Francis Chan’s new DVD arrives just as he steps down from leading his megachurch in California to become “obscure again”. But that is not going to be easy for a best selling author and this DVD series is unlikely to help either in that respect.
Pastors of American mega-churches often appear to have it all sown-up. Slick presentation, smart suits, glamorous wives, and an almost infallible sense of an anointing on their ministry. Their worship centres are like magnificent concert halls and their media output is prodigious and glossy.
Francis Chan however isn’t like that. So much so that he has recently stepped down from his role of leading Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley in California, a church of over 6,000 people which he started in 1994, because he is concerned that he may be in danger of going ‘off-message’ – listening to people around him more than he is listening to God.
So he is taking his wife, Lisa, and four children (eldest 14) away from California for a while – to where is not entirely clear yet – to allow him time to get back to God, to listen to him and to immerse himself in God’s word without the distractions which have built up around him in his ministry. He says, “I want to be obscure again, to talk to people who don’t know what I’ve done.”
So this might seem like a strange time to release a new series of DVDs, produced by Flannel - the company behind the bestselling Nooma DVDs by Rob Bell. Well the new series, titled Basic and published by David C Cook, follows hot on the heels of Chan’s first two books Crazy Love and Forgotten God, which have
sold amazingly well for a first-time author. It’s a logical step in many ways, as there are DVD of both books and plenty of YouTube videos of Chan available. The timing may seem strange, given Chan’s decision to step out of the spotlight, but the first three of seven DVDs in the series will be released in the coming months.
In the first video Fear God, Chan begins by asking us to recover our understanding of what it means to be in fear of God. However he is not an advocate of the ‘fire and brimstone’ view of an oppressive God who wants to subjugate his people, he just wants us to recapture that sense of fear felt by Moses, Abraham, Jacob, Elijah and Isaiah, to name just a few, when they came face to face with the living God. He points out that in scripture it says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” (Ps 111), suggesting that in the church today we may have lost that sense of fear. This is not, he says, about reverence or respect - although these are good and valid responses to God - but about intense fear. “The moment you see God you are going to fear him.”
So is this all a rather doom and gloom and depressing message? Well no it isn’t (and it is something which we need to consider, asking ourselves whether or not the church has become too ‘matey’ with God and Jesus by following cultural trends). This is certainly a meaty issue for discussion in your church or home group. The film does indeed manage to instil a real sense of fear in the viewer as you watch the girl on the bed slowly become … well I won’t spoil it for you. But safe to say the relief I felt when she ‘let go’ and was saved, really churned up the emotions from fear to relief. The quality of the production is superb, as we have come to expect from Flannel, as is the Personal Reflection Guide which is included.
DVDs Basic 2 (Follow Jesus) is released this autumn
and Basic 3 (Holy Spirit) is due in Spring 2011.
Basic 1 – Fear God / Francis Chan / David C Cook /
9781434700766 / DVD / 15mins + extras / £9.99
