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Letters to the Church · The Wesley Word

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Wesley Word.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, this is Andrew Wetzel here.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the assistant campus minister of Clemson Wesley, and I'm super excited to be back on this podcast.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Bailey today has invited me to talk about something I feel very passionately about, and so I'm excited to share that with you.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Today I plan on talking about the book Letters to the Church by Francis Chan.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's a book by Francis to the churches of today, similar to Paul's Letters to the Churches back in the New Testament.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Francis has seen and felt put upon his heart by God that the churches we live in today and the churches we serve today are a bit short of the goal that God has set for us as a church and how to live as a church together and as a family.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so today I plan on talking to you a bit about this book.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's a few goals I have in mind for this.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, it's to expose you to this book.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: This book is one of the admittedly few religious texts that aren't the Bible that I have read through.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I've just found this book extremely convicting and profound.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: And to be completely honest, it's put a lot of words to issues I've personally felt in my life with the church.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's things that as I was growing up, things in the church felt discontinued from what the Bible was saying.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: And never exactly was able to put perfect words to that.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: And reading through this book, there were some things that just clicked for me, and I thought they were extremely profound.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope to share that with you.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: I hope to share some things from this book for you that can maybe be convicting and maybe will help you feel accountable in your faith.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: But then also just to expose you to this book in general.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I will be sharing with you a few of the things that I found extremely convicting for myself and things that I've noticed in the church as well.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: So to summarize what I'm going to talk about today, there are eight chapters in this book, Letters to the Church.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to dive a little bit deeper into the first four.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to talk about the most profound and convicting things I found in those four chapters to me.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: They may be different for you if you end up reading the book.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm going to quickly summarize the last four chapters so that if you do go and read this book, which I I hope you will, you will have the opportunity to see some of Francis Chen's ideas and general concepts and thoughts for yourself.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you don't have to just take my take my thoughts, because that's never a great way to learn.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, to start off, I'm going to talk about chapter one called The Departure.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is Francis Chen's talking about the separation between what our churches look like today and what a biblical church would look like.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: And throughout this, for an example, I'm going to pull some texts from the book.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them may be verses that Francis has quoted, and some of them may just be some of his own words.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I will try and signify when I'm speaking exactly his words and not my own.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: So to start off, he he has a little section that says, Forget everything you know about the church.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then imagine the only way to learn about how our churches should function is by what is in the Bible.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Close your eyes and try to picture church according to the Bible.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now think about your current church experience.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: Is it even close?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then he follows up that thought experiment with a question, can you live with that?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think that specific question was just extremely convicting of me.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And because I think it's clear to some of us, um, if you've read I think it's clear to a lot of us, if you've read um much of the Bible at all, you see, especially um Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, um, and much of what the letters of Paul has written, that the church that they lived in today, while not by any means perfect either, is very different from the church we live in today.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think that can be pretty pretty obvious, but we're used to it.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then he asks the question that's a little more convicting is can you live with that?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for a lot of us up to this point, um, we've thought not much about it.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: We've never made that decision of can we live with it because it's the way it is.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's what I'm sure many of the attendees of the churches and that uh Paul wrote letters to back in the day also had in their minds.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: This is just what church is, this is what we go to, this is how we live out our faith.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: And Francis Chan here is trying to um hold us accountable to not necessarily just accept that, but to maybe be changes in that community.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: One thing that Francis does say in this chapter as well, um which is a very important thing to say, is that pastors today have some of the hardest times um leading.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very hard time to be a pastor with all of social media and the ease of communication with our pastors.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so he holds us accountable as churchgoers as well, to not just read this book, see clearly the faults in our churches that um Francis has opened us to, and then go to our pastors and say, Hey, you need to fix this as a pastor.