Book that freed a hostage was already making waves

'The Purpose-Driven Life' has spread the ideas of a California preacher everywhere from the Chinese government to the hands of Fidel Castro.

When ex-hostage Ashley Smith appeared on TV and told how she gained her freedom - and her captor's surrender - by reading to Brian Nichols from "The Purpose-Driven Life," her stirring story sent thousands off in search of the book.

Author Rick Warren, though, didn't really need her help. His work was already the bestselling nonfiction hardback in US history. Since the book's release in October 2002, people apparently hungry for a clearer sense of purpose and direction have snapped up more than 22 million copies.

Indeed, the story behind "The Purpose-Driven Life" is every bit as remarkable as that of Ms. Smith and the book's recent spurt in sales. It's the tale of a 20-something pastor who settled in a community full of "the unchurched," and, beginning in 1980, built Saddleback Valley Community Church in southern California into one of the largest megachurches in the US. And of how his paradigm for personal and church growth has since influenced tens of thousands worldwide.

Rick Warren has been a guest at two state dinners in China, where he told the country's leaders they couldn't have real economic progress without the underpinnings of freedom of religion and information. Fidel Castro has asked for an autographed copy. In the Philippines, the government wants to make use of the study program linked to the book - called 40 Days of Purpose.

Management guru Peter Drucker calls Warren "the inventor of perpetual revival" and his organizational model "the most significant sociological phenomena of the second half of [the 20th] century."

Yet there's also criticism that the purpose-driven approach reflects too much of a corporate mindset, and that its seeker-sensitive model goes too light on the demands of Christian living.

Despite a desire for a low profile (he gives few interviews), Warren is thrust increasingly into the spotlight. During a recent stop in Boston, he spoke at Harvard University and at a breakfast of the Marketplace Network - to some 600 evangelical business leaders. The tall, solid, sandy-haired pastor revealed his penchant for simple, straightforward language flecked with humor and clarity, and free of religious jargon.

"I'm more interested in [fostering] a relationship with God than a religion," he said. And he challenged the idea of just looking within for life's answers.

"I didn't create me, so I can't possibly tell myself what my purpose is," he told the curious, but somewhat skeptical Harvard crowd.

As a teenager in Northern California, the son of Baptist missionaries already hoped to help friends find God, starting a Christian club and newspaper and holding rock concerts after school. As a pastor fresh from divinity school, he shied from a traditional assignment to form a church designed for those who didn't attend church.

Going door-to-door for 12 weeks in his new California community, Warren says he found the main reasons people strayed from church were not theological: "Church members are unfriendly to visitors;" "Sermons are boring and don't relate to my life;" "They are more interested in your money than in you as a person."

So he designed his church services in response to those concerns. And, intent on showing that church was not about a building, he refused to build a church structure for 15 years, until the membership reached 10,000. (Now more than 20,000 attend each week.)

As Warren's stature grew, he declined a television ministry and focused instead on teaching local pastors of many denominations how to renew their churches. "Churchianity and Christianity are not the same thing," he says. And the great need is "to move churches from self-centeredness to selflessness."

Today, he also has a global Internet community that mentors more than 100,000 pastors around the world, and he travels abroad "planting" new churches.

Yet whatever the task, the laidback pastor - who at Saddleback gives 15-minute sermons attired in Hawaiian shirt and khakis - always draws on the same direct message: "if you turn your life over to [God], He'll do amazing things."

"The Purpose-Driven Life: What On Earth Am I Here For?" is an antiself-help book, taking the reader on a personal spiritual journey. The book explores God's intent for each of us, the essential role of a church community, the need to become like Christ, the importance of serving God and others and undertaking mission. Warren's church-growth strategy focuses on the same principles of worship, growth, community, service, and outreach.

Grace Chapel in Lexington, Mass., participated in the "40 Days of Purpose" program a year ago.

"People were amazed at how ready their friends and neighbors were to talk about spiritual things and to read the book," says the Rev. Bryan Wilkerson, senior pastor. Some churches say the program helped them grow by 30 percent or more.

But Warren's "purpose-driven" approach also has its critics. Some take issue with what they call watered-down theology (light on repentance and sin); others criticize the focus on numbers and a "market-driven methodology." ("The Purpose-Driven Life" was launched with a mass-marketed CD of songs, a radio campaign, and an invitation to churches to join the 40-day program.)

