by Francis Chan
Revelation 2:10
8
UNLEASHED
I was having lunch in São Paulo with the pastor of a thriving congregation. I began encouraging him for the exciting things I saw happening, but he stopped me mid-compliment and said, “Yeah, but the church still feels too much like a zoo. So many churches feel like zoos. We take these powerful animals out of the jungle and put them on display in cages. Have you ever seen the movie Madagascar?” I immediately knew what he was talking about.
The movie begins with a bunch of “wild” animals in a zoo. All the spectators are in awe of these powerful and exotic animals. Everyone’s favorite is the lion; the children go crazy, cheering every time he roars. Most of the animals love this setup. They’re extremely well cared for. Trainers wait on them hand and foot, bringing them everything they need and ensuring that their habitats, which are carefully designed to look like “the wild,” are safe and comfortable for the animals.
But the zebra finds himself dreaming about the wild. He can’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t made to live in a zoo; he was made to roam free. His restlessness creates a situation where several of the animals escape the zoo and later find themselves stranded in the jungle of Madagascar. The movie is hilarious, mostly stemming from watching domesticated animals trying to survive in the wild. These animals were born to live free, born with the instincts and physical characteristics required to thrive. But their zoo environment had made them tame, useless in the wild.1
I wonder whether you’ve felt like the zebra. You’ve been a faithful member of your church, but you keep feeling like you were made for something more. Maybe you’ve even experienced what it’s like to live in the wild. It may have been on an overseas mission trip or while boldly reaching out in your own neighborhood. You’ve known the joy of seeing your instincts kick in and allow you to thrive. But now you’re stuck in the zoo, where everything is comfortable, everything is controlled. And you just want to get back to living in the wild.
LESSONS FROM THE EAST
I was in Seoul at a breakfast for megachurch pastors. One pastor, who was leading a church of seventy thousand people, asked me, “How can I get my people to leave and live by faith?” He explained how he had become really proficient at gathering people together, but his intention was to get them to disperse to share the gospel and live by faith. But now they had grown comfortable and didn’t want to leave.
Another pastor of a smaller church (“only” forty thousand people) explained that the founding pastor had told the congregation not to stay in the church longer than five years. In his mind, after five years, there wouldn’t be anything else they could learn from him. Like a child turning eighteen, it would be time for them to start a new journey. But they were running into a problem: once the people got comfortable in the zoo, they refused to leave. In fact, they no longer believed they were able to live outside the zoo.
I was in Beijing, speaking to pastors who used to lead underground churches. Now that oppression was easing up in China, they had been given more freedom, so they began taking their churches above ground. They rented buildings and started running services the way we do in America. It was great for a while, but these pastors became so discouraged. I wish I could convey the frustration and desperation in their voices. 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. They had seen this same transition in Korea and were terrified it would happen in their context as well. All anyone wanted was a Jesus and a church that served their needs and kept them comfortable. What started as a movement became a bunch of people sitting safely in services.
My mind flashed back to five years prior when my daughter and I went to an underground gathering in China. Young people were praying so passionately, begging God to send them to the most dangerous places. They were actually hoping to die as martyrs! I had never seen anything like it. I still can’t get over the fearless passion for Jesus this church embodied. As they shared stories of persecution, I sat in amazement and asked for more stories. After a while, they asked why I was so intrigued. I told them the church in America was nothing like this. I can’t tell you how embarrassing it was to try to explain to them that people attend ninety-minute services once a week in buildings and that’s what we call “church.” I told them about how people switch churches if they find better teaching, more exciting music, or more robust programs for their kids. As I described church life in America, they began to laugh. Not just small chuckles; they were laughing hysterically. I felt like a stand-up comedian, but I was simply describing the American church as I’ve experienced it. They found it laughable that we could read the same Scriptures they were reading and then create something so incongruent.
I was talking to a pastor from the Philippines who has over thirty thousand people in his church. 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.
Sometimes it takes an outsider to point out glaring issues we have become blind to. This pastor now trains missionaries in the Philippines, in an environment where there’s no temptation to stay. It keeps them on mission. In the wild.
HYPOTHETICAL POWER?
