Crazy Love Observations: Preface

I’m so glad you’re joining me (and the rest of the Grace Church family) for our summer reading program where we’ll be working our way through Francis Chan’s new book, Crazy Love, at the pace of one chapter/week. I like the idea of knowing that even if we occasionally miss seeing each other on Sundays due to summer vacation schedules, we can stay connected through this little book. I think you’re going to love it—Crazy Love is the number one best-selling Christian book in America right now, so it’s definitely resonating with the hearts of a lot of people and I think it will resonate with ours as well.

I’m actually doing several reading programs this summer: Amber and I are reading Watership Down together, Madelyn and I are tackling Flat Stanley, and I, personally, have my usual stack of about eight books that I’m working my way through (I’m one of those notorious readers who always has multiple books underway—it might be nice if I actually finished one). By the way, Jessica isn’t part of our family reading club—all she gets to read this summer is her Chemistry textbook.

I had planned to comment on both the Preface and the first chapter this week, but I got stuck on the Preface—actually I got stuck on the Preface’s opening quote from Francois Fenelon: “To just read the Bible, attend church, and avoid ‘big’ sins—is this passionate, wholehearted love for God?” Did that quote grab you, too? I like the summary on the back page that reads, “It’s crazy, if you think about it. The God of the universe—the Creator of nitrogen and pine needles, galaxies and E-minor—loves us with a radical, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. And what’s our typical response? We go to church, sing songs, and try not to cuss.” As you can tell before even getting into the opening pages of this book, God is calling us to more.

He’s calling us to more love, more devotion, more sacrifice, more adventure, and more impact in the world around us. And we’re ready for that as a church family! Although these types of messages are always challenging and uncomfortable, we’re ready for it—we’re ready for a dimension of life where “radical living is becoming the norm” (page 18).

Let me conclude this first note with a quote from page 19: “We need to stop giving people excuses not to believe in God. You’ve probably heard the expression, ‘I believe in God, just not organized religion.’ I don’t think people would say that if the church truly lived like we are called to live. The expression would change to ‘I can’t deny what the church does, but I don’t believe in their God.’” We’re becoming that church!

I love you all! I hope you're having an awesome summer!

Chris