Francis Chan @ RightNow Conference

Continuing from my last post, here are my notes from Francis Chan at the RightNow Conference this past weekend.

Understand that as I was listening and writing notes, not everything I heard was written down. Taking that into account, some of what I write here will seem a bit disjointed and you may wonder how these things were said in the same talk. I may not remember myself, I'm going based on what I wrote and trying to remember what feelings were conjured up that made me feel like that was important.

Friday, Nov. 6, 9:00am

Do we really desire truth or do we discover what we want and then work to craft an argument designed to defend our assumed position?

Truth should be our objective, our goal. When Jesus said he was the way, the truth, and the life, we should take that to mean that Jesus is our goal. We should read scripture in its entirety and let it speak to us out of its own context. We must be as unbiased and objective as we can when we approach scripture. We will never be completely objective and unbiased, but we should at least be aware of our biases and assumptions.

What's the point with this?

Truth always leads us into greater fellowship with the Father, who is the source of all truth. When we present the gospel of Jesus, we must keep this in mind. Is what we're saying going to lead someone to Jesus or to ourselves?

As we look at scripture searching for truth about the church and her mission, it becomes clear to us that unity was important, was necessary. Looking in John 17, Jesus even prayed that we might experience unity, that we would be one. If this is the case, why are we surprised when we face division? Do we think the enemy is going to rest and simply allow us to be who Jesus wanted us to be? Isn't it possible that division comes from the enemy? Shouldn't we then re-think possibly why we say or do certain things? If we're not concerned about building up the Body, maybe our motives are wrong.

The church must also be outward-focused. Very rarely are people going to walk in the front doors of our buildings and say "I want Jesus." It certainly could happen, but most of the time we're going to have to be focused outward. It doesn't matter how inviting, contemporary, post-modern, or anything else our services are. In order to reach people, we can't force them in, we must take the church to them. We must exist to go into the world, willing to meet people where they are, and sharing with them the love of Jesus and how he is still active in the world today.

Then we must not be surprised at the trials we face. We will face oppression doing the work of Jesus. Instead of running from it, however, we must choose to embrace the persecution, counting the suffering as joy because it draws us closer to Jesus, who also suffered for the truth.