Posted on 01/10/2006 10:06:56 AM PST by Terriergal
LAKE FOREST, Calif. - This week, it was the Rose Bowl players' breakfast. This month, it will be the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Then the President's prayer breakfast in Washington, followed by an entertainment industry conference in Los Angeles.
Rick Warren, the Southern Baptist preacher's son from tiny Redwood Valley, Calif., is much in demand these days.
The founding pastor of the Saddleback mega-church south of Los Angeles and the author of the best-selling The Purpose Driven Life, Warren is perhaps the most influential evangelical Christian in America.
With his book - the best-selling hardback nonfiction book in the nation - and Purpose-Driven Life videos and 40-day Bible study plans, Warren has created an unparalleled international network of millions of individuals and 400,000 churches, spanning faiths and denominations.
Now he wants to use his growing influence - and wealth - for an ambitious global attack on poverty, AIDS, illiteracy and disease.
"The New Testament says the church is the body of Christ, but for the last 100 years, the hands and feet have been amputated, and the church has just been a mouth. And mostly, it's been known for what it's against," Warren said during a break between services at his sprawling Orange County church campus.
"I'm so tired of Christians being known for what they're against."
Fresh from preaching to 38,000 congregants during Christmas week services, Warren was looking to the future by invoking the past.
"One of my goals is to take evangelicals back a century, to the 19th century," said Warren, 51, shifting painfully in his chair because of a back sprain suffered during an all-terrain-vehicle romp with his 20-year-old son, Matthew. "That was a time of muscular Christianity that cared about every aspect of life."
Not just personal salvation, but social action. Abolishing slavery. Ending child labor. Winning the right for women to vote.
It's time for modern evangelicals to trade words for deeds and get similarly involved, Warren contends.
At the end of his second sermon last Sunday, he reminded his largely affluent Orange County audience: "Life is not about having more and getting more. It's about serving God and serving others."
That, simply put, is his message. Give your life to God, help others, spread the word. It is the same message that Christians have been preaching for 2,000 years. Warren has updated the language, added catchphrases and five-step guides, but he readily admits "there is not a new idea in that book."
The Purpose Driven Life has sold more than 24 million English-language copies since 2002, with millions more in other languages. It has been popular with Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, with pastors and priests using it as a Bible-study handbook.
The book figured prominently in a hostage drama in Georgia last March. Ashley Smith, held by alleged Atlanta courthouse killer Brian Nichols, said he released her after she gave him methamphetamine and read to him from the book.
Warren "is able to cast the Christian story so people can hear it in fresh ways," said Donald E. Miller, director of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California. He is "a very important figure in evangelical Christianity," part of a "trend we'll see more of," Miller said, citing Warren's independence, social activism, informality and ability to reach across racial and national lines.
"The Gen X-ers are sick and tired of flash and hype and marketing," Miller said. "The soft sell of a Rick Warren is far more attractive to them than a highly stylized TV presentation of the Christian message."
Among evangelicals, Warren is more influential than better-known and more-divisive figures such as religious broadcasters Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell or radio psychologist James Dobson, and is often seen as the heir to the Rev. Billy Graham as "America's pastor."
Scott L. Thumma, a professor of the sociology of religion at Hartford Seminary and the author of a forthcoming book on mega-churches, said polls of church leaders often put Warren in first or second place among most-influential evangelical leaders.
"And one of the interesting things is that he crosses boundaries... . He's not just respected by the evangelical world but by many outside that world," Thumma said.
In North Philadelphia, the Rev. Herbert Lusk, the former Philadelphia Eagles running back who is pastor of the Greater Exodus Baptist Church and a prominent supporter of President Bush, brought Warren to town in November to raise money for aid to Africa. Lusk also tutored many of the Eagles' players and coaches in the Purpose-Driven Life program last year.
Lusk said Warren "took the principles that we preach about every Sunday and packaged them in a way that are palatable for Christians and non-Christians."
"The guy is a preacher's preacher... . He's the leading evangelical in the world, unquestionably," Lusk said.
Broadly defined, evangelicals are Christians who have had a personal or "born-again" religious conversion, believe the Bible is the word of God, and believe in spreading their faith. (The term comes from Greek; to "evangelize" means to preach the gospel.) The term is typically applied to Protestants.
