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To: Gamecock

I entered the words Rick Warren > cheap grace, and got a few hits. This article may interest you:

Spirit-Led or Purpose-Driven? Part 1 by Berit Kjos, November 2003

it can be found at :
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/2003/1-purpose.htm

Here is an excerpt:

" Thousands of small groups using Saddleback's study guide and Teaching Video for the 40 Days of Purpose are led in a slightly longer prayer. They hear Pastor Warren speak these words:

"Do you have a relationship with Jesus Christ? If you aren't sure of this, I'd like the privilege of leading you in a prayer to settle the issue. Let's bow our heads. I'm going to pray a prayer and you can follow it silently in your mind:

'Dear God, I want to know Your purpose for my life. I don't want to waste the rest of my life on the wrong things. Today I want to take the first step in preparing for eternity by getting to know You. Jesus Christ, I don't understand it all, but as much as I know how, I want to open my life to You. I ask you to come into my life and make yourself real to me. Use this series to help me know what You made me for. Thank you. Amen.'

"If you just prayed that prayer for the very first time, I congratulate you. You've just become a part of the family of God."

Is this a response to the gospel? Where is repentance, acknowledgement of need, or confession of personal sin? Where is the cross? The Bible tells us that saving "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." [Romans 10:17-18] But none of the Scriptures that show the gospel are mentioned in this first lesson. Biblically illiterate friends and neighbors who join the group would pray this prayer without any real knowledge of the cross, of the Savior, or of God's view of sin. In fact, the meaning of salvation isn't included in the first lesson. And if it had been there, the context of the lesson would suggest that we are merely saved from a purposeless life -- not from bondage to sin."



39 posted on 12/31/2006 9:51:04 AM PST by lastchance (Hug your babies.)
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To: lastchance
'Dear God, I want to know Your purpose for my life. I don't want to waste the rest of my life on the wrong things. Today I want to take the first step in preparing for eternity by getting to know You. Jesus Christ, I don't understand it all, but as much as I know how, I want to open my life to You. I ask you to come into my life and make yourself real to me. Use this series to help me know what You made me for. Thank you. Amen.'

"If you just prayed that prayer for the very first time, I congratulate you. You've just become a part of the family of God."

I've never really paid much attention to this guy but the previous passage is full of crap and completely bogus.

It was missing a few things.:

Where was the acknowledgement that God created and rules everything?
Where is the acknowledgement that I have sinned and come short of Heaven?
Where is the prayer that asks Jesus Christ to become my savior and that I accept his gift?

Do all that ... THEN you're a Christian.

46 posted on 12/31/2006 10:10:12 AM PST by Centurion2000 (Not one of those seasonal Festivians. I practice the Airing of Grievances daily. Often on this site.)
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To: lastchance

" Where is repentance, acknowledgement of need, or confession of personal sin?'

Where does it say that is needed? This is a protestant church, after all. Works not necessary -- futile, actually.


53 posted on 12/31/2006 10:33:43 AM PST by gcruse (http://garycruse.blogspot.com/)
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To: lastchance

mark
Thanx.


122 posted on 12/31/2006 12:49:02 PM PST by griswold3
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To: lastchance

That's the thing -- in order to speak of repentance, and call sinners to repentance, you have to utter the word "sin."


129 posted on 12/31/2006 12:54:21 PM PST by Theo (Global warming "scientists." Pro-evolution "scientists." They're both wrong.)
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To: lastchance

bttt


306 posted on 12/31/2006 7:22:28 PM PST by pepperdog
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To: lastchance; Gamecock

thank you for this thread and the link to crossroad. i now understand why a "purpose-driven" church treated our family the way it did three years ago.


350 posted on 12/31/2006 11:04:42 PM PST by FourPeas (The right thing to do never requires any subterfuge, it is always simple and direct. Calvin Coolidge)
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To: lastchance

My number one problem with Warren is his dismal presentation of the Gospel, as you demonstrate. Fooling people into thinking they are saved, when they are not, is the worst thing you can do.


434 posted on 01/01/2007 12:26:43 PM PST by LiteKeeper (Beware the secularization of America; the Islamization of Eurabia)
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