Letters to the Church

Updated: see "what to take away" counter to the review that says applicability is lacking. From the book: "To the lovers of Jesus who are feeling discouraged, I pray this book gives you hope for what is possible. To those who knowingly or subconsciously are harming the church, I pray God gives you the grace to repent." I've felt the conviction over the state of the church--and my own wandering from the ideal pattern--for a while. To the point that four years ago, hubby and I thought maybe we needed to just find a home church or buy a house and have one. It's a vision that got sidetracked (spiritual war, God testing, not sure), but we were completely dissatisfied with spectator-church. And then I started hearing from more and more fellow believers how church has become a ritual, a consumption, an entertainment, a thing you do on Sunday, and not full of power and humble service, with everyone manifesting the gift(s) they have received from the Holy Spirit. I have especially been pained by the lack of prayer. Prayer, so important and essential to Christ and the apostles and the early believers....where is prayer on Sundays? Why is the time given to so little prayer? Communal prayer matters in Scripture, not just solitary prayer. I have been obsessed in my prayers and thoughts with those building blocks of the early church...and Francis expounds on them: apostles teaching, fellowship, prayer, breaking of bread/Lord's supper. When I saw this book, saw Francis addressing this, I preordered the book and am reading it. It's taking me a while, though I began 1 AM last night, when Amazon sent it to my Kindle. I keep stopping to repent, to pray, to praise, to ask God for help for me and the church, American and global. But especially here, on my continent. He provides many passages of Scripture, and I stop to meditate on familiar words, to see them fresh. So, while I am not done with the book yet, know that he does talk about what is very wrong with our modern way of doing church. How it doesn't look like the NT church. How we lack the power we should have. How we give in to gimmicks to draw in visitors. How we don't trust God to rely on what God has asked us to do. One part speaks of an experiment they did just reading Scripture. Not preaching or expounding on it. Just reading it. IN one case the whole thing in 72 hours. In another, all chapters of the book of Revelation, one person reading one chapter until all were done. I can't help but think this is something more churches need to try: just read Scripture. Read it, aloud, to the congregation. Have people come and read it aloud. When was the last time we did just that--not select verses, but just READ it, lots of it, out loud? I will update this when I finish, as I expect to savor it slowly ,weep more over it, pray over it, praise in moments--and you should read it like that, too. Just stop and address the Lord on the subject. Intercede. Praise him. Weep some more. Ask for His leading on how you (and I) can be agents of change and use our gifts in the Body, as servants. Please, read this book. It's for such a time as this. Updated 9/6: I continue to slowly read this, with prayer and pondering. I woke hubby at 5:30 in the AM today and said, "I want to talk to you about things from the Chan book." We talked for an hour and then wept and then prayed. Things I'd noticed wrong, he's noticed. But anyone reading would immediately see applicability--if you WANT to. It's like Scripture. It says be filled with the Spirit. Does it give step by step instructions on how to do that? But you know when you are because the fruit follows and you look back and think--oh, I prayed more deeply and longer, and I spent more time in the Word, and I made an effort to keep my minds on things above, and the fruit followed. Chan speaks many ways to apply changes--to pastors mainly, but to laypeople also. Here are some takeaways: 1. Pray a lot more. It's more important than activity. 2. Be ready to lose everything for Christ: look at your spending, look at what your goals are, look at your home, your savings. Are you hoarding? Are you spending yourself out of concern for the lost, giving away possessions as led and not focusing on a bigger house or a new car or a fancy vacation. Declutter your life of materialism. 3. Read the Scriptures, unvarnised. Just spend time during a worship service doing nothing but reading the Word aloud. No preaching. Just reading and hearing. 4. Allow young children into services. Stop assuming they should be off coloring and seeing talking vegetable cartoons. Childresn can learn, can worship, can pray for adults, can use spiritual gifts if they are saved. They can minister, too. Stop underestimating children who are in the Lord. 5. Stop underestimating the Holy Spirit. Expect miracles. 6. Expect suffering and embrace it. Tell yourself you must change your mindset to expect suffering/persecution and that you look at that joyfully, not fearfully. (I see a lot of fear in myself and in the American church and discomfort at the idea of persecution. That is not the apostolic view.) He gives an example of the Chinese Christians saying, "Lord, send me to a dangerous place. I will give my life for you. I'll die for you" and saying it with joy. He writes of the Iranian church that has those who will be new members understand the cost and sign a document that says they are wlling to lose all possessions, jobs, and lives for the Christ. 7. Simplify worship: get bread, get wine, get a Bible, sit and just worship together with these three. No videos. No fancy displays. No choir. No spectator sport or entertainment mentality. Word and the bread and wine and see what God does in an intimate worship. 8. Stop trying to attract people to churches (this was more for the ministerial staff) with fancy worldly elements. If they don't come to pray, worship praise, and love....they're not coming for the right reasons. 9. And this one is fundamental, I think, and it is also one pastors must focus on: Change the very basic structure of how we do church so tht every spiritual gift can be used to equip the church. We have church where teaching/preaching and music are the gifts utilized. Where is the ability for people to speak words of wisdom, pray for healing to see if a gift of healing is given, prophesy if the Spirit so moves. Have we stopped valuing the other gifts? How do we alter the very structure to allow for gifts to manifest and people to serve, not just observe? It may mean eliminating paid ministers. Shepherds/elders who work to support themselves outside of offerings. This forces everyone to use their gifts, since they can't say, "Well, we pay THEM to do that." 10. Expect to grow believers who will be able to leave your particular church body and start a new church. Believers who stop being babies and children spiritually, and grow up and grow OUT. Maybe expect staff to leave every few years (he names "five years" as one pastor's sign to move on). Move on and grow new flocks. Move on and learn from someone else. And all that and I'm still not finished with the book. Seems to me anyone who doesn't think there is applicability doesn't understand that CHANGE and REFORM are hard as heck. It can be done, but people must be willing to SEE the fundamental problems and be wiling to REFORM....ditch tradition and follow the Spirit. Be the church, not go to church. So, yes, there is applicability. We can all start applying it today, and may God move many pastors to undertake the harder work of looking closely at what they have created, upheld, supported, continued that should not be continued, upheld, supported. And sometimes ,you have the voice that shouts out what is wrong. Then others come in and say, "yes, now, here's what we can do to make that happen." One book doesn't have to be the how-to manual to be effective as the wake-up call.

