A few weeks ago in this post I shared a short clip from the DVD teaching aid accompanying Francis Chan’s bestselling book Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God.
In the clip, Francis articulated his struggle to base his beliefs strictly on the written word, and not on what others fed him outside of it. His conclusion from reading scripture only: if you want to become a Christian, you shouldn’t walk an isle and pray a prayer, you should repent, be baptized, and be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Honestly, he is the first leader outside of Restoration Movement churches I have ever heard say or teach this, and I was quite shocked to hear him do so (so were many others as revealed in the ensuing discussion). In the Restoration Movement, we’ve been teaching this for many years, and have taken much heat and been accused of many unkind things for doing so. It’s encouraging to me to see at least one ‘mainstream’ evangelical leader in agreement with us, and, at the risk of sounding pretentious, with scripture!
One commenter (Tyler Ellis – a campus minister friend) directed me to further teaching from Francis on this subject, and that teaching is what I would like to share with you today.
I encourage you to watch this lesson, take a few notes, and share your thoughts in a comment. This is the simplest, best lesson on repentance, baptism, and the Holy Spirit I’ve heard in a long time, and would love to hear what you think about it. It’s 39 minutes long, and well worth watching.
Here’s the video (if you’re reading this in a feed reader or via email subscription, you may need to come to the actual website to see it):
Love to hear from you. What do you think about this?
Thank you to Tyler Ellis for the sharing this with me.
For more teaching materials and study aids by Francis Chan for use in your ministry, go here. To access archived sermons by Francis Chan at Cornerstone Church, go here.
Matt Dabbs
The Overflow 