Interview with Francis Chan - HTB at Home

i'm here with francis chan who is i think first thing says a friend he's been he spoke here a few years ago and gave an um an unforgettable talk at http and then we had lunch with him and some of his family i've been such an amara of francis chan's preaching his ministry his his writing crazy love of course is a book which is sold i don't know how many but i suspect millions of copies around the world and i don't want to waste any more time with the introduction because i want you to hear from him so francis just tell us tell us about your because you have the most extraordinary background growing up yeah i mean it's i i love it uh you know my uh my mom died giving birth to me my dad remarried and then my stepmother died when i was eight my dad remarried again and then he died when i was 12. and so burying my parents obviously has a huge effect on you as a little boy and and just the thoughts of man i've got to take this seriously what happens when i die and just got very very serious about knowing that you know so while everyone else is having fun playing whatever i'm thinking about eternity because i i when you bury your your dad that's that's all you can think about at least for me and yet it caused me to seek after god and when i found jesus and really fell in love with him then my my biggest concern was all my friends and sharing the gospel with all of my friends and you know cutting class and telling my friends about jesus because i'm thinking we're talking about eternity like what age were you and how did that happen i think i fell in love with jesus in around 15 16 and and then just by sharing the gospel with all of my friends and not really want to do anything else that's when i just felt like god was saying do this with your life and i talked to my youth pastor about it and uh and we both just felt like yeah this is my calling so i was about 18. did you have a christian background there was some i mean my my parents were believers but it wasn't anything we ever talked about in the house and they their first language is chinese and so there was just a real lack of communication plus a terrible relationship with my dad to where we never even had a conversation so it was until after his death that i really understood the gospel oh amazing and then and now you have the most because i've met some of them the most amazing family amazing wife and she'll just say a little bit about about that because that's such a contrast from your own family i mean i i we have seven children my wife and i have been married for 26 years and i mean our 25 year anniversary last year she looks at me at dinner and goes do you know anyone on earth happier than we are because anyone that's more blessed than we are and she goes i keep thinking there's got to be someone out there that's as blessed as we are she goes but i've never met them and i feel the same way like even when lisa and i decided to move out here and take the you know the younger kids with us our two married daughters and our son-in-laws they fasted and prayed and individually came to us and said we feel like god's calling us to go too and so now there's 12 of us out here like hey they live like two blocks from me and and it's like my wife and i were in tears like who gets to do this it's just everyone's serving together and we just love being together like it's just so fun i i'm i can't even believe it and uh the title of your book crazy love needs no explanation when when you hear you speaking about your love for jesus your love for your wife your lovely your children just say a bit more about because that book has has such an impact what what what's the heart behind crazy love the heart was okay once i got into the church and i'm studying the bible it had such an effect on me like i'm going wait a second god is like that no one ever told me he was like that like how holy how huge like like we can't even look at him he's so beyond us and then that being you're telling me he sacrificed for me his son like this is insane it it my whole life should revolve around this i should have an insane response to that and yet i'd look around the church and everyone's just kind of hearing another sermon and i'm going are you are you reading is it's my bible the same bible you're reading because this is freaking me out right now this is everything to me and and so for so much of my christian life i was kind of calmed down like hey you know like yo you know it's the honeymoon phase it's this it's that you don't have to be so serious and i'm going no this seems very serious to me and that's when i just felt like i need to write about this because i bet you there's other people like me that just feel like man i should devote everything to this and you became a pastor and you built like a mega church huge church thousands of people um in your church and many people think oh that's the dream you know be a pastor make it better but you you built all that and you said no actually now i'm gonna do something totally different i i'm i i see something different and i want to do something different just explain why why did you decide that that that was not the model for you to have you know one person and thousands well it was really the elders that spoke to me it was some of the the professors at our bible college that were speaking to me some of the students that were talking to me and as we searched the word we saw man god calls for a deep deep intense love he says like like nick if you and i are in a church together i'm supposed to be one with you just as the father and son are one i go are you kidding me could you and i really be that close and yet that's his prayer for us and i'm thinking we're nowhere near that has even been a goal for us to be that perfectly one and all of the one another's in scripture and then the power of the holy spirit in every person's life i'm going i need everyone exercising their gift i i want this love between each other i want this multiplication of of leaders we're all supposed to be disciple makers and i realized everything was centered around me and i i just thought we we've got to change that so that was the idea many more was just like small groups and people meeting in in much smaller groups yeah i think part of it was when i went i'd always heard about the underground church in china but then to actually visit and see these believers that were so on fire that felt like they walked right out of the new testament meeting these believers in india same thing that just and yet they multiply to millions of people without a big name speaker it was about everyone sharing the gospel a lot of what you emphasize in alpha it was just like everyone should be doing this and but