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what he does more is he says, we need to have um restraint, we need to be able to show love as well and understand that they're doing their best and that we as churchgoers need to be a part of that solution and not just calling to other people to solve that.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: So another section Francis Chan talks about, he says this.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, I want all of us to live holy lives.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: I have seen too many Christians packed into too many churches who seem to have no interest in actually doing what the Bible said.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: I can't get past the tragic irony of this.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: These people would come back week after week to hear from a book that demands that they be doers of the word and not hearers only.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's from James 122.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: But they never seemed to do anything.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: Not that I was perfect or expected anyone to be, but I wanted our church to be a group of people who push one another toward action.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think that can be seen very clearly as well in our churches today.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um we, for example, in in much many work environments, we have the 80-20 rule or 2080 or 1-4 rule, and it's that 20% of people do 80% of the work.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um some people today say that maybe even more skewed, 10% to 90%, and that sort of thing.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: But that's what Francis Chan is illustrating here is that we have so many people in our churches who don't do any of what the Bible says.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: We have so many people in our churches who never actually serve in the church, which is what we're called to do.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of our church growers, including myself sometimes, um, were there to sit and be served, and Francis Chan is saying, Hey, that's not what we're here for.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what a church should be.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um He then goes on to say, Jesus said that the world would know us by our love.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: As elders, we came to the painful conclusion that when believers came to our services, they weren't observing anything supernatural about the way we love one another.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Francis Chan is talking here about his church Cornerstone in Simi Valley, California, which was one of the biggest mega churches in California at the time.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and he has since had been convicted by God as well of what he felt he was falling short in his church and has moved on from Cornerstone.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: But at the time, he mentions that Cornerstone in the community was known to be a very loving church.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: They were known to be so loving and just stood out in that way from each other.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um but the elders in the church they were discussing that while they were very good at loving each other, there was no supernatural love there.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's something as Christians we forget sometimes too, is that we think we're we're really kind people, we're really forgiving, we're really merciful, we're really patient, and all the things that we're called to be.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: And we compare ourselves to the world's standards.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: We compare ourselves to the average of all of our friends and all the people we know, and we say, hey, I'm better than that average.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um but if you think about it that way, so are half the people.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's how averages work.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Half the people are better than the average.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we're not called to be better than the average of the world's standards.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: We're called to God's perfect love.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's what he's saying here is that they weren't observing supernatural love, they were observing above average love, while better than below average love is still not to the standard that God's calling us.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so he continues, when I look at what went on in Cornerstone, I saw a few other people and me using our gifts, while thousands just came and sat in the sanctuary for an hour and a half and then went home.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm know a lot of us don't go to thousands and upsized churches, um, but that's still seen every day in our churches around us today as well.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: That we go to church and we see X number of people serving, and we see ten times that coming, accepting the scripture, participating in the music, and then going home while never actually um partaking in the serving that we're so called to do.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so here Francis Chane goes back to calling people not to go angrily to their pastors and say, hey, you need to fix this, hey, you need to do better.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um he mentions there's enough division and arrogance in the church already, and that's so true.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, especially within the United Methodist Church.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you've paid attention to anything happening in those um big assemblies, there is a lot of division in the United Methodist Church.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: And there's so much arrogance.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody thinks what we believe is right, and that's generally how beliefs work, but it's it's gone beyond that.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: We're not listening to each other.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a lot of dissent, and that's true in politics as well, as we've all seen today.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that's always going to be true of the world.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's one of the issues with the world, is that we're so easy to to split and show hate towards each other.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: But Francis Chan is reminding us that we're not the world, we are a church, and we need to be um maybe not necessarily beyond that, but working to get beyond it.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we need to have unity in the church, if nothing else.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: And Francis Chan ends this first very convicting chapter, um, starting off on a strong foot, saying this.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I pretend that the clock is a countdown of my life.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: I imagine that I'll be standing face to face with God when that time expires.