“I realize it was so easy for me all those years to say, ‘I love God. I love God. I’m going to do these crazy things for God.’ But it’s much harder to go, ‘He is crazy about me. I am so loved by him.'”
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The Moment He Realized He Wasn’t Alone
When Chan started sharing this struggle publicly at conferences, the response was staggering. He asked a room full of pastors how many of them were only about 80 percent sure they were loved by Jesus.
Three-quarters of the room stood up.
That number broke him. He realized the insecurity he had quietly carried might have shaped the culture he created — a culture more focused on what believers do for God than on what God has done for them.
“If I was so focused on my own actions rather than his, then I probably helped lead a generation that’s focused on their actions rather than his.”
Where Chan Stands Today
Chan has moved toward smaller, more intimate expressions of church — the kind where everyone knows each other, gifts get used, and love isn’t theoretical. He continues to write, speak, and pastor, but on a very different scale.
He’s also been unusually transparent about his own story, including the parts that don’t reflect well on him.
“I want everyone to know that Francis Chan was an absolute loser, that my college years were a wreck. My start in ministry was a disaster, hypocritical, sinful. And God poured his grace on me, and that’s the only reason anything good has come out of my life.”
That kind of honesty is rare in a culture that tends to package leaders as brands. For Chan, the whole point is to get out of the way of the story — because the story was never really about him.
What This Means for the Church Today
Chan’s story raises questions that don’t have easy answers, and that’s probably why it still resonates years after he made the decision to walk away.
How does a large church cultivate genuine community? How does a leader keep the mission clear when the platform keeps growing? How do you build something for God without starting to build it for yourself without noticing?
Chan doesn’t offer a tidy formula. What he offers is something more useful: the honest account of a man who got to the top of something and decided the view wasn’t worth it.
If you’re navigating questions about church size, authentic community, or what faithful ministry actually looks like, his story is worth sitting with.
