Church leaders have been urged to depart from sugar coating the gospel in order to reach a broader audience.
Notable USA preacher and author Francis Chan on Thursday implored churches to be willing to proclaim the Gospel with its truths and standards unaltered to accommodate ‘the feelings’ of the world.
“Wouldn’t it be better to not talk about a fear of God, not to talk about His holiness, and just kind of slowly talk to them about their needs, their hurts, their feelings?” he commented, believing that some seek “to leave that stuff” about judgment and fearing God “for later.”
“Jesus had no problem losing the crowds. We’re infatuated with numbers. Jesus wasn’t.”
Chan urged that Church leaders must be bold about teaching “the fear of God” and that “there is a judgment that’s coming,” noting that the Bible is “so much about the judgment of God.”
“Paul had no problem with just saying ‘I’m just going to lay it all out, because if you don’t get it, it’s because the god of this world is blinding your minds,’” said Chan.
Last year, Francis Chan left his thriving US megachurch, turned his back on the fame that ministry had brought him and moved his family to a developing country.
Everything, Chan observe as he explained why he quit, centred around “a speaking gift and a sermon”, “people were flocking to preacher-man Chan, rather than seeking an encounter with God.” “One of the problems at our church is when I hear the words ‘Francis Chan’ more than I hear the words ‘Holy Spirit’.”
As he spent time in Asia, among persecuted Christians, the leader caught a fresh vision of what church should be like.
He returned back in California, and started a new church-planting network called We Are Church (wearechurch.com).
Each church in the network is made up of 10 to 20 people.
Chan told media reporters then that the smaller size means Christians are able to “truly know each other and carry each other’s burdens”.
Each church meets in a person’s home, so there’s no need to fundraise in order to purchase large buildings, and the church leaders are all volunteers, so they don’t need to take a salary.
All the money that is given to each church is spent on the poor and on mission and the wider church family is “constantly evaluating” whether it’s time to “multiply” (ie start another congregation), so every pastor is charged with training another leader to follow in their footsteps.
“The great movements around the world are not from one person preaching to thousands but by mobilising hundreds and thousands of believers to trust the word of God and trust the Holy Spirit. And I really believe that’s the only way we’re going to reach the world,” he said then.
News Agencies contributed to this report.