Millions of Americans fit the definition, although estimates vary on exactly how many. Forty-two percent of Americans described themselves as evangelical Christians in a Gallup poll in April, while 22 percent said they met all three measures in a Gallup survey in May. The National Association of Evangelicals says about 25 percent of adult Americans are evangelicals.
Evangelicals are often equated with fundamentalists or the religious right, which annoys Warren. Although he's politically conservative - opposing abortion and gay marriage and supporting the death penalty - he pushes a much broader agenda and disdains both politics and fundamentalism.
Warren is a friend of President Bush and a repeat visitor to the White House. But he also met for several hours at Saddleback last month with Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, to discuss issues such as poverty and the environment.
"I'm worried that evangelicals be identified too much with one party or the other. When that happens, you lose your prophetic role of speaking truth to power," Warren said. "And you have to defend stupid things that leaders do."
"Politics is always downstream from culture. I place less confidence in it than a lot of folks. I don't think that's the answer... . Politics is not the right tool to change the culture."
With his goatee and penchant for Hawaiian shirts and colloquial language, Warren embodies a laid-back approach to worship that resonates with Americans who have little allegiance to formal denominations or rituals.
His 120-acre hilltop campus, with palm trees, waterfall and meandering brook, is a kind of religious theme park, where worshipers meet in different buildings to suit their musical preferences, while watching simultaneous video feeds of Warren preaching at the main worship center.
Warren's father and grandfather and great-grandfather were all preachers. He followed their path by starting Saddleback in 1980 with his wife, Kay, and a congregation of seven. His ministry prospered in booming Orange County, as Warren went door-to-door, asking residents what they'd like in a church. For 15 years, he and his growing flock were nomads, meeting in schools, homes and other buildings. Construction started on the current campus in 1995, and Warren now has 80,000 names on Saddleback's rolls. Saddleback is a a Southern Baptist church, but it doesn't advertise the fact.
As the money has rolled in from his book, Warren said he has given most of the millions to the church and the three social-service foundations he has established. He stopped taking his $110,000 annual salary and repaid the church for his 25 years of salary since its founding. He and his wife became "reverse tithers," he said, keeping 10 percent of their income and giving away the rest, including $13 million in 2004.
This month, he is leading a trip to Rwanda, to train pastors and distribute medicine and money to battle AIDS and other diseases. It's part of what he calls his global PEACE plan (Plant a church, Equip leaders, Assist the poor, Care for the sick, Educate the next generation).
Last month, he launched the first major evangelical effort to battle AIDS, convening a three-day conference at Saddleback to mobilize American Christians to help AIDS victims and raise money to fight the disease. Part of the battle for Warren is overcoming resistance from evangelicals who view AIDS as strictly a gay disease or even as divine retribution for immoral behavior.
Warren said he sees religious institutions as more powerful forces than governments for solving the world's problems.
"I would trust any imam or priest or rabbi to know what is going on in a community before I would any government agency."
But, powerful as churches can be in working for the powerless, they can't succeed without governments and nongovernmental organizations, Warren said.
Warren predicts that fundamentalism, of all varieties, will be "one of the big enemies of the 21st century."
"Muslim fundamentalism, Christian fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism, secular fundamentalism - they're all motivated by fear. Fear of each other."
ONLINE EXTRA
To read the rest of the series on the evangelical movement by Paul Nussbaum, visit http://go.philly.com/religion
speaking of emotions, I'm sitting here getting all overcome with emotion, frankly, with tears and deep sense of love for all you believers here who are wrestling with me over this. You are all so precious. I don't deserve the amount of patience you are giving me, please know that I know that.
"Marketing strategies for growing the church is thinking like the world."
Paul had a marketing strategy. He went to major radiating cities. He went to the synagogues where he knew people were. He went only to cities that had not been evangelized. He tailored his message and method to his audience. He went back to the churches he started to make sure they were using the Word properly. That is a marketing strategy that is still in use today.
"I want to develop rapport with people by working on music together. I enjoy it, even if they are not catching on that quickly or sing out of tune. I would never want anyone to think we have to be perfect up there. Cyrano was the music director at our ex church, and I was on the worship team every other week. We were capable of being more professional, but to what end? To the end of hurting and excluding those who, by no fault of their own,"
Im sure, just by reading your posts, you and Cyrano did not let these people wallow in mediocrity but had them practice, practice, practice. Of course you wanted them to strive for perfection, they were offering to God. They strive for perfection in their jobs and family life, why expect less in church? Now if they are like me they will never reach it here but there is always an opening for an usher, away from the music.
