God comes out because we are filled with Him. That’s why Spirit-filled people are “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (v. 19). They are filled with praises for God, so when they talk to you, those praises come out. Spirit-filled people are singing and making melodies in their hearts because that is what the Spirit always wants to do. They are “giving thanks always” (v. 20) because the blessing of the Spirit’s presence makes them grateful. They submit to “one another out of reverence for Christ” (v. 21) because they are humble and respect the leadership God has appointed. The Spirit of God affects all their relationships.

  Galatians 5:22–23 lists the fruit of the Holy Spirit; most of us are familiar with these. It is easy to look at this list and think, Yeah, I’m pretty loving, patient, kind, etc. I guess I’m displaying the fruit of the Spirit. But if our love is a result of the Holy Spirit’s work, shouldn’t it be outstanding? Overwhelmingly different? Let’s not be too hasty in attributing to the Spirit something that others can muster up in the flesh.

  Don’t we all desire to be led by a pastor who is truly filled with the Spirit? A person who has a supernatural power, boldness, and character? I have been praying for the miraculous. 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?

  THE MISSIONAL PASTOR

  Jesus commanded us to reach the ends of the earth. This is for His glory, their salvation, and our well-being. We were created for a purpose. We find fulfillment when we stay focused on the mission. Pastors must set the pace in having an urgency for helping those who suffer. 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.

  “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

  James 1:27

  It is God’s heart to be a Father to the fatherless (Ps. 68:5). Those who have His Spirit in them should naturally have compassion for those who suffer. Pastors can fixate on really strange peripheral things when they lose sight of mothers who are watching their children starve to death. We can complain when we forget we have brothers and sisters being cruelly tortured in prisons right now. We have a tendency to argue and divide over trivial matters when we forget hell exists.

  Every pastor has given a message on the Great Commission (Matt. 28:16–20). How many are living exemplary lives showing they are serious about Jesus’ great command? Let’s pray for and become a generation of leaders whose hearts break for the lost and suffering. It’s no secret that church buildings are currently full of self-centered people coming to consume. The answer is not just telling them to stop being so selfish. Pastors need to engage them in helping the lost and desperate around the world.

  THE SUFFERING PASTOR

  We will spend a full chapter discussing our need to be suffering servants, so let me just say to leaders specifically that our people often need more than words. They need to see the example of a leader who rejoices amid suffering. Take time to contemplate your words and actions while going through rough times. As your disciples watched and listened, did they witness Christlike forbearance and endurance?

  We are too quick to get discouraged and quit because we have not learned to rejoice in suffering. Show me a pastor who rejoices in suffering, and I will show you a pastor who will be in ministry a long time. When pastors who rejoice in suffering make disciples, you end up with an unstoppable church.

  UNLIKELY LEADERS

  Some of you may have read this chapter and thought, My pastor doesn’t match up. This may be true, and in some cases it might be best to walk away from your current leader. That is a very serious decision and should be made only after lots of prayer, humility, and biblical reasoning.

  But that was not the point of this chapter. My hope was that each person who reads this would seek to rise up and become that godly leader. It may feel overwhelming to picture yourself becoming a suffering, missional, Spirit-filled, equipping, loving, humble, praying, Christian pastor. But let’s remember that this is what the Holy Spirit of God longs to do in you. Don’t look at this daunting list in the flesh. Apart from the Holy Spirit, this is clearly impossible. For those of us filled with the Spirit of God, this is everything we want to become. Don’t fight against what the Holy Spirit may be trying to do in your life.

  There have been times in history when shepherds became corrupt. God confronted the shepherds strongly in the Old Testament (Ezek. 34), and Jesus did the same with the religious leaders of His day. His solution was to replace the professionals and train a group of ordinary, uneducated people to change the world. People like you.

  God hates it when we underestimate the potential He created us with. He has always valued faith; people take His words literally. Ephesians 3:20 must be a verse we shape our lives around, not just a catchy quote we paint on our walls. The Church is in dire need of a fresh wave of godly leadership. 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.

  7

  CRUCIFIED

  “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

  Galatians 2:20

  In the Ironman Triathlon, participants swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and run 26.2 miles.1 If I asked you to watch it with me, many of you would consider it. If I asked you to compete in it with me, that number would drop considerably. 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.

  If you listened only to the voice of Jesus, read only the words th
at came out of His mouth, you would have a very clear understanding of what He requires of His followers. If you listened only to modern preachers and writers, you would have a completely different understanding of what it means to follow Jesus. Could there be a more catastrophic problem than this?

  There are millions of men and women who have been taught that they can become Christians and it will cost them nothing. And they believe it! There are even some who have the audacity to teach that life will get better once people pray a prayer and ask Jesus into their hearts. Jesus taught the exact opposite!

  Read these words of Jesus slowly and carefully. This is far more important than any of the following paragraphs I have written. Interpret His words for yourself.

  “Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, “This man began to build and was not able to finish.” Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.’”

  Luke 14:25–33

  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.