When the Bible describes the power available to you, doesn’t it sound like hyperbole? It seems so extreme, yet we see so little of this in our own lives and in the Church. The discrepancy could challenge your faith in the Scriptures—how can the Bible promise things we never experience in real life? But are you willing to consider that the Bible is accurate and the Church has domesticated us to the point where we doubt our power?
Perhaps we’re all so comfortable in the zoo that we dismiss “the wild” as a myth. Are we sure our churches aren’t zoos?
Rather than producing powerful and fearless missionaries who go to the ends of the earth, we are left with thirtysomethings who live in their parents’ basements and complain about not having a singles’ group. After all, how can a Christian possibly survive outside a singles’ cage with weekly feedings? We’re busy reassuring one another that God wants us to do what’s safest for our families and to pursue God in a way that looks suspiciously similar to what we’d naturally do if our only concern was our own comfort and happiness.
Church, the answer is not to build bigger and nicer cages. Nor is it to renovate the cages so they look more like the wild. It’s time to open the cages, remind the animals of their God-given instincts and capabilities, and release them into the wild. Alan Hirsch said, “In so many churches the mission of the church has actually become the maintenance of the institution itself.”2 The way to destroy the victim mentality is not by giving them more but by sending them out.
“[I pray you would know] what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.”
Ephesians 1:19–21
Take a close look at the words “immeasurable greatness of his power” (v. 19). When is the last time someone reminded you of this truth? It is similar to what Paul said in Ephesians 3:20: “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us.”
Name three people you know who live as if they believe this.
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.
We are capable of so much more. We are like ferocious beasts who were made for the wild. When we gather as the Church, we are supposed to “stir up one another to love and good works” (Heb. 10:24). Don’t get me wrong—it’s fun to watch a lion eat a piece of meat the zookeeper throws at him, but it’s pretty lame compared with watching a lion hunt in the wild. It’s time to train people to live in the wild again. Even our gatherings should feel wild (while remaining orderly). Read through the kinds of things happening in the churches in Acts and 1 Corinthians 12–14. They were urged to remain orderly, but God was doing some crazy things through the Church.
How would you describe your gatherings? I’m guessing wild isn’t applicable.
KEEP THE CHILDREN AWAY
I’ve never said that phrase out loud, but I did actually put a sign in the church lobby saying kids under five years old were not allowed in the sanctuary. We encouraged kids under twelve to be in kids’ programs rather than with the adults. I think I had good motives. I didn’t want the infants and toddlers to distract, and I felt the kids could get more from a program made specifically for them. I still believe we have to be mindful of those factors, but there’s a bigger story here.
If the Holy Spirit enters a person at salvation, do the believing children receive a full version of the Holy Spirit? If so, do they have gifts meant to build up the body? Notice the shockingly strong language Jesus used when He spoke about children in Matthew 18.
After telling the disciples to allow the children to come close to Him, Jesus made the following statements. I picture the kids surrounding Him, maybe sitting on His lap as He taught the adults, saying, “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (v. 3).
I’m not sure you can make a stronger statement than that. It should produce trembling rather than warm feelings about a cute kids’ verse. If our entrance into heaven is predicated on our childlikeness, shouldn’t that cause us to pay close attention to children in order to imitate them? Jesus went on to say,
“Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”
Matthew 18:4–6
Could Jesus’ language be any harsher? And He used this strong language to speak against those who mistreat—or even undervalue—children!
“See that you do not despise one of these little ones,” Jesus said. “For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven” (v. 10). There is some debate about precisely what “their angels” is referring to. Regardless of the exact meaning, this is a severe warning to people like me who can too easily get irritated by disobedient kids.
Jesus insisted, “It is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish” (v. 14). Right before Jesus said this, He spoke about the one lost sheep as opposed to the ninety-nine safely within the fold. Read it in context. Did you know He was talking about children in that passage?
God values children and their role in His Kingdom far more than we do. We need to repent of this and do all we can to value their contribution. God sees them as far more than an obligation or inconvenience. In my setting, these passages have led us to incorporate our children into our gatherings, and the results have been powerful. 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.