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: This gives me courage to say everything I think he would want me to say.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: If I was really going to die today, I would care very little about people's complaints.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: I would be obsessed with seeing the face of God and wanting his approval.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the same set he says he used in writing this book, and this is the same thing he says when he speaks, that he wants to speak without the pressures and fear of of men's judgment, he wants to speak solely for the approval and and for God's glory.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think that's a great mindset to have for us as well.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: And any um interaction we have with any time we're speaking to a group or any time we're just talking to a friend.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if we were to die after that moment and we were to go and talk to God, um, would he be approving of our message?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And this shouldn't be something we're afraid of.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: We shouldn't be, okay, I may die after this, so I need to I gotta make sure I don't mess up because that could be the end of this.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: This should be a word of encouragement that um we don't have repercussions from man to fear.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have repercussions from our friends, um, from our families, from our communities.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: When we die, all that matters is is God's approval.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: And with that mindset, I think it's can be easy to not dismiss, but to put in the put into size and put into shape the different fears sometimes we have of people around us and really put into perspective that our eternity with God is gonna outweigh any small discrepancies there.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that doesn't mean you get to uh tell your friends they're terrible sinners and then move on.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um this just means we get to hold each other accountable with love and that all of those repercussions from our friends and from our families, um, as long as we're showing them love and bring glory to God, that's what's gonna matter.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: So the next thing in chapter two, Francis Chan brings up, um, is known as is called sacred.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: And he brings up the issue that we as a community um don't hold things sacred anymore.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And and I know I've been certainly uh guilty of that, um, of not holding things sacred.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: I used to have the mindset of anything can be joked about, it's just a joke, and that's okay.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um since then, and unfortunately only the past year, I've I've worked on that mindset and started to relearn that there are things that are sacred, there are things that shouldn't be joked about, and there are things that shouldn't be taken lightly, and um been working on reorienting my mind around that.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um so here Francis brings up a few examples of of things being sacred.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: So the first one he brings up is um God killing Uzzah.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: So Uzzah was traveling with the Ark of the Covenant that was being pulled by two bison or buffalo, one of those animals, and it hits a pothole in the road and it tips over, and Uzza goes to catch the Ark of the Covenant to keep it from falling, and he touches it.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he tried to keep the Ark of the Covenant from falling.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: But because he touched it and God had commanded no one to touch the Ark of the Covenant, um, God killed him.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: God said, anyone who touches this Ark of the Covenant will be killed.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um Uzzah, with good intentions, made a small trivial mistake and tried to catch this uh Ark of the Covenant, and because of that, um God killed him as he said he would.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: The next example was Saul.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: So Saul was going to battle.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um God told him to go to battle at a certain time and place, and Saul decided I first, before going to this time and place, should make a sacrifice to God to bring God glory.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: But because God had said, Hey, you need to be here and there then and then, um, and God said, But I needed you to be here at this time, and you were late because of the sacrifice, you're gonna lose this battle.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: And and Saul did.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the next example Francis brings up is um Moses didn't get to see the promised land because he struck the rock rather than speaking to it.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um he goes on to saying, Ananias and Sephir were both struck dead because they lied about how much money they donated to the church.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: And the last example he gives was when Paul told the Corinthians that many of them were sick, and some had even died because they celebrated communion in an unworthy manner.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Francishin then asks another very convicting question.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: If Paul wasn't exaggerating, could we be one slip away from death?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is a very scary thing and a convicting thing and something to be conscientious of if we believe that God really has power in this world.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's something that I do believe and I think is is core to our beliefs as Christians, is that God is still a moving God today.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: God, our God is still alive and doing work in the world and is still omnipotent and omniscient and can still do power.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a core thing in our beliefs as Christians.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so if we think that's true and God says these things, these things are integral, and if you fall short in this way, um, there will be serious repercussions in your lives.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: If we believe that, we should keep that in mind.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: We should be very conscious of that.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Francis Chang then goes on to say, we don't understand what it means for something to be sacred.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: We live in a human-centered world among people who see themselves as the highest authority.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: We are quick to say things like, that isn't fair, because we believe we deserve certain rights as humans.