By the way, did I say thank you for this thread?
I like to think that Paul went where God sent him and when. God's strategy, not Paul's.
I do have a problem with that first one: "Rick Warren has publicly said that he will not preach against homosexuality and abortion as it may offend some in his congregation."
We are not to be pleasers of men, at least not to the point of putting their point of view before Gods.
No he didn't.
On Cyprus Paul (Acts 13):
"proclaimed the Word of God"
Also said, "You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right...Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord?"
In Pisidian Antioch Paul (Acts 13):
"Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the Law of Moses. Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you: "Look you scoffers, wonder and perish..."
In Iconium Paul (Acts 14):
"...Spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed."
"...speaking boldly for the Lord..."
"There was a plot afoot...to mistreat them and stone them".
They "fled"...and "continued to preach."
"In Lystra and Derbe Paul (Acts 14):
"We are bringing the good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the Living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them."
"Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead."
In Antioch and Syria Paul (Acts 14):
"...preached the good news in that city and won a large number."
In Perga (Acts 14):
"...and when they had preached the Word..."
In Macedonia:
"...concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them."
In Phillipi (Acts 16):
"The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message."
"These men [Paul and Silas] are advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice. The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. After they had been severly flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was ordered to guard them carefully....Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him."
In Thessalonica:
"...he reasoned with them from Scriptures, explaining and proving that Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead..."
Of Paul's message the Jews said, "They are all defying Ceasar's decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus."
In Berea:
"...Paul was preaching the word of God..."
In Athens:
"...he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews...Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection [and Paul said] In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.
In Corinth, Ephesus, Greece and Jerusalem Paul's message and methods were the same as noted above!
You are just parroting a purpose driven myth that is used to justify unbiblical messages and methods.
Please read the book of Acts for yourself...As you can see from the above citations, Paul's ministry is in direct opposition to the purpose driven model.
Paul just preached the Word/doctrine with boldness...no felt needs; no culturally adapted method or message...Paul had an anti-cultural method/message that he was reviled for by both Jews and Greeks...to the point that they tried to kill him.
And note that Paul was not concerned about offending anyone and that his evangelizing was done outside of the church. When he was at churches, he reported on what God was doing and edified the believers.
Uhhh.......I said the ARTICLE was not clear enough.
If he wasn't, he couldn't consult Synagogue 3000, using purpose driven principles, helping them to become more hip in order to increase numbers.
The Apostle Paul enetered synagogues and reasoned with them from Scripture proving that Jesus was ressurected and the Christ.
The Apostle Paul preached the Gospel and Biblical doctrine to Greeks and idol-worshippers, telling them to repent.
In contrast, Rick Warren enters the synagogue and assists their teachers in discovering new ways to be relevant and increase numbers (Thus, Yom Kippur Yoga and the like).
Also in contrast, Rick Warren doesn't address false teachers with the Gospel, nor Biblical doctrine, nor the message of repentance...he endorses them, uses them in his materials, and implements their unbiblical practices (yoga, contemplative prayer, feel good messages, labyrinths, mysticism, and etc.)
Not accurate.
When you are on a worship team, your primary goal is not to worship God. Your primary goal is to "lead" worship. When you do things that distract and take peoples focus away from worship and towards you (be it through grandstanding or musical incompetence, or raising your hands while singing, pulling the microphone away from your mouth), you are hampering worship.
Bad playing is not a good thing, be it in secular music or worship services. But in each case, it is bad for a different reason. And everything is about "why".
I think that would be wise. When I was looking into this whole thing, I started by reading Warren's own work. Frankly, I wouldn't expect a lot of clear commentary or refutation, but without that base you can't evaluate the merits of anything (positive or negative) regarding Warren. And there is much worth evaluating, IMO.
I can appreciate how things appear, particularly if you haven't looked into this much, but FWIW, saying Warren appears the underdog because of a thread on FR is like saying Bill Gates is small fry because a Macintosh BBS contained a post trashing Windows.
Cyrano
Where? He said he did not build on another's foundation.
With the Macedonian call, it looks like Paul was making the plans but open to the Lord's over ruling them. I expect that's how we are supposed to make them.
http://wayoflife.org/fbns/churchdir/!churches.htm
conservative church finder page
TerriGal said: "BTW I am only a friend of God if he calls me friend... and that is only if I do what he has commanded - speak the truth with boldness, not catering to fleshly desires of unