Here are my notes on what Francis Chan said at Verge this evening:
Exod 33:15 Moses said to God, “If your presence will not go
with me we will not go up from here.”
Do we want the presence of God more than anything? More than a big church? More than speaking in front of crowds? We easily lose sight of our original
intention of being pleasing to God.
Verge means the outer limit. This isn’t a “Let’s start a movement” conference. God is doing something and we’re on the
verge of seeing something happen.
Church 3.0 by Neil Cole is about everything the Lord has
been putting on our hearts.
You read Scripture and see one thing and go to church and
see something else. Love, unity,
etc.—the way the church ought to look.
Missional communities: Its not that we
are trying to create a movement. The Holy Spirit has started it, and He is
leading us. It’s not just
about breaking down the mega churches.
It’s about seeing it in the Scripture and doing what it says.
When I read the Scriptures, God doesn’t get mad at the
people, He gets mad at the leaders!
We have to change. We can’t
quit the process of change because it’s biblically driven. As we talk to other people, they’re
feeling the same thing.
You can take scattered verses to justify your theology but it
wouldn’t be the same as what you get through a simple reading of the
Scriptures. Would I ever have come
up with doing church the way we do just from Scripture? I wouldn’t even think about
the gathering. I would be on
mission. I would think, “I need to
reach as many people as I can and make disciples by teaching them to
obey.” And I would find others
doing the same and because we are so different we would need each other. I need people to stay on mission every
day. I would gather with people
who do the same thing, because it’s there in the Scriptures.
The disciples saw Jesus rise from the grave and had to tell
everyone. What wouldn’t make sense
would be if the disciples saw someone rise from the dead and just met together
every week for some songs and teaching.
If you had seen someone rise from the dead you’d tell everyone you met,
especially if he had told you to make disciples.
If we care about what Jesus wants, we will live like family,
His body, an extension of one another.
We would be of one heart and one mind.
We’re not strategizing a movement. You can’t create a movement. The disciples didn’t plan out the Day of Pentecost. (You learn Chinese, you learn
Spanish!) It was the Holy Spirit
working in a bunch of individuals but creating a unified result. This is similar. It’s God doing something.
Jesus is building his church and nothing will stop it. It’s not forced or pushed. We’re not here to start a movement. God has started a wave. Let’s pray for the believers in our
nation to love Him and start making disciples. Can we pray that He puts a love within us so we become
so much family that we are interdependent and share our belongings? Looking at Scripture we know He wants
these things. Mission, missional
lives, loving one another so much that people can see Christ in us. Make Jesus Lord instead of playing a “Jesus
says,” game. In the book of Acts,
the disciples were unstoppable. A
move of God will be unstoppable.
Can we continue the book of Acts?