then it went beyond that to discipleship and planting these house churches and and i just saw the way they work together and i just go okay this is what we need for the future i also have heard you speak about your your trip to myanmar and impact that had on on you know what we read in the new testament we read in the new testament all these amazing book of acts healing miracles and we all believe that but then uh where do we see that um and uh it's often on the front line yeah people see it just say just say about your experiment and you've seen it for years but for me i've believed it could happen and then i started pursuing it but i still didn't ever i never saw it and it wasn't until i was really desperate i mean here i am in a village that has never heard of jesus never never heard the gospel and have been doctored in another faith for their entire lives and i'm gonna come along and i get this one opportunity to tell them who jesus is and i'm just trying to put myself in their shoes and go how could i ever believe that kind of message unless there was just a power that night that i had never seen my entire life and i begged god for that and after sharing the gospel we called people to come forward um for prayer and everyone i prayed for was healed i mean i had to be the most excited guy in the room and people were believing in jesus and wanting more of jesus how many people were at the gathering and how many people were you praying for and how were you praying for them there was probably there were two different gatherings and the village i would guess there were like 200 people in this upper room of the elders you know uh you know um gathering hall i guess it's kind of his house too but they're just cramming in and it it uh i mean there were people just saying i have this crazy pain in my back you know i'd lay hands and it would be gone oh my knee i've been able to stand up uh you know boom it's gone i mean i've prayed these prayers many times and nothing happens um the most dramatic for me i mean there was another deaf girl that a couple of our friends prayed for um her and her brother you know deaf from birth you know that could hear now and but the most traumatic was this lady that came up just her eye was swollen and so much pain in her head she said hardly think and it's all through a translator so i prayed and she says yes the pain's completely gone and she goes but can you take away the swelling and i'm like i'll give it a shot and i pray and it like went down like halfway and my translator looks at me and goes does it look like it's halfway i go i think so like let's keep praying and so i did it again and he looks and he goes because i don't know if you see what i see but i don't see any swelling anymore i don't either this like this is uh it's just so fun i just thought i want to live this every night of my life i i want to see god work like this yeah and that night there were probably 2 000 people at that gathering wow yeah wow and what was the impact you think on that on that village i mean the in terms of faith and change oh yeah yeah i mean there are people now that are being discipled um the the lady that got us in there she got there through just helping them dig wells and you know she bought some land from this or that that's why they allowed this message to even come in so she's still working with them people are being discipled you gave a talk i don't know how long ago it was the title is lukewarm and loving it and i guess it's kind of the opposite of crazy love lukewarm and loving it but anyway my daughter and a friend of hers listened to it and it had such a profound impact on their lives and i'm sure they must be one of probably hundreds of thousands of people who've listened to that talk but just say a little bit about um lukewarm and loving it my concern was reading that passage in uh revelation two and and uh or revelation uh that the church of laodicea i forget if it's two or three but uh just going wait a second he's saying uh you you're you don't realize that you're wretched pitiable poor naked blind and he he says i i'm asking you to repent or i'm going to spit you out of my mouth and because you're not hot you're not cold and and and i just heard so many christians kind of go yeah i'm lukewarm i'm lukewarm and i'm going that doesn't make sense like if you're lukewarm you're going to be spit out of the mouth of god and people could say well i'm a lukewarm christian and i'm going i don't think there's such thing because he's saying if you're lukewarm you're spit out of your mouth you're wretched pitiable poor blind naked those are not terms he uses for his children people were just too happy calling themselves lukewarm and thinking like there was a safety in that and i'm going that i was telling you like you shouldn't go to work tomorrow you shouldn't do anything until you have this figured out so yeah sorry can we preach it okay okay so francis supposing someone's watching this right now and they're saying yeah that's me and i that's not how i want to be um i want to be like france i want to be like france is like i want to be filled with that love uh will you will you pray for them right now will you will you will you lead them in a prayer leave them in a way that they can say to the lord lord yes and hey father i just pray for anyone right now god really doesn't know you that you would pour your grace out right now because you're the only one that can do it you're the only one who can open eyes please god show them how quick this life ends show them your beauty your glory like gosh to be loved by you protected by you for all of eternity may they see the worth of a god who would give his only son to die for our sins would you open their eyes to your greatness that they would want you as their king and want to be a part of this kingdom oh god would your holy spirit open eyes right now and if that's you just tell god lord i see your beauty right now and i don't want to lead my own life i want you to lead me i'll walk away from anything to be one with you i want your spirit in me come into me now and change the rest of the time i have on this earth until i see your face in jesus name amen amen oh francis thank you so much uh your words are so powerful and prayer was so powerful and a huge privilege for us to have you with us uh both both at htv and to all the other churches that are joining us today uh on behalf of them all i want to say just massive thank you to you thank you so so much

Channel: HTB Church

Views: 15,933

Rating: 4.8602152 out of 5

Keywords: Church online, HTB, Faith, Prayer, Hope, Positivity, Good News, Francis Chan

Id: 8y9hsCpkRVM

Length: 15min 58sec (958 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 17 2020