BRAVO, FRANCIS CHAN, BRAVO!

Last April, Francis Chan, author of the best seller Crazy Love, resigned his position as pastor of Cornerstone Church, a megachurch in Simi Valley, California, which he founded in 1994. According to Chan, God was calling him to “pursue a new adventure.” There was no scandal or coercion involved in his decision—he was following what he described as “a leading from the Lord.”

I was surprised when I heard about Chan’s resignation and watched to see what would develop as a result. What happened next actually surprised me more than the resignation announcement itself. Several of Chan’s peers, also megachurch pastors, openly questioned and criticized his decision to leave the church. These criticisms went something like this:

1. “Everybody thinks you are coco for coco-puffs.” In plain English this insulting comment means, “Are you crazy?”

2. “Why leave when you don’t know what you are going to do?”

3. “Are you establishing a bad pattern that you will repeat again in a few years?”

I watched an interview with Francis Chan, Mark Driscoll (pastor of Mars Hill Church, Seattle) and Joshua Harris (pastor of Covenant Life Church, Gaithersburg, MD). Questions and criticisms came out of this interview, but what I didn’t see was as disturbing to me as what I did see. I didn’t hear anything remotely scriptural to back up suggestions that what Chan was doing was wrong. Secondly, I didn’t hear anything from the critics about seeking the face of God for direction. Instead what I heard was largely, “Well, here’s what I think or believe.”

The prevailing, unspoken statement of criticism of Francis Chan seemed to be: “Why would you step down when you have a thriving church? That can’t be right.”

As I watched the interview and later also read some of the printed material about this matter, I am left with a large reservation about these critics. “I wonder if these men acknowledge God as the Lord of the vineyard” (Luke 20:13).

Is there a biblical precedent for what Chan has done? The answer is yes.
In Acts 11 word reached the church in Jerusalem that something unusual was happening in Antioch. Large numbers of Jews and larger numbers of Gentiles were getting saved and becoming a part of the church. The elders in Jerusalem were concerned about what they heard and sent Barnabas to Antioch to investigate on their behalf.

A brief word about Antioch; it was the third largest city in the entire Roman Empire and an important center of commerce, with more Gentiles than Jews living and doing business there. It was to Antioch that some Christian Jews had fled to escape the persecution in Jerusalem. These Christian Jews interacted in business with the Gentiles and within a short time Gentiles began receiving Christ in greater numbers than Jews. In contemporary language, “a spiritual awakening” had begun. This was a surprising development in the early church and that is what the leaders sent Barnabas to investigate.

Barnabas was delighted at what he saw and he encouraged the Antioch church to be wholehearted in their devotion to the Lord. Barnabas stayed and began to minister to the church, which continued to grow.

After a while Barnabas realized that he needed help in leading this exploding and unique church, and the Holy Spirit brought to his mind a man he had come to know about six years earlier. Saul (we know him as Paul), after his conversion, had only been with the leaders in Jerusalem for a few weeks when the brethren there banished him to his hometown of Tarsus (Acts 9:26-30). Acts 11:25 tells us that Barnabas went to Tarsus, found Paul, and persuaded him to join him in Antioch.

For a year Paul and Barnabas worked to establish the church in Antioch. Paul was the perfect fit for this church: highly educated, a rabbi, a lawyer, and an Old Testament scholar. All this, coupled with his courage and leadership skills and his assertion that God had called him to reach the Gentile world, made Paul a great choice to be involved in organizing and growing the church in Antioch.

We are told that after a year (Acts 13:1-3), the Holy Spirit instructed the church to “release Barnabas and Paul to the work to which I have called them.” So the church did as they had been divinely led: “They fasted and prayed, and placed their hands on them and sent them off” (Acts 13:3). This is truly the New Testament church in action.

Could Paul have stayed in Antioch and had a great ministry? The answer is yes, he could have. The church in Antioch was very likely the largest church in the world at that time. Some historical writers suggest that the Antioch church could have numbered up to 30,000. What God was doing in Antioch was a microcosm of what He would later do throughout the whole Gentile world. Christianity would stop being a Jewish sect but would be available to all. Paul could have stayed in Antioch and pastored this great church, written books and letters, trained missionaries, and developed the doctrines that fill the pages of his thirteen letters.

So why would Paul step down from this tremendous success and step out into a world of the unknown? Because God told him to! It’s interesting to note that the church in Antioch lost its two top leaders, because Barnabas went with Paul on his missionary adventure. But it still thrived! The church in Antioch had a reliance on the Holy Spirit and His leading that is sadly missing in today’s church.

So, to Francis Chan, ignore the critics and do what God had led you to do. Join Abraham in going out even though he did not know where he was going (Hebrews 11:8).

Bravo, Francis Chan, bravo!