Program areas at Claire Love Publishing
Crazy Love helps other Christ-centered organizations, both locally and globally, through grants and love offerings. Some of the organizations that we have supported in 2022 include: Crisis Aid International, Basil Technologies, New Life Dream Center, Village Life, and more.
Content & resources - Crazy Love exists to exists to create and distribute world class content and training to serve the church and encourage the Body of Christ.Publishing - We self-publish for the purpose of being able to retain more of the profit margin (as opposed to simply receiving royalty), so that we can give more towards ministries in need. Francis Chan's self-published book includes the title: You and Me Forever. The book was published in 2014 has been sold or downloaded close to 1 million times. With many resources (such as videos and an electronic copy of the book) that are made available online for free, and with international translations being fulfilled in over 20 launguages and countries, we anticipate that You and Me Forever will continue to point marriages far and wide to Jesus, as we pledge to give 100% of the net proceeds of the book to Christ-centered ministries around the world. In the fall of 2018, Francis partnered with David C. Cook to release a book called Letters to the Church. Letters to the Church is the message Francis Chan felt God wanted him to share about God's desire for what the church should be like based on Scripture. Shortly thereafter, God gave another message to Francis about His desire to see all believers united, regardless of denomimation or background. This message became the book Until Unity, which was published in 2021. Both books received much positive feedback and are currently being distributed worldwide in numerous languages. Royalties received from the books are being used to fund the work of both local and international Christ-centered ministries. The messages from Letters to the Church and Until Unity have become our blueprints to plant churches and to train pastors and leaders. Technology - With more and more people consuming content digitally, Crazy Love leverages technology to create and distribute content across the world. Through the use of videos and social media, we are more effectively bringing the Gospel to the furthest corners of the world. This year, we turned our efforts to creating more content for our podcast and various video series.
The residential portion of Crazy Love Ministries' office building is used to purposefully create an intentional Christian community and helps those who are in poverty or have low income. Each of the tenants agree to stated Christian beliefs in efforts to help develop this community. Each of the rooms rented to the tenants are rented below market value. Crazy Love Ministries also rents out other properties around the Bay Area (particularly in low income housing areas) to low income individuals and families at below market value, so as to help them develop community and plant churches where they are. In addition to the Bayview and Mission, we have also focused our attention on the areas of Daly City and East Palo Alto.This year, Crazy Love Ministries purchased a new property in Los Gatos for the purposes of creating a place of retreat for people to get away and spend quiet time with the Lord.
Special Projects: God often surprises Crazy Love with different opportunites to serve Him, but these opportunities do not always become one of our core programs, like Content, Teaching, Mercy Ministries, or Housing. As such, we have created a special vertical, called "Special Projects" to house these different areas that we get to serve Him in. Listed below are some of these "special projects":Golden Shores Initiative: In 2019, we had the opportunity to partner with various large missions organizations to see a 5-year gospel initiative, called Golden Shores Initiative, in the country of Myanmar. We are concentrating on Bible translation and distribution throughout the whole country, evangelism, church planting and training, and acts of mercy. Our goal is to see 1 church for every 1,000 people, so that's 57,000 churches in the country of Myanmar. To do this, we are creating tech solutions for missionaries to use on the ground and leveraging technology to help them spread the Gospel far and wide. COVID-19 and the coup in Myanmar shifted our focus in 2020 to also cover relief work and aid to those displaced by the unrest in the country. Food Development Program: At the end of 2019, Crazy Love was approached by Jones Chan, a food scientist who had a recipe for an innovative food product that would be 3 to 5 times more nutritious than what was currently being distributed in food relief programs around the world--and this food product was cheaper too! Crazy Love began a partnership with Jones and developed our Superfood Initiative to launch in Afghanistan. We worked closely with a local partner in Afghanistan, who was already on the ground there and had the infrastructure to not only make this food product, but also to distribute it at scale. Even with the fall of the country to the Taliban, God allowed us to continue to produce and distribute much needed food for orphanages and displacement camps for refugees there. Locally, we have developed a nutrient dense meal bar that is specifically designed for the poor and those experiencing homelessness. The packaging of the meal bar contains a QR code that show videos of the Gospel message when it is scanned. We pray that the bar can be used as a platform to speak hope and to share the love of Christ. Hong Kong: Although Francis's visa to stay in Hong Kong was rejected, Francis continues to invest into the leaders in Hong Kong via Zoom meetings and calls. The church planting work in Hong Kong continues, with believers on the ground serving in the poorest areas of the city.
Teaching - Church Intensive was started in 2017 and is a training program for pastors and future leaders to study ecclesiology alongside of We Are Church, the church planting network started by Francis Chan in 2013. We are experiencing some of the blessings promised in Scripture, as we structure the values of our church on what is Biblically commanded of the church in Scripture. Our hope is to encourage others along in their journey. Through the Church Intensive program, participants can engage in classes taught by pastors of We Are Church, participate in our house church gatherings, hit the streets with us to reach out to the local community, and refocus in prayer both personally and corporately. In addition to offering online classes, which were started because of the pandemic, we have launched 2-3 day long programs that meet in-person in different cities across the U.S.To further enhance our teaching cirriculum, we also held training programs with other ministries, like Antioch and YWAM, who taught us so much in the areas of evangelism, worship and prayer.
Mercy Ministries - In line with our values to pursue Jesus's teaching to love and serve those in need, Crazy Love formed a division called Mercy Ministries to advocate and model a lifestyle of sacrifice and love for the poor for the church. To do this, we identify and serve the poor and most vulnerable areas that we're in, both locally and globally. Globally, we partner with God-centered, like-minded organizations to create opportunities of engagement for the church and to mobilize them to serve. Locally, we continue to invest deeply in low income areas, such as Bayview and East Palo Alto, by planting churches, building community and sharing the Gospel.