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yet we give very little thoughts to the rights of God deserves as God.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Even in the church, we can act as though God's actions should revolve around us.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um So he's talking there about how uh we don't see God's rights as sacred.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: We are so worried about ourselves and about um what things we deserve.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that mindset is so easy to fall into.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um in Francis Chan will talk about that a little more in a second.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: He says that there are things that belong to God, sacred things.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: His Ark of the Covenant, his command to Moses, his offerings in the temple, his Holy Spirit, his holy communion, his sacred church.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: In all of the above situations of times when people didn't take God's things as sacred, people rushed into something sacred and paid the price.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: We shouldn't be surprised.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: We should be humbled.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: We have all done things more reverent than those mentioned above.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Let's thank God for his mercy and tread more carefully into sacred matters.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's times like that in Scripture where we read things and we see God's repercussions, or um, somebody's forgiven for something and we are just reminded that maybe we've done things worse than that in our eyes.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we've done fallen short more, we know our own thoughts, we know we've fallen so short of God's love that He wouldn't be able to forgive me for that and that sort of thing.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think this is the same thing there that we've all done worse than trying to catch the Ark of the Covenant from falling.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's an instinctual thing.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's something that seems like the right thing to do in first thought.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: And we've all lied at some point in our lives.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Many of us have stolen something.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um and just the fact that God has shown mercy to us for that, uh, we should be so grateful.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then also that we should tread more carefully into sacred matters in the future, as uh Chen says.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we should be careful not to just rush into things and just pretend like we know exactly what's going on, but we should take time to think and pray about these things and take seriously what God has said.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Francis then quotes Ecclesiastes 5, 1 through 3 and says this Guard your steps when you get to the house of God.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know what that they are doing evil.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Therefore, let your words be few, for a dream come dream comes with much business, and a fool's voice with many words.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's so Um true and such a good mantra for us in in keeping things sacred of we should draw near to listen and and be slow with it.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: We should be quick to listen, slow to anger, and all those things that we hear over and over again, but can be so difficult to put into practice in our lives.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um and while they are they can be difficult to make into a habit, uh Francis here is saying that they're just so important to that that we can have real consequences in our lives, whether from God or from other things happening, that we should be taking seriously.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: He then goes on to to quote 1 Corinthians 3, 16 through 17.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him, for God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: So here he's talking about um in 2 Corinthians 7, when first came down God's glory upon that that temple, he says, Would you consider taking a sledgehammer and striking the temple?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Of course not.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Then why are we so quick to gossip, slander leadership, and divide the church?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's such a paradigm shift for some of us, and I know it was for me when I first read that, and that he mentions specifically in this book, self-deprecating jokes and things like that of why would we joke about something of God's creation like that, especially things that are God's temple.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Since we are God's temple now, since the Holy Spirit has come down and filled us, why are we joking about ourselves?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I know me, I fall short a lot of um making light jokes um to other people, and it's something I'm definitely working on, but it's something that I should work on harder because it is such a serious thing.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um we should be taking these things seriously because we are sacred.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: God has made us sacred, God has made us holy, and if we treat ourselves as light things to be joked about and treat each other as the same thing, um we might as well be taking a sledgehammer to that temple, as um Francis says.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Francis also talks about specifically how much God hates division in the church.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: He quotes Titus 3.10 in saying this as for a person who stirs with division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Francis says, we can't be enablers of division.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: God hates this sin too much, his temple is too sacred.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is a thing of contention among Christians sometimes, but that the Bible is often very clear about um, Paul says this numerous times, and especially about people with division, that we should have nothing to do with them, that people who cause division within our churches should be cast out of the church.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that often seems contradictory to what we think as Christians.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um we think that everybody should have as many chances as they need, but Paul specifically says people that cause division in churches, he says here they get two chances.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um they get the first chance, and then the second time they're out.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: No three strikes, and you're out, just two.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: And if this is something that will cause people to get cast out of the church, uh, why are we not more focused on stopping that division?