Jumping out of the Bible

In Francis Chan’s latest book “Letters to the Church,” he shares about his first year after leaving his large church in suburban Los Angeles to start something new. It was something Francis himself wasn’t exactly sure what it would ultimately look like. He ultimately ended up in San Francisco, serving in a rough neighborhood known as the Tenderloin District:

I made some friends over the first year…We fed the homeless and went door to door to pray for people in low-income housing. It was scary at times, but I loved the fact that I was living by faith in America…I remember asking my kids what they felt after one of our first outreaches. Rachel, my oldest daughter, blurted out, “It felt like we jumped out of the Bible.” I knew exactly what she meant. We were experiencing something in America that was congruent with what we read about in the New Testament! We felt alive, on an adventure that required faith, and it was right here in our backyard.