Over the last two days I have finished reading a book by Francis Chan titled Crazy Love. In this short book Chan challenges his readers to live a crazy life for Christ. But what is crazy is that he is really calling believers back to the simplicity of the gospel. When asked how what he presents as content in this book is different from other calls for change to the church, Chan responds with this statement: “I’m going back to scripture and seeing what the church was in its simplest form and trying to recreate that in my own church. I’m not coming up with anything new. I’m calling people to go back to the way it was.”
Another time Chan was asked: Do you think God calls you (all Christ followers) to live a radical, crazy life? His response: “It’s not that this lifestyle should be crazy to us. It should be the only thing that makes sense…. The crazy ones are the ones who live life like there is no God. To me that is insanity.”
The book is really a challenge
to the perceived and sought after “American Dream,” and it is even more
challenging to us who live in such an affluent county. The same can be said of the area of the
country where Chan leads a congregation…southern California
God must be trying to tell me
something…only a few days ago I listened to a podcast that the pastor of the
Church at Brookhills in Birmingham,
Alabama
Having a crazy love for God and the things of God does call us to live radically different lives from what is the norm. Chan says this of the church he leads and of how they are trying to live: “It’s exhilarating to be part of a group of believers who are willing to think biblically rather than conventionally, to be part of a body where radical living is becoming the norm.”
Shouldn’t we as Christ followers be radically different from the world we live in?