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Why are we so um easy to gossip about people and to slander and to um have rifts among a community that's supposed to be united?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Why are we so easy to just decide we're not gonna hang out with those people and not talk with those people?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um when we're all in one loving body of Christ that we should be serving our community, we're too focused on serving ourselves, like he says earlier.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then he ends this chapter with Do you see why this all matters so much?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Many today choose church as optional and rather connect with God in their own in their own way.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: Without all the weird people making things more difficult.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: We can empathize with them, but when we see the church from God's perspective, we can appreciate it according to God's design.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he mentions that we're all part of a brilliant plan that God started before the earth was created, um, and we'll this plan will go on way after we're all gone, that we are all a part of.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: We are all intricately designed to live out God's love here.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: And his point here is that we're meant to live together.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: We're a plan of a united community, in that while we can understand why people leave the church, maybe the church um has not shown them the love that they're called to.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe the church is full of clicks and people show up and they don't feel welcome.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, maybe the church um tells people they are hated for how they live their lives.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, whatever those issues are, and clearly um Francis believes and I believe that our our church is faulted, um, that we need to make sure we're not driving people away from the church because people have decided that they're gonna take their faith into their own hands and just be with God on their own because they can't stand to be with us.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um and how bad of that is is that of us to drive people away just by our actions.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um what a what a horrible thing for us to do.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I know I've been guilty of saying things and and doing actions that have made people be like, Well, I don't know if I want to be a part of that.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um moving on to chapter three, called The Order.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Paul talks a lot about our church services and how we attract people to the churches and maybe some issues there.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um he starts out with this The early church didn't need the energetic music, great videos, attract.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Leaders or elaborate lighting to be excited about being a part of God's body.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: The pure gospel was enough to put them in a place of awe.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's such a surely convicting thing of many of our church services, but also such a profound thing.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: If we really think about, we want to grow the church as best as we can.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: We want as many people to know God's love and to know Jesus as Lord as we can.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's one of our missions here on earth.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we think we know how to do it better than God did.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: We think we knew how to do it better than Jesus did.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think that's a mistake, and Francis does too.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: And when it's phrased like that, it's easy to easy to see maybe the fault in our ways.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's easy to see that if this wasn't how God chose to do this, if this wasn't how Jesus chose to do it, this wasn't how the disciples chose to do it, this wasn't how Paul chose to save people, why is that how we would do it?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: Why would we do it any differently than they did?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: Do we think we know better?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, when it's put in that context, it's easy to see that that means we're doing it wrong.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if we're doing something differently than God would do it, that just means we're wrong.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's no, well, I know better now than he did then.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's not a that's not a chance.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's a that's we're wrong.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that just means we need to figure out a way to do it more like God would.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: The next thing Francis goes into is an exercise he runs through with uh with his his leaders, with different church leaders when he works with them.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: So he starts off and he says, first make a list of what people expect from a church service.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, very normally he'll get things like this a good service, age-specific ministries, a style, volume, and length of singing that fits them, a well-communicated sermon, good parking, clean buildings, coffee, child care, and and many more.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um so they they have that list of things that people expect from a good church service.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then he says, make a second list, and write the list of commands that God gave the church in Scripture.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: And the list goes like this Love one another as I have loved you, visit orphans and wit and widows in their affliction, make disciples of all nations, and bear one another's burdens.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then he says, Would people be more upset if the church didn't provide from the first list or the second list?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: For me, the the toughest thing about this is that I think if we answer honestly, people are not not gonna go to a church when that church doesn't serve orphans and widows, but they will go to that church if they need child care and that church doesn't provide it.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: They they will avoid a church if they think the the sermons go too long and they wanna they want to get to lunch.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think that's just such a sad thing that our priorities have gotten so out of whack.