"It's been somewhat maligned, but it provides a necessary corrective to trends in conservative Christianity such as the prosperity gospel," says Scott Thumma, of Hartford Seminary in Connecticut.

Still, some younger pastors say its appeal is more attuned to baby boomers than to young people, who want more theological questioning.

Saddleback's pastor says that the message of Christianity stays the same and only the methods need to change. With his new-found affluence and influence, however, he's also had to take stock personally. To show he is not looking for money, he says, he has repaid all his salary of the past 25 years, and is tithing 90 percent and living on 10 percent of his income.

Praying to know what to do with his growing influence (he's considered second only to Billy Graham in his impact on churches), Warren says God woke him up: "He told me to use my influence for those who have no influence."

When Ashley Smith picked up "The Purpose-Driven Life" and read to her captor, Warren was in Africa, working with pastors on a new plan to strengthen churches there and meet the dire needs their people face.

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There are plenty of reviews that turn up in a Google search. This one probably is as good as any:

http://www.christianity.com/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID307086%7CCHID559376%7CCIID1952540,00.html

Can You Address the Teaching of The Purpose Driven Life?

Question Box

Perhaps the reason so many people including church leaders have welcomed the Purpose Driven material is that Rick Warren seems to have a biblical basis for his views (he boasts of the number of Bible verses quoted). A little study soon reveals a pattern of taking verses out of context, quoting verses that seem to support his view, quoting verses that have nothing to do with the point he's trying to make, and ransacking the whole catalogue of translations and paraphrases to find scripture which seems to lend support to his statements. The Message paraphrase is the most heavily used.

Let me first confess that I have not read Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life. Rightly or wrongly, the reason I have not read it is that I choose my reading not based on what is popular but on what seems profitable spiritually. Having been utterly turned off by The Purpose Driven Church and its thoroughly unbiblical (though savvy) paradigm for church growth (see the critique of this in my book, Turning Back the Darkness: The Biblical Pattern of Reformation), I did not expect much from anything else Warren has written. He strikes me as a very attractive and well-meaning Christian with a great entrepreneurial spirit but very little interest in biblical accuracy. If there was one face I would put up to represent pragmatism in the evangelical world, it would be Warren's.

But, as a pastor, I have had to become at least familiar with The Purpose Driven Life, because so many people are reading it. I have, therefore, done the following: 1) I stood in a Christian book store aisle and thumbed through it for 15 minutes. You can learn a lot about a book with a 15-minute skim; 2) I have read other reviews; and 3) I have talked to people I know who have read it and who have at least some biblical discernment. Out of all of this, which is less than optimal, I admit, I would say the following:

1) I don't see anything harmful in The Purpose Driven Life. This alone is exceptional among recent Christian best-sellers. Whereas I vigorously warn people against reading The Prayer of Jabez, and many of the heretical best-sellers today, I don't see any reason to warn people against The Purpose Driven Life.

2) The Purpose Driven Life is mainly about by-products of Christianity rather than Christianity itself. This is my main beef, but it is also the central feature of the entire seeker sensitive movement that Warren now presides over. It isn't about the attributes of God or the saving work of Christ and "other boring stuff like that." It's about you. It's about what you can get out of Christianity. Rick Warren long ago conceded that the audience must be treated as consumers and must be appealed to out of their love for self. But, you say, The Purpose Driven Life begins by saying, "It's all about God, not about you." I praise the Lord for that statement, but it just does not ring true in a book that is all about you. Notice the "purpose" language -- this comes from psychology and management consulting, not from Jesus Christ. This is why The Purpose Driven Life is so popular, and also why its spiritual impact will be vastly less than its financial impact. Warren usually says that the reason people like me complain about his books and his approach to church is that we are jealous of his success, just the way the Pharisees were jealous of Jesus. His books sell in the millions and mine sell in the thousands. But is that really why we complain? If J.I. Packer's Knowing God sold in the millions, I can assure you that people like me would dance in the aisles, rejoicing with praise unto God. The reality is that people don't want to know God, they want to know how they can be happy. They are seeking. But they are not seeking God; they are seeking the idols of self-actualization. And I am deeply troubled by this approach to evangelism that begins by agreeing to bow down to the idols of the person we are trying to lead to Christ. As it is written, "He who marries the spirit of the age will soon be a widow."

