A Race for the Bottom | Francis Chan

Crazy Love Podcast

Crazy Love Ministries

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity, Religion, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality:christianity

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this powerful teaching, Francis Chan shares his experience visiting a village church in rural China - one of the most beautiful pictures of the Body of Christ he has ever witnessed. What he encountered wasn’t consumer Christianity or personality-driven gatherings, but a community of believers who had truly given themselves away. Francis contrasts this with the Western tendency to attend church like consumers, evaluating leaders, seeking comfort, and avoiding sacrifice. Through Philippians 2 and 2 Corinthians 8, he calls us back to the simplicity and costliness of following Jesus: dying to ourselves, becoming servants, and letting the grace of God transform us into givers. This episode paints a stirring vision of what the Church is meant to be, one that displays the manifold wisdom of God not only to the world, but to the heavenly realms. It’s an invitation to rethink what we’re chasing, to pursue the “race to the bottom,” and to embody the self-giving love of Christ.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Crazy Love podcast.
0:07.0	In a culture that's all about climbing the ladder, God has a completely different dream for his church.
0:14.0	Jesus didn't come to be served, but to serve.
0:17.0	And today Francis reminds us that the church's mandate is to follow in Jesus
0:22.3	footsteps and live lives of radical sacrifice and generosity putting on display the manifold
0:29.3	wisdom of God.
0:32.6	And I want to share about that a little bit because two weeks ago I was in China and
0:40.3	see in China at least what used to be they did church like we do it in the homes except
0:46.3	they did it in secret because they weren't allowed to do that.
0:49.3	And so even with the singing, you know they would tell me about when they would used to,
0:53.3	they used to just mouth the words
0:55.0	because they couldn't let the neighbors hear. But they wanted to gather to worship so badly that they would hide in these secret places
1:03.0	and they would tell me about how they would just mouth the words to one another.
1:07.0	Like, I gave myself away, you know, just quietly because no one could know they were worshipping.
1:12.6	And they couldn't just, hey, bring your friends and come to this gathering.
1:16.2	But it was every individual knew if I want my family, my friends to go to heaven.
1:21.2	I'm the one that's got to tell them because I'm not going to invite them to some public service.
1:25.7	There were no public services.
1:27.7	It was outlawed.
1:29.2	And so all of the people in the church started to tell their friends,
1:33.9	and all of these churches started to grow.
1:36.8	And it's estimated under communism that it's grown to about 100 million people now.
	...

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