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then he quotes Alan Hirsch in explaining his experience with attracting people to a mega church in Australia, and Alan Hirsch has this to say if you have to use marketing and the lures of entertainment to attract people, then you will have to keep them there on the same principle because that is what people buy into.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that is such a good model just to focus our church on.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: If we want people to stay because of the awesome worship and the awesome sermons, then we should have those.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's how we should get them there.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: We should market our great sermons and our great worship, and the people will get there, they'll realize they like that, and they'll stay because that's what they came for.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but if we want people who stay because they want to love their community as much as they can, they want to love one another as much as God loved us, they want to serve the orphans and the widows in their afflictions, um, then we should market that to those people as well.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Frenchin then goes on to make another point that man, it's he phrases these things in such a way that it makes them seem so obvious.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um that you're like, oh, of course that's how that works.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we just get so muddled and caught up in our own ways of thinking that we get lost sometimes.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he gives us this example, this this parable per se, and it's this if it's 11 p.m.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: and your 10-year-old asks for a latte because he's tired, you need to tell him to go to sleep.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Sleep is the right solution for his fatigue.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Too often we have given people what they ask for rather than what they need.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: There are times when the most loving things we can do is teach people that joy will come only when they stop screaming for attention and save their voices for the throne.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: By catering to our churches, by catering our churches to the worshipers and not to the object of our worship, I fear we have created human-centered churches.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: For me, when he was and this is the great thing about this uh this parable, is that once you see the first half of it, you know exactly where he's going, and it's it's already convicting.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: You you hear that obviously you don't give your kid coffee at 11 p.m.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: when he's tired, and you tell him to go to sleep, and you're like, okay, I get where this is going.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just so convicting because we have just for so long in the church just given people exactly what they want.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: If they want um people out there showing them where to park, that's what we give them.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: If we want um them to have a coffee bar to get them going there early in the morning and stuff like that, that's what we give them.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: And there's nothing wrong with those things, but that's not what they're there for.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: And specifically, this line of by catering our churches to the worshipers and not to the object of our worship, I fear we have created human-centered churches.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that's so true.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: We have exactly catered our churches to get people there, to get them comfortable when they're there, and to get them to stay there.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: And people staying at churches and getting to churches is not a bad thing, but the fact that we cater our churches to that goal makes that our goal.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: Our goal then is to get people to church.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: And Fresh Sushann is reminding us that the purpose of church is to worship God.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um and once we stop getting people there to worship God, um, we've we've missed our goal.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: He says this many of us make decisions based on what brings us the most pleasure.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is how we choose our homes, jobs, cars, clothes, food, and churches.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: We pursue what we want, then we make sure there are no biblical commands we are violating.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: In essence, we want to know what God will tolerate rather than what he desires.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: This reminds me so vividly of a sermon that uh Andy Stanley did, and I saw back when I was in high school, of making the moral choice versus the wise choice.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: And when we think about things like this as well, it leads us down a much different path of there are so many times we can make choices that aren't necessarily immoral.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the example Andy Stanley uses is if you have a cute secretary at your work, whatever, and you're married, and she asks you to go to lunch.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: There is nothing wrong with going lunch to somebody you work with.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um but is it the wise choice?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then he goes down the path of, okay, then she asks to go to dinner, and then you get a cocktail together, and keeps making these examples that these aren't necessarily wrong.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: Going to dinner and getting cocktails with those people are not wrong choices, but they can lead you down a wrong choice.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's what uh Francis Chan is saying here too.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: When we focus so much on making sure there's nothing wrong with what we're doing, um we can essentially talk ourselves into anything.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh very clearly there are so many things in the Bible that are for contention that if we're merely trying to justify what we are doing, that's that's very easy to do.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: We can take things out of um, we can take verses out of context, uh, we can read different um transcriptions so they they fit what we want.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's too easy.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: But if we want to know what brings God's glory, um, we know exactly where to find that too.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so if we're then instead making decisions that are wise and saying, hey, will this decision bring God glory?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, is this what God desires for me?