I have given this book a five-star rating, because it is very well written and long overdue. Truly, it needs to be read and reread by all who belong to the household of Christ. Chan has been able to effectively articulate what I, as a Christian, have been struggling with interiorly for decades now when it comes to the present way in which the Church is structured and the manner in which she operates, both in the world, as well as in the lives of her own members. I have but one criticism... In this book, Pastor Chan infers that those who cease to attend church meetings voluntarily turn themselves over to Satan. By removing themselves from the safety and blessings of fellowshipping with other believers, Chan teaches that they have unknowingly turned themselves over to Satan. In the New Testament instances in which Paul used his apostolic authority to excommunicate men from the Church and turn them over to Satan, it was because these individuals refused to repent of their sin, and in so doing, were harming the Church. I believe that it is this refusal to repent which puts men out of fellowship with Christ and, consequently, into the hands of Satan, not the fact that he or she does not sit in a church pew on Sunday morning. I think that Pastor Chan needs to go a little easy on those individuals who have grown so weary of church gatherings that they have opted to no longer do so, especially after waiting for decades for things to change, but never seeing that change materialize. With heartfelt respect, I graciously ask this devout servant, what does he expect these poor people to do? When you are in ministry, church meetings are not boring because you are the one who gets to contribute and participate. You are the one who gets to exercise your gift. You are the one who gets to edify and build up a brother or sister in Christ. The meetings, therefore, cannot be boring for the preacher or the worship team because of this. But what about the hundreds or thousands who are expected to sit mutely for two hours in a pew, put money into an offering plate, listen to one man use his gift, and then file out until the following week? We interact with no one, for there is no opportunity to do so. We don't get to exercise our spiritual gifts. If the man in front of me is hurting, I don't know about it, so I cannot pray for him or be used by God to give some other assistance to him that would be beneficial. We sit together like strangers in a movie theater, everyone remaining silent while looking forward, and then we file out, hop into our cars, and drive away. We have not encountered Christ; we have encountered man. We have neither experienced the supernatural unity and love of which Chan writes about in his book, nor have we been given any opportunity to contribute except in the way of finances. Is it fair for Chan to chide people for opting out of the gatherings in the light of this dismal reality? Would he be able to endure the meetings if the roles were reversed and he was the one sitting mutely in the pews decade after decade, observing another man exercise his gift while no opportunity was given to him to exercise his? Would he be content with this? Church meetings have never been boring for the handful of individuals who get to exercise their gifts. They're busy, active, contributing, and participating, as Christ intends! But what about the rest of us, whose only expected contribution involves the opening up of a wallet? This isn't right. We, too, want to be given the same opportunity to exercise our gifts and interact with others so that the Church may be edified and built up in her most holy faith. But because of the way in which the church assemblies are presently structured, this just isn't possible. I think that those who are in the "professional" ministry live in their own world, just as the wealthy and our politicians do. It happens. Unwittingly, they live in a bubble, and because of this, they really and truly are unable to empathize with those who have the misfortune of existing outside that bubble. Their little bubble, and all that they experience and enjoy within that bubble - whether it be the ministry, wealth, or the political world - becomes the only reality they know. Because of this, they often are not able to fully identify with those who exist outside of that bubble. They don't understand what we face, and they don't have to endure it. I think that if every "professional" clergyman took a year off from "professional" ministry, stepped outside the bubble, and played the layperson, maybe they would get a taste of what it is like for those of us who are simply expected to show up, sit back, and do nothing. If these "professional" ministers were not given the opportunity week after week to contribute, participate, and exercise their spiritual gifts, would they be content to sit mutely in a pew, as they expect us to be? How would they feel if the only contribution which the present-day structure of the church gatherings allowed them to make was a financial one, and nothing more? Truth be told, we almost (not quite, but almost) meet like Quakers at a Friends meeting. Quakers sit in silence as a group unless an individual feels led to stand up and share something with the group. The sad thing is that at a Quaker meeting, the layperson has more of an opportunity to exercise a gift than we do in our non-Quaker church gatherings. Like the Quakers, we, too, are expected to sit mutely. The difference, however, is that the only person in the room who gets to "stand up and share what he feels the Spirit has given him to share" is the paid professional minister. If I want to sit like a mute in a pew, then I'll go to a Quaker meeting house, no? This is my only criticism of what otherwise is an outstanding and excellent book - one which seriously needs to be read and reread by all who profess to follow Christ in this world.