  There was no misinterpreting what Christ was calling for. This is why He had so few disciples. The call to follow Jesus was a call to die. The price tag was front and center. Jesus laid it out from the start and told people to count the cost before they got themselves into something they weren’t ready to commit to. Nowadays we just want to talk about the good part—the grace and blessings. And of course grace, forgiveness, and mercy are central to the gospel, but at the same time Jesus was very truthful and up-front about the costliness of the gospel, a concept that we completely neglect.

  In doing so, we’ve lost something so central to the essence of what it means to be Christian. Becoming a Christian is a complete and total surrender of your own desires and flesh to the higher purpose of serving God’s glory. It means you die to yourself and put on Christ. That is what you’re signing up for.

  “And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?’”

  Mark 8:34–37

  According to Jesus, far from having no cost, following Him will cost you everything. Far from promising a better life, He warned of intense suffering.

  “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”

  Matthew 24:9–13

  Jesus warned that false teachers would come and “lead many astray” (v. 11). This is why it is imperative all of us diligently study the words of Christ. If the above verses sound foreign to you or contrary to what you have been taught, find some new teachers! Run from any teacher who promises wealth and prosperity in this life. The call to follow Christ is the call to joyfully endure suffering in this life for the promise of eternal blessing in the next.

  “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.”

  Luke 6:22–23

  “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”

  Luke 6:26

  WHEN SUFFERING BECOMES STRANGE

  Suffering is rarely talked about in the American church. I find this ironic because suffering is all through the New Testament. I did a sermon one time where I went through every book of the New Testament and started reading verse after verse about suffering to show it’s not just in one book. It’s not just one verse. It’s all over the place. It’s one of the clearest doctrines in the New Testament. Over and over it says that as followers of Christ we’re going to suffer for Him; we’re going to be hated; we’re going to be rejected. I preach messages on suffering and people think it’s some kind of strange or new teaching, which is crazy given how prominent it is in the Bible. But we just don’t talk about it.

  The fact that this is such a major theme throughout the New Testament yet such a lost concept within our churches is a huge problem. The more I study the Gospels, the more I am convinced that those of us who live in the United States have a warped view of what it means to be a “Christian.” It is for that reason our churches are in the state they are in. A warped view of Christianity can result only in a warped church. But what if we started over? What if we bulldozed what we currently call “church” and started over with actual Christians?

  A believer from a house church in Iran (who can’t be named for obvious reasons) explained that people who want to join the church have to sign a written statement agreeing to lose their property, be thrown in jail, and be martyred for their faith. Many Christians are arrested in Iran and either executed or imprisoned for years. Fellowship looks a lot different when the church consists of those who have a biblical understanding of Christianity. Interestingly, some research shows that Iran has the fastest-growing evangelical population in the world!2

  When a friend of mine came back from visiting a church in Iraq, I asked him what the biggest difference was between our church and the church in Iraq. 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.

  Years ago, I was in China and visited an underground church gathering where I asked them about the persecution. And each person who stood up started sharing stories about persecution he or she had endured. Sometimes they had to hide in the walls because the government officials were coming. Some of them had even run from gunshots. But I wish you could hear the way they were sharing. Everyone was just laughing like it was a party! It sounded completely insane to me, hearing them laugh about being shot at. But it didn’t faze them, because they just expected it.

  And in their prayers, they were screaming out to God to take them to the most dangerous places. “I want to suffer for You. I don’t want to go to a safe place. I don’t. Please! I want to be counted worthy to die in Your name.” That’s the way they prayed. If you have a group like that, how are you going to stop them? That’s the way the Church is supposed to be—an unstoppable force—ready to take a hit and go right back into battle.

  I remember later speaking to a man who leads a whole network of churches in China. He told me about how there was a period when there was a little more religious freedom. He decided to test the waters and build a church above ground, just to see how well it would go. His church grew to a couple thousand people. Then the government went in and, sure enough, shut it down and hauled
him and the other pastors away. In hindsight, he told me he was actually really grateful because it brought them back to their DNA again. He told me they had started to lose it with the change of structure. 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.

  He explained further that they had started out with five pillars to the house church movement. He began naming the pillars, and at first I was tracking with him. The first one is based on a deep, deep commitment to prayer. The second is commitment to the Word of God. It wasn’t about the speaker but about everyone learning the Word of God, reading the Word of God. The third was being committed to the sharing of the gospel, so every member was sharing the gospel. These first three I felt lined up pretty well with what we were trying to do in San Francisco. The fourth was a regular expectation of miracles. Because of their prayer life, because of what they believed of the Holy Spirit, they expected the supernatural. That’s something we were growing in desiring and understanding.

  But then, with the fifth pillar, he completely blindsided me. He said, “The fifth pillar was we embraced suffering for the glory of Christ.” Whoa! He told me this is what they built their church on: embracing suffering. It struck me as weird then because I never would have thought of it. But the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that they were right to include it. It is spoken of all throughout Scripture. They included suffering in the plan for their church, just as the New Testament exhorts us to. And it showed in their fruit! Their church, when they stayed true to their original DNA, produced a group of people who were on fire for Jesus, willing to go wherever and do whatever—no matter the cost.