LESSONS FROM AFRICA
My friend Jen leads a ministry that currently disciples over 250,000 children in Africa on a weekly basis. These children actually go into unreached people groups, heal the sick, and preach the gospel. Kids! Last year (2017), these children shared the gospel with 169 unreached people groups. They are sharing the gospel in places where adult missionaries have been killed for trying to spread the gospel. There are stories of God doing things through them we could never imagine Him doing through us.
Jen tells me of how these kids went into a village where there was great spiritual darkness. Children in the village died mysteriously every week and no one could figure out why. The kids fearlessly stayed in the village and prayed for hours. The entire situation lifted because of their prayers, and children in the village stopped dying mysterious deaths. Many in the village were led to Jesus. There are many other stories of children going in simple faith to heal animists and Muslims in the name of Jesus. 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.
RELEASE THE CHILDREN
We need to start reminding our children of their power. Maybe it’s our lack of expectation from younger kids that bleeds into the way we treat middle-school kids in the church. We teach them as if their only goal is to refuse to drink or have sex. Then when they hit high school, we try to entertain them enough so they keep coming. A far cry from the one lost sheep! We can keep doing things the way we’ve always done them, but maybe we need to do more releasing and less taming. What would happen if we trained our young lions to attack rather than keep them sheltered? It’s time we obey Jesus’ words and set ourselves in the posture of learning from our kids.
I have been a father long enough to know that there are no perfect, one-size-fits-all answers to parenting. Parenting is one of the most difficult things you can pursue. So please understand I am not saying my way is the right way. I just want to add to the conversation. I am amazed by each of my kids, but I don’t dare take credit for their faith or accomplishments. Any good in my children is 100 percent by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit in them. I believe this and thank God often for saving and empowering my kids.
Having said this, there has been a significant shift among Christian parents toward homeschooling. I’m not saying this is inherently bad. All my children have gone to public school thus far, but that doesn’t mean we will continue public schooling. I just have to say that I have seen God use my children in powerful ways in the public school. Far beyond just keeping their virginity or staying away from drugs and alcohol, the Spirit has used them in great ways. We have seen them share the gospel, lead friends to Jesus, and stand for truth before classrooms. They have challenged teachers and brought several into the Church. None of this should surprise us if we believe in the Holy Spirit.
Some say it’s unfair to throw a child into a public school. They compare it to throwing a kid into a rushing river to teach him or her to swim. It’s unfair and impossible. That assumes the Holy Spirit has limited or no power in their lives. I have chosen to see my children as Olympic swimmers. I tell them they are missionaries in their schools and can trust in the Spirit’s power to overcome challenges and to have an impact on those around them. My hope is this training in Holy Spirit dependence proves helpful in an unreached people group or Fortune 500 company.
Again, I am not saying everyone should throw their kids into public school. I am also not saying we should foolishly endanger them. I am just wondering whether our habit of underestimating God’s power in them may be a mind-set we develop in them that continues through middle school, high school, and into adulthood. Maybe our lack of courage took a while to develop.
RELEASE THE PEOPLE
As I’ve been wri
ting about children, I’m really not just talking about children. Our kids are simply a case in point for the way we function in the Church. We underestimate them, and we’re afraid of what will happen if we let them loose, so we keep them entertained, educated, and insulated. Is this really any different from the way we treat the average member of our churches?
Of course, when we structure our churches like this, it’s not just the children or the average folks we are underestimating—it’s the Holy Spirit! We’ve built our modern churches on the assumption that God works through a few talented, impressive, and wealthy people. And we give all the other people a comfortable seats from which they can be blessed by what God does through these leaders and influencers.
I honestly believe we in the American Church need to get on our knees and repent of our condescending attitudes toward God’s Holy Spirit. We have read Scripture’s clear statements about the Spirit manifesting Himself through every Christian, but we’ve decided we know better, these people aren’t ready for anything serious, and it will be more effective if the talented few do all the heavy lifting. 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!
Don’t get me wrong—our zoos are impressive. The animals have really learned to be at home in their habitats. In many cases, an audience member might feel as if he or she is really in the wild! But we know there’s something more. 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.