3) With that criticism, The Purpose Driven Life seems to do a fair amount of spiritual good for its readers. Here is where Warren has a knack for first compromising with selfish consumers but then challenging them with biblical truths. The guy is not perfect, but he is not all bad, either. It is true that he uses Scripture completely out of context, and that his idea of doing exegesis by just quoting multiple translations is ridiculous (especially when most of the translations are bad). So, while I have not made it my business to scrutinize Warren's theology in detail, it seems to be pretty evangelical at least. The Purpose Driven Life is not a book I would give to someone to jump-start their walk with God. But it seems that Warren does challenge his readers with biblical ideas. I have had people come to my church and become members because Rick Warren told them they had to start worshiping God. As best-selling spiritual books go, it gets a lot worse than that. If Rick Warren is only feeding milk to people, at least it seems to be genuine milk, and God has a long record of blessing milk. So, in contrast with Bruce Wilkinson, Tommy Tenny, T.D. Jakes, and others, Warren should not be resented or opposed but rather appreciated for what he is worth. If someone has been blessed by the milk of Rick Warren, then we should appreciate that and move them on to something more solid like Jerry Bridges or some of our authors here in the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

4) Lastly, I'm not sure whether to consider the whole "Forty Days of Purpose" phenomenon as shameless marketing or naive revivalism. It is surely a bit of both. This is just one more instance of the never-ending movement mentality of people, where the latest-big-thing has to be mass marketed everywhere. This is perfectly suited to our fast-food American culture -- "knock it out in forty days" -- but is not well suited for the biblical notion of life-long discipleship to Jesus Christ. When I see a church that has given in to "Forty Days of Purpose", it seems to me that they must be terrified of missing out on the latest big thing and that they have utterly capitulated the actual ministry of their church to the big marketing machine. But now let me put a better spin on that, because I know that may be uncharitable towards the actual motives of loving pastors. They want to reach out to the lost, but they just no longer believe in the ordinary means of grace, and especially in the preached Bible. Surely "Forty Days of Purpose" shows that we do not believe God's Word is sufficient to do God's work. Instead of getting out into the community to form meaningful relationships, in which we proclaim the gospel in word and in deed, and then have a godly, loving, and biblical church to invite people to -- instead of that, we now have to have the big machine. Well, there is plenty of precedent for that in America, and it has usually ended up doing more harm than good, precisely because it communicates a lack of confidence in the Bible while promoting consumer pragmatism. Where "Forty Days of Purpose" will probably produce positive results is that it gets many churches that are doing nothing to start doing something. Churches don't know what to do (again, because of a lack of confidence in the Bible), and so "Forty Days of Purpose" at least mobilizes them to a certain extent, and I am sure that it will produce some positive results.

So, in sum, let's not anoint Rick Warren as our national spiritual guru. His compromises with culture and intense pragmatism will not provide the substance that we need. But let's not make him out to be an enemy. People who read The Purpose Driven Life will read all kinds of godly, challenging truths that many of them would never get otherwise. And obviously Warren is effective as a communicator. Hopefully they will respond by joining a substantive, biblical church and will grow into strong believers. I am sure that is what Rick Warren wants, and while I would not and could not do much of what he does, neither do I condemn him for it. "Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice" (Phil. 1:18).

Rev. Richard Phillips is the chair of the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology and senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church Coral Springs, Margate, Florida.

Doesn't sound much like the Easter sermon notes from Rick Warren I found:

What Difference Does Easter Make?

by Rick Warren
Text: Colossians 2:13-14
Topic: What Easter means and why Easter matters
Big Idea: Jesus Christ's resurrection can transform the way I live and the way I die.
Keywords: Easter; Eternal life; Salvation

Introduction

* Illustration: Warren shares a Gallup poll statistic that 84 percent of non-church-goers believe Christ rose from the dead.

The resurrection means Jesus is who he claimed to be.

* In John 11:25, Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life."
* When the moneychangers in the temple told Jesus to prove his identity, he told them that he would rise from the dead three days after his death, a prophesy that was fulfilled.

The resurrection means Jesus has the power he claimed to have.

* Because he is God, no force could keep Jesus in the tomb.

The resurrection means Jesus did what he promised to do.

* The cross and the resurrection were not surprises to Jesus; they were all part of God's plan.

The resurrection matters because my past can be forgiven.

* Some people can't get on with life because their guilt keeps them dwelling in the past.
* Colossians 2:14 says that Jesus cancelled every debt we would owe on the cross.
- Illustration: Warren compares Jesus' forgiveness of our sins to the Etch-A-Sketch: a board with knobs that enable you to draw pictures, and then erase them by shaking the frame.

