Francis Chan
Pastor and author of Crazy Love
He's brilliant and knows the Word of God. [It] kind of shattered my paradigm.
Francis Chan came out of a seminary culture that dismissed Hayford's charismatic stream entirely. They served together on the board of an inner city ministry, World Impact. One staff meeting, watching Jack open the Hebrew Scriptures, and then the character of his life up close, reversed a lifetime of assumptions.
Jack Hayford was kind of looked down upon at my seminary, because he's charismatic… in my mind, a charismatic theologian was like an oxymoron. But the more time I spent with Jack… he taught at one of our staff meetings and blew my mind, how he opened up the Hebrew Scriptures and was tearing these verbs apart. And then I saw the character of his life, and the love he had for people… he's brilliant and knows the word of God. [It] kind of shattered my paradigm and my understanding. And then the more people I met that ran in circles that were different from mine, the more I realized, these are really brothers in Christ that I have a lot to learn from.
I saw the character of his life, and the love he had for people… I see more love, joy, peace, patience, and he's brilliant and knows the word of God.
It started when I joined this board for this inner city ministry called World Impact. And there was this pastor on there, a guy named Jack Hayford.
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It started when I joined this board for this inner city ministry called World Impact. And there was this pastor on there, a guy named Jack Hayford. And Jack Hayford was kind of looked down upon at my seminary because he's charismatic. And I kind of had this mindset that charismatics don't know the word of God. They just believe in visions and dreams and feelings. Seriously, in my mind, a charismatic theologian was like an oxymoron. But the more time I spent with Jack, and then one time he taught at one of our staff meetings and blew my mind how [he] opened up the Hebrew scriptures and was tearing these verbs apart, and then I saw the character of his life and the love he had for people. I'm going, gosh, I see more love, joy, peace, patience, and he's brilliant and knows the word of God. [It] kind of shattered my paradigm and my understanding. And then the more people I met that ran in circles that were different from mine, the more I realized, these are really brothers in Christ that I have a lot to learn from.
![Francis Chan on Jack Hayford: He's brilliant and knows the Word of God. [It] kind of shattered my paradigm.](/_next/image?url=%2Fimages%2Ftributes%2Ffrancis-chan%2Ffrancis-chan-badge-warmink.png&w=3840&q=75){kind=icon}