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna lead us down a much different path than we say, is there something wrong with me doing this?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because that line will move and move and move as far as we need it to.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um Francis Shannon brings it back to the church here and he says, the first church was built on the things that pleases God the most.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was to focus on the right things that actually made them attractive.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: You can't read through the book of Acts without thinking, that's a community of people I want to be a part of.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then he goes on to saying, absent from this account is any attempt of the part of early Christians to conjure up some sort of powerful experience.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: They weren't strategizing ways to get people interested.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: And once again, if if we want to do things differently than God, then we're gonna fall short of the way God would do it.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: But God wasn't strategizing the ways to get people interested.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: He was calling people to live out their lives in a loving way, and that church grew so fast.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: And if we want our churches to grow in a similar way, and if we want to bring God as much glory as possible, all we have to do is just live in a way that brings glory to God and shows that love, and that'll that'll happen.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: We don't need good music, we don't need good speakers because the word of God is alive, and if the Holy Spirit is in that, it's gonna bring glory to God, and that's all we're really looking for.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, no modern church growth movement would take this approach seriously.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: Where's the excitement?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, these elements are the basic building blocks, but do you really think that you can accomplish anything with just the apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Haven't many churches tried this?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, no, the difference is devotion.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: The people back in Acts in those churches were so much more devoted than we are.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: They were just devoted to the apostles' teaching.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: They were devoted to fellowship, they were devoted to breaking of bread, and they were devoted to prayer.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: And Francis says, We're just not like that.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: We just are so quick to get up and leave and go back to our regular lives.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: But if we're living our lives like this, that's how he's saying we should we should grow our church.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then he says this While we can't force people to be devoted, it may be that we have made it too easy for them not to be.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: By trying to keep everyone interested and excited, we've created a cheap substitute for devotion.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: And this here, I think, is the most um convicting part of being someone who's a leader in in a Christian community.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so true that we while we should just serve people, we don't also call those people to serve.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: We don't also call those people to be challenged and to do things outside of their comfort zone and to do things they think um may cause them discomfort, but would bring glory to God, and we absolutely have made things too easy to not be devoted.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um later on in the book, he mentions talking to another pastor in a different country or in in California, and this pastor says it feels like he's still in the zoo, like he's tried everything, but people just come to watch and then they leave, and they never are actually living out the life.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um he says the Christians are like um the animals from Madagascar, where they used to be these ferocious beasts capable of um sustaining living out on in the wilderness, but now they've been pampered too long, they've been fed, they've forgotten how to hunt, they've forgotten how to how to live freely, and he's saying that's the same way we are.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um the last chapter I'm gonna talk about in depth is called The Gang.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um in this chapter, Francis talks about um if an elder in his church that used to be a gang member and and the differences he found between the gang and the church.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um So he opens with this We live in a time when people go to a building on Sunday mornings, attend an hour-long service, and call themselves members of the church.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: Does that sound shocking to you?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: Of course not.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: We all know good Christians go to church.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: But have you ever read the New Testament?
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Do you find anything in scripture that is even remotely close to the pattern we have created?
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Do you find anyone who went to church?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: He gives another uh parable esque.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: He gives this example of Paul and Peter speaking today, and they say this.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, where do you get at church?
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I go to the river.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: They have great music and I love the kids program.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: Can I check out your church next Sunday?
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not getting much out of mine.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna be there next Sunday because little Matthew has soccer.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, sounds good.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, do they have a singles group?
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: And Francis said it's comical to think of Paul and Peter speaking like this, and that's because it is.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's ridiculous to think these people that were devout um Christians, that were devout followers of God and really treated Jesus as Lord, to converse like this and to live their life like this and to make this their identity as Christians.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: So then he goes on to talk about Rob the elder in his church.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: He says this one of the elders of my church, Rob, spent most of his life in gangs.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: He encountered Jesus in prison, today is one of the most loving people I know.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Rob tells me stories of gang life and fear he felt when he left his gang to join the body of Christ.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: To do this in prison can be suicidal.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't just physical torture or death he feared.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: He dreaded the rejection he loved.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: The gang was his family.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: They were loyal and dear friends who looked out for him twenty four seven.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: There was a love and camaraderie from being in a gang that he had enjoyed since childhood.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now he would lose those relationships and be hated by them all.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Francis says when God describes gang life, much of it sounds like what the church was meant to be.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: He says obviously with a few major, major differences.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: But he mentions that being a family is essential to both.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: But while we use family terminology at our churches, Rob's stories have convinced me that the gangs have a much stronger sense of what it means to be a family.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Could you imagine a gang life being reduced to one hour weekly meetings that people sometimes miss for soccer games?