The resurrection matters because my present problems can be managed.

* Illustration: In this short illustration, Warren tells of an author who lectured on raising perfect kids. However, after his first child, he started offering hints for parents instead, after his second child he offered suggestions to for fellow parents, and after his third child he quit speaking all together.
* We can't manage all that life sends us, but God can if we give him control.

The resurrection matters because my future can be secure.

* Illustration: When asked what they believe about death, children responded with humorous, naive perceptions of death and heaven.
- Everyone longs to know: "What's going to happen after I die?"
* Illustration: A U.S. News & World Report article stated that more Americans than ever believe in heaven and hell.
* The Bible says heaven is perfect, therefore we have to be perfect in order to go there.
- Illustration: This is like saying that to get into the Baseball Hall of Fame you have to bat 1,000 and be a perfect player.
* God's plan B for his imperfect people is that if we trust Jesus as our savior, we will go to heaven.
- Illustration: Warren's friend Ron was dolling out tickets to his son and his friends at the carnival when a new child appeared before him with his hand out, saying, "I am your son's new friend and he said you would give me a ticket." Ron gave him one.
* Some try to get to heaven by practicing certain behaviors, some compare themselves to others, and some think their heritage ensures them a place in heaven.

Conclusion

* Easter can make a difference in your life if you trust, follow, and have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

This is from the newsletter he sent out on 17 Mar:

Issue #198
3/16/2005

Easter: What on earth am I here for?
by Rick Warren

"Many are the plans in a man's heart,
but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails."
(Proverbs 19:21, NIV)

The unchurched visiting your congregation this Easter will be grappling with the most fundamental question any of us can ask about life: “What on earth am I here for?" This will be your opportunity to tell them that nothing matters more than knowing God’s purpose for their lives and nothing can compensate for not knowing it -- not success, wealth, fame, or pleasure. We need to teach that, without purpose, life is motion without meaning, activity without direction, and events without reason. But, it’s never too late to discover our God-ordained purpose.

Below is a basic outline on what I will be preaching this Easter (if you want the full sermon, follow this link).

The New Testament teaches that God created you for five purposes. They’re listed in the Great Commandment and the Great Commission, practiced by the first Christians, modeled by Jesus, and explained by Paul.

You were planned for God’s pleasure. This is the first purpose of your life. The Bible says, “You created everything, and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created” (Revelation 4:11, NLT). The Psalms tell us, “The Lord takes pleasure in his people” (Psalm 149:4, TEV). Just as parents enjoy watching their children, God gets pleasure in watching you.

The Bible says, “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and he created you as an object of his love. God made you to love you. He didn’t need you; he wasn’t lonely. You exist because God wanted you alive. Even more amazing is that God made us “in his image” which means we’re unique from the rest of creation. Unlike animals, we have the capacity to know God and to love him back.

Any time you give pleasure to God you are worshipping him. Today, the word “worship” has been reduced to a synonym for music, ritual, ceremony, or prayer, but worship is far more than that. Worship is a lifestyle of knowing and loving God.

You were formed for God’s family. This is the second reason you are alive. The Bible says, “His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ and this gave him great pleasure” (Ephesians 1:5, NLT).

God created the world because he wanted a family, and he wants you to be a part of it -- for eternity! Once you understand this amazing fact, you’ll never again have reason to feel insignificant. You matter so much to God that he designed this universe just so he could create you to be a part of his family. You were made to last forever.

The word for loving other believers is “fellowship.” Unfortunately, like “worship,” the word has been misused and watered down. Today fellowship is reduced to coffee and cookies and casual conversation.

But real fellowship is being as committed to each other as we are to Jesus Christ. Most Christians know John 3:16, but don’t know 1 John 3:16 (GW) which says, “We understand what real love is when we realize that Christ gave his life for us. That means that we must give our lives for other believers.” That is real fellowship.

You were created to become like Christ. This is God’s third purpose for your life. The Bible says, “From the very beginning God decided that those who came to him, and all along he knew who would, should become like his Son ...” (Romans 8:29, LB). It has always been God’s plan and purpose to make us like himself. At Creation, God said, “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1:26, NIV). Not to be gods, but to be godly. God wants you to develop his values, attitudes, morals, and character.

