Christianity Today

Francis Chan exploded onto the evangelical scene a few years ago when podcasts of sermons he gave at his flourishing, 4,000-member Southern California church went viral. But then in late 2010, he up and quit, saying, "I just want to disappear for a while." One thing that bothered him, he said, was that "even in my own church I heard the words 'Francis Chan' more than I heard the words, 'Holy Spirit.'"

Two years later, he finds himself in San Francisco, where he says he's thankful that "no one really knows who I am." He leads a small fellowship that meets weekly, and then goes out to share the love of Christ in the neighborhood and city.

His latest book, Multiply: Disciples Making Disciples (David C. Cook; co-written by Mark Beuving), didn't start out as a book, but as a manual of discipleship. The book reveals the passions and character of the best-selling author and church planter. CT editor Mark Galli spoke with Chan by phone recently.

What are you hoping to accomplish in your new book?

I try to explain the most important things a believer needs to know. It's an attempt to teach the basics of what I feel needs to be passed on to new believers. I know there's other stuff out there, but I needed to be faithful to what I felt needs to be out there.

Unlike many other discipleship manuals, yours does not begin by explaining about how to pray or have personal devotions and other personal disciplines. Instead, you begin by talking about the importance of church, which often comes late in other discipleship manuals.

In our culture, people have a very low view of church, and I didn't want readers to forget the church. For a person to be truly discipled and growing in their faith, they need more than one person discipling them. They need to see the gifts of the body; that's how God created it and intended it. I wanted early on to explain that this is very, very important, and that it is God's agenda, that this is how he's going to reach the world.

Your book is also not topical but mostly a journey through the Bible, where you let the biblical narrative shape the content of chapters.

One weakness in the church is that we can make things too formulaic, with a blanket statement for every situation about what you do. I want to help people understand how to study the Scriptures with other people, to give them an overview of Scripture and assume that by understanding the Scriptures better, the Holy Spirit will bring to mind the right stories, the right teachings.

I guess it's putting more of a burden on the person. I want to give them a jump-start but also help them understand Scripture, so that when they do talk to someone, they can now pull from this knowledge and scriptural understanding.

You say that every disciple needs to disciple others. If discipling is essentially teaching—in word and example—why is it everyone's job, and not just those with the gift of teaching?

There is a gift of teaching. I absolutely believe that. That's not what we're talking about. It has more to do with, for example, the older women teaching younger women. Parents are supposed to instruct their kids. It doesn't mean they necessarily have that gift of teaching. The teaching in the Great Commission is about obedience to Jesus. It's not necessarily, "Now let me teach you what this means in the Greek." It's, "Let me teach you how to obey this."

So often we teach these great lessons but we don't push it to the point of obedience. And Satan loves that because we're deceiving ourselves. The teaching I'm talking about is like walking alongside someone—rebuking, exhorting, and getting them to the point where they realize they need to repent or they're living in disobedience.

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