Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God

This book has given me fresh inspiration to step out of my comfort zone in faith and put myself in places where I will be uncomfortable if God doesn’t come through. If you are sick of the cheap version of Christianity that is plaguing America today; you want change but don’t know how to change, this book will give you great ideas. Please don’t be another halfhearted believer, serve Jesus with AlL that you have and you will NEVER regret it

My husband and I selected this book to teach with our bible study group. We purchased books for everyone, the video and the leader guide. As we journey together through this book we are learning about God's Crazy Love for us. The books arrived in a timely manner also the video. All were in great shape. Our group loves this book.

This is a convicting book that attempts to answer the question, "What if we took Jesus and what He said seriously?" Chan answers that most of us would live in a radically different way than our present lifestyle. He is careful not to prescribe in definite terms how our obedience to Jesus must look, but he is also unwilling to let readers off the hook, urging readers repeatedly to examine their own lives and see if they are more conformed to the American Dream or to the Gospel. My favorite chapter is called, "Your Best Life . . . Later." This chapter, both in its title and its content, is an obvious challenge to the health, wealth and prosperity gospel so common among TV preachers and in the lives of many Christians. This book is well worth your time.

Having read reviews of this book, I thought I was prepared. But Chan's application of scriptures regarding caring for the poor, loving our neighbors as ourselves, and being Jesus' hands and feet in this world shook my thinking. He urges his readers to stop and think, worship, apply. I am asking myself, what is God calling me to do with what I've learned? Be prepared to ask yourself the same.

Think the Christian life is boring and easy, think again. This book will use scripture to drain the water out of American Christianity and bring it back to the New Testament Faith of the Scriptures. Francis Chan is a rare breed today of those who are well known yet well grounded in scripture. This book isn't at all about Chan, but about God and his "crazy love" for us. Grab this book and shake your perspective. Challenge yourself and as I am, buy many more books for your friends. I went to Ghana this past summer to mission work, dare I say, this book challenged me at the same level.

There are many voices critiquing the North American church today. The voices come from both within and without; from those who love the church and those who hate it. We all know that there is something wrong. But what? In many cases the prescription is the same while the cure varies widely. In his new book Crazy Love, first-time author Francis Chan, pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, California, regular speaker at Passion conferences and other events, and the guy who recorded that "Just Stop and Think" evangelistic video where he walks for miles holding a surfboard, takes his opportunity to challenge the church. "This book," he says, "is written for those who want more Jesus. It is for those who are bored with what American Christianity offers. It is for those who don't want to plateau, who would rather die before their convictions do." It is a book that is meant to change the way Christians live their lives. There are two ways of critiquing the church. We can critique out of love or out of disgust. Chan is committed to critiquing the church as an act of love. In a recent interview, when asked about the emergent church, he said this: "As a pastor I hear a lot of emergent leaders talk about what is wrong with the church. It comes across as someone who doesn't love the church. I'm a pastor first and foremost, and I'm trying to offer a solution or a model of what church should look like. I'm going back to scripture and seeing what the church was in its simplest form and trying to recreate that in my own church. I'm not coming up with anything new. I'm calling people to go back to the way it was. I'm not bashing the church. I'm loving it." And his love for the church is obvious throughout this book. The format of Crazy Love is straightforward and effective. Chan dedicates three chapters to renewing our understanding of the character of God and seven chapters calling Christians to examine themselves. Within the book are two ongoing themes that are going to get people talking. The first theme is that we must painstakingly examine ourselves. We cannot assume we are saved, or to use the biblical metaphor, we cannot assume that we are the good soil. Chan calls the reader to a serious self-inventory through a chapter that provides a profile of the lukewarm. He concludes, "a lukewarm Christian is an oxymoron; there's no such thing. To put it plainly, churchgoers who are `lukewarm' are not Christians. We will not see them in heaven." God wants all or nothing. The second theme is deeply counter-cultural, going against the stream of both Christian and secular culture. It is this: live your best life later. Chan wants to see Christians living differently--living in a way that is markedly different from those around them. He wants to see Christians forgoing much of what we consider necessary, what we consider our due, in order to focus on treasures that are eternal. He wants us to get outside the realm of what is comfortable to us and focus instead