This book is important. I dont know any other way to say it. A very humble and love-filled book with the bluntness that modern day believers have put on the back burner for a too long. I read the bad reviews to see who missed the point and took it as split your church up guideline and move to your house. I have lived in large cities and gone to large churches and lived in small towns with small churches. If you go to a large church and you think there is accountability then you are fooling yourself. Large churches have the greatest intentions but a small percentage of the people do the labor. Small churches require everyone’s involvement to survive. The body is tight and of one accord because there is no other way to make it. Therefore you have accountability. Just showing up on Sunday morning to sit in chair is not enough. Narrow is the way not broad. Nobody will barely make heaven. You will either make it or you will be found wanting, nothing in between. Wonderful book full of great direct scripture and lots of wisdom in here people. This book is all about love and one another not how to run a church and questioning leadership. As long as you follow Gods commandmants, including not forsaking the gathering of the saints, you can make it.

Um dos melhores livro que já li.

Dieses Buch ist wirklich jedem nachfolger Jesu zu empfehlen.

Quite a surprising read. The model of church he suggests certainly leads itself to any culture and maybe what we finish up with as the west gets increasingly secular. It would by its very nature tend to exclude ‘pew fillers’ and the ‘consumer’ type of believer, and likewise the ego centric leadership. A lot of British churches however are down around that sort of number anyway, but this book might just be the answer they are looking for if there is a willingness to change. And I would suggest that that is the biggest issue we all face - are we willing to change.

Francis Chan gives careful thought and consideration to some of the situations plaguing the church today. His advise is heartfelt and biblical, not pointing fingers or judging but giving alternatives to mundane routines of the North American church experience. Bringing us back to the roots of the church which brought great multiplcation and challenges. His testimony and life experience can give new life to the church. A must read for everyone. I also love how he ends the book. It offers a challenging opportunity for every believer to look at themselves to see how they can grow and mature as believers and help their church to grow and function on a healthy way.

Good encouraging read