Philippians 2:5 (NCV) says, “In your lives you must think and act like Jesus Christ.” Even in their senior years, many people worry about God’s will for the next phase in their lives, but God is far more interested in your character than your next phase.

Once you understand God’s third purpose for your life, a lot of what happens to you will begin to make more sense. One question we often ask is, “Why is this happening to me?” The answer is -- to make you more like Jesus!

If God is going to make you like Jesus, he is going to take you through everything Jesus went through. That includes times of loneliness, fatigue, misunderstanding, criticism, and many other problems that build our character.

For God to teach you real love, he must put you around some unlovely people. For God to teach you real joy, he will allow you to go through times of grief. To learn inner peace and patience, God allows storms of chaos and stressful situations that test our patience and teach us to trust him.

You can grow from any situation if you’ll just ask God, “What do you want me to learn from this?”

The goal is clear: “Then we will be mature just like Christ is and we will be completely like him.” The process God uses to make you like Jesus is called “discipleship,” and it will take the rest of your life. You may sometimes feel your progress is slow, but God is never in a hurry, and the Bible promises, “God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished ...” (Philippians 1:6, NLT).

You were shaped for serving God. This is the fourth purpose of your life. The Bible says, “God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God has made us to do good works which he planned in advance for us to live our lives doing” (Ephesians 2:10, NCV).

You were put on this earth to make a unique contribution, to give something back. That contribution is called your “ministry,” or service. We serve God by serving others.

The Bible teaches that you are created, saved, shaped, called, and commissioned for service. Ministry is not just for clergy; every believer is a minister. Anytime you use the talents God has given you to help others, you are ministering.

To prepare you for your specific role, God has uniquely formed and shaped you. The Bible says, "You shaped me first inside and then out. You formed me in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13, Msg).

I’ve put the five most important factors that God uses to shape us into a little acrostic, SHAPE: Spiritual gifts (What am I gifted to do?), Heart (What do I love to do?), Abilities, Personality, and Experiences. When it comes to experiences that shape us for service, God uses family experiences, vocational experiences, educational experiences, and spiritual experiences. But most important of all, he uses painful experiences to shape you for his service.

Who could better help the parents of a Down syndrome child than other parents with a Down syndrome child? Who could better help somebody recover from the pain of a divorce, an addiction, a business failure, or a rape than someone who has been through it? The very experience you regret or resent most in your life -- that which you’ve wanted to hide and cover up and forget -- is the very thing that God wants to use as your ministry to help and encourage others. God doesn’t just use our strengths; he uses our weaknesses, and even failures, too.

You were made for a mission. This is the fifth purpose of your life. Jesus said, “In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world I give them a mission in the world” (John 17:18, Msg).

Notice the phrase “in the world.” To be balanced, God wants you to have a “ministry” in your church and a “mission” in the world. You need both, not one or the other. Your ministry is to believers and your mission is to non-believers.

Once you’ve discovered God’s first four purposes of your life, your fifth purpose is to pass on the Good News to others. This is your mission: “Through Christ, God made peace between us and himself, and God gave us the work of telling everyone about the peace we can have with him" (2 Corinthians 5:18, NCV).

If you want God’s blessing on your life you must care about what God cares about most. What is that? He wants his lost children found! He wants everyone to know him, and his purposes for their lives.

Paul was passionate about this purpose. He stated, “The most important thing is that I complete my mission, the work that the Lord Jesus gave me, to tell people the good news about God's grace” (Acts 20:24, NCV). Fulfilling your mission in the world is called “evangelism.”

Because of misuse and misunderstanding, both believers and non-believers are scared of this word, but it just means “sharing good news” in Greek. Once you become a part of God’s family it’s your purpose to tell others how to become a part, too.

Why does God leave us here on earth once our eternal destiny is settled through salvation? Well, there are only two things you can’t do in heaven: You can’t sin there, and you can’t share the Good News with unbelievers there (because they are all believers!). Which of these two do you think God leaves you on earth to do? Someone cared enough to tell you; God wants you to tell others. Is anybody going to be in heaven because of you?

My life verse is Acts 13:36 (TEV) which says, “David served God’s purpose in his generation, ... then he died.” This phrase is the ultimate definition of a life well lived. You do the eternal and timeless (God’s purpose) in a contemporary and timely way (in your generation). That is what the purpose driven life is all about. I can’t think of a greater epitaph. Imagine that phrase on your tombstone. I pray that people will be able to say that about you when you die, that you served God’s purpose in your generation.

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