This month I have had the privilege of traveling with the North American Missions Board. I’m a member of a team called Invigorate where we go to college campuses in Ohio and neighboring states to evangelize and love on people for Jesus. This weekend, my team was able to attend the Southern Baptist Convention Conference in Baltimore, Maryland. I had been getting super frustrated while attending this conference because the other attendents just didn’t seem to get it. They said a lot of “amens” and “yes Jesus'” only to walk out of the conference room uneffected by what the speakers were trying to convey. Tonight, however, God shook the church with the most epic conviction that I have ever witnessed.
Tonight, Francis Chan spoke. As expected, everyone was anticipating his message and expecting it to be pretty impactful. During all the other speaker’s sermons, people were talking in the background and not paying full attention. As soon as Chan walked on the stage, however, there was an immediate silence. Everyone associated Chan as a beloved minister who would tell them about how much God loved them no matter what… Little did they expect him to preach a controversial word from God that would shake the sincerity of many people’s faith.
Francis started out feeling a bit shaky. I, like most of the other attendees, was expecting a bit more out of him. When I had seen him preach in videos, he seemed so passionate and strong in his message. After he introduced his topic for the night, he itterated my exact thoughts and told the crowd of thousands of people that he wasn’t feeling right about what he had planned to speak on. He said that every time he came to the SBC, he gets this feeling that something was very wrong. He said that as he looked out in the crowd, many people’s eyes looked blank, like they weren’t geeling convicted or passionate about God’s kingdom.
At this moment, Chan completely forsook his planned sermon and improvized the rest. He begged in a passtionate rampage for the church to wake up and truly live like they know God like a best friend. His passion was contagious and people literally wailed and fell on the floor sobbing with conviction. The power of the Holy Spirit was screaming at us to wake up and the church was responding loudly!
Convition sucks and is definitely no fun whent ir’s fappening to you, but it’s also the most beautiful thing that I have ever witnessed. After Chan called out the church and left the stage, I had the opportunity to pray with a women who was broken by the message he gave. The Holy Spirit was working in her life in the moment in ways that I don’t even understand. If God is convicting you of something, it may make you feel as thought you have done something horribly wrong, that you missed a big picture, or that you are just failing in His kindom. It isn’t meant to be viewed as God criticising you, insulting you, or trying to make you feel bad. God breaks us to bless us. If God is convicting you of something it means that He is moving and active in your life. He is molding you and making you into the person He needs you to be! He is using you through your conviction, so don’t downplay it as some horrible experience show casing your failures. If God would give multiple people a strong conviction, and the people actually responded to His call, the church would be moving in unstoppable ways. If only more people would call out the church like Francis Chan, then we would truly be an unstoppable force in the realm of spiritual warfare!