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, every week we hear Christians asking each other, how is church?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: Something that God has designed to function as a family has to be reduced to an optional weekly meeting, and that has become normal, expected.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: If we're not convicted by this, if we're not even disheartened by this, uh we should be a little a little sad and and maybe refocus where our minds at if we think that we are being outdone in camaraderie and love by gangs, people known for murder and drugs and all the things that we we see as evil, um, we should not be outdone by them in showing love to our friends and showing love to our community.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um his example here is just to illustrate how far we've fallen away from what a church community should be.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that we shouldn't be going just once a week.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: And he's not saying that missing church for an hour once a week is is a horrible thing, that you missed for X, Y, or Z, and now you're you're done.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now you now you've missed out on church.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: He's saying church should already be so much more than this.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: He's saying church should be a lifestyle, that we should be seeing and talking with these people every day and making sure they're okay and knowing exactly what they're going through, so we can either um feel sad together or feel joyful together, that we can go through times of trials arm in arm, or that we can lift each other up when when great things are happening and be in praise and joy together and and and throw a party when we are all in great places and really feeling God's love.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the difference he's saying between the gangs um and between what we as a church are and what's expected of us.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and close out.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's a there's a few more four chapters in there um talking about how we're meant to be servants in the church and how we fall short in that, how we're meant to be good shepherds.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then chapter seven's about crucified, and chapter eight's unleashed.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: And in these chapters, he just brings a lot of examples of churches in other countries um that are still being persecuted and that are still going through these horrible times, and how maybe that persecution has made them better Christians, and maybe the fact that we're not scared for our lives, maybe the fact that we are just living here comfortably has made us um too soft and that we have forgotten how to go be warriors for God.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um so my challenge for you from this is if this book seems interesting you, um, grab it.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's like$12 on Amazon, not a not a bank breaker.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: If you need some help with that, um let me know.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure I can find you a way to read this book.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but also that if you felt convicted by something in this, if you um felt that we as a church are falling short and um not living up to the the standard that God has set for us, um don't just be disheartened by that.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: Don't just be okay with it, don't just hear this be like, yeah, that's tough, and then move on.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um I want to challenge you to do something about it.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: I want to challenge you not to go yell at your campus minister, go yell at your um pastor, go yell at your youth leader.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I want to challenge you to be a part of that change in your church.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I want to challenge you to be the one who cares about your friends 24-7 and who's making sure they're okay.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: I want to challenge you to be the person who attracts people to God's love.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: To because you love people so well and so much, like Paul and Peter did, that they want to be a part of that.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: I want to challenge you to know you're sacred, to know your worth, and to know the worth of those around you, that we're all God's children, that God loves us so much.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I want to challenge you to speak and that every interaction you have, um, you can live like it could be your last.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: You can live like after this interaction, I may be face to face with God, and I want him to be pleased with how I acted.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because the Holy Spirit's in us.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: God is with us, and while we can't be perfect, um, that's not an excuse not to try to be.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm gonna I'm gonna close with this last thought.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, this was from a different talk of Francis Chan, and he talks about how how short we fall of loving God, and how that's because we're human and we're broken and we can't nearly love God enough as much as he deserves.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: But God has the power to do that.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: God has the power to fill us with the Holy Spirit and love him as much as he deserves.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna put that prayer on your heart, hopefully, today.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you can focus on that and some of these things in here.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope you've learned something from this, and I hope um this helps you to grow and live your life as a better Christian, um, as we all should be working on on a daily basis.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, guys.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: The Wesley Word is a production of the Clemson Wesley Foundation.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: For more information about Clemson Wesley, check out our website or follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, get out there and love your neighbor.