Lunch with Francis Chan

Let me start with this point of our trip....lunch with Francis! When I read his book, Crazy Love, this spring/summer..(ok...so I am a slow reader!) I actually read it twice...which for me is like un heard of!! It was exactly what I had been struggling with...love...loving God and loving others. I had a pretty negative attitude toward loving others unconditionally. So I was really looking forward to meeting Francis and listening to his testimony. Let me tell you...it was a lesson in humility. He tells us that he gives all the proceeds from the book to charity. He told us...now he is talking to ministers/leaders of churches and there is only about 25 of us...so I think he is a little more comfortable than in a typical crowd...that just this last week he got a check for over $300,000 and about how fun it was to write checks to charities and people in need. He said he and his wife never dreamed the book would be so popular. He said they joked about how cool it would be to be one of those people who could just write checks to people in need...and God said...ok..I will let you do just that thru this book! I think he will soon give away close to 1 million dollars...WOW!! And to top it off...he no longer takes a salary from his church. He only gets what he receives from speaking. He is a pastor and loves his church. I was just so humbled by his love for the kingdom and truly following God in a radical way. He said people told him he was dumb and that he should save the money for an emergency...his response...millions of orphans are not considered an emergency...people dying of aides isn't an emergency...people not knowing the gospel isn't an emergency? If those aren't emergencies...I don't know what an emergency is? Matt and I had a chance to speak with him and he is just a down to earth real guy. I spoke with his wife for awhile, a completely humble woman of God. Someone I would love to spend more time learning from. He had a lot to teach us about loving the church and how Jesus established it and His love for it. I will post more about that later. But lunch was a great experience for us. I felt so blessed to be there, filled my heart up!