Season 14
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Episode 2
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Run Time: 46:22
A Season of Shalom
Francis Chan opens up about where his life is right now, and one word keeps surfacing: shalom. He has seven kids, five grandkids, and two son-in-laws he describes as more integrous and godly than he sometimes feels himself. His four oldest kids are all worship leaders, and there are moments when the whole family ends up in the living room singing together without anyone planning it. He's been married to Lisa for 32 years and says the relationship keeps getting better the longer it goes. Candace relates completely, telling Francis she falls more in love with Val every day and could probably say that on every episode.
Stepping Back to Pour In
When Francis turned 50, he was reading Numbers 8 and came across a passage that stopped him: God required the Levites to step down from temple service at that age, not because they'd worn out, but so they could invest what they'd learned into the generation coming up. At first the idea bothered him. He was in the best shape of his life, full of energy, experience, and wisdom. But the more he sat with it, the more it made sense.
He uses the image of a nearly burned-down candle and a fresh one. The wisest thing the old candle can do, he says, isn't to keep burning in the spotlight. It's to light the new one. That's what he's trying to do now, spending time with men in their twenties, teaching from what he's learned, and warning them away from the mistakes he made, including a season when selfish ambition crept into his thinking about ministry.
The Mentor Who Walked With Francis
Francis talks about Ron Wilson, an older man who showed up when Francis started Cornerstone at 26. Ron was 56 at the time and never tried to run the church. He just walked with Francis, pointed out when something was off, and pushed back when Francis tried to downplay his own gifts with false humility. Francis says he doesn't know where he'd be without that voice in his life, and it's part of what drives him to be that presence for someone else now.
Candace connects this to her own family. Her son Lev has been under the influence of pastor Dudley Rutherford at Shepherd Church, who puts teenagers and young adults in the pulpit every year to preach full sermons to thousands. Lev preached there this past Christmas season, and Candace didn't even know until this conversation. She and Francis both agree: that kind of investment is rare, and it's worth getting serious about.
A Listener Asks About Prayer
Olivia writes in saying prayer feels awkward and uncomfortable to her, even when she's alone. She knows it works, but she doesn't know how to actually do it well. Francis says that tracks, because most people were never taught. They were just told prayer works and left to figure it out on their own.
His approach starts before he says a word. He draws from Ecclesiastes 5, which warns against rushing into God's presence with a flood of speech. Instead, Francis stops and thinks carefully about who he's addressing. He thinks about God's holiness, the way the angels cover themselves in his presence, the weight of the moment. Then he thinks about grace: this same overwhelming God is described in Hebrews as one who gives mercy freely and wants to forgive. That combination changes everything. By the time Francis works through all of it, he says, he often forgets what he was going to ask.
God Can Pour Love Directly Into Your Heart
Francis pulls from Romans 5:5, where Paul writes that God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. He points out that this bypasses all the usual channels. No audible voice. No vision. No mental processing required. He says God can go directly to the core of who a person is and communicate love there, and that's what prayer is really reaching for, not a formula or a technique, but that direct experience of being known.
Two Stories About Hearing from God
Francis shares a moment from a ministry trip to Kona. Before speaking to a group of young people, he kept hearing something inside him: 'These are your children. Protect your children.' He spent time in prayer trying to figure out whether he'd actually heard from God. Then, during worship, a stranger sitting beside him leaned over and said the exact same words in his ear. Francis says years of ministry have followed from that moment, and he still can't fully explain it.
Candace shares her own experience. While reading Francis's book Beloved, she moved on to the next paragraph and felt God speak her name, telling her she needed to stop talking and start sitting in silence. It wasn't audible. But it was clear. She wrote it down right then.
What Silence Has to Offer
Francis closes with a challenge. The world has wired people poorly, he says. Constant scrolling and information consumption have made it nearly impossible to sit in true silence, and that's a spiritual problem. He references 1 Peter 4:7, which calls for self-control and a clear mind for the sake of prayer. People are afraid of missing out, he says, but what they're actually at risk of missing is God, who wanted to pour something into them directly but couldn't get through the noise.
Sponsors mentioned in this episode:
Lovebird Cereals: lovebirdfoods.com/bure, code: bure for 25% off
International Fellowship of Christians and Jews: ifcj.org
Van Man: vanman.shop/bure, code: bure for 15% off your first order
Grand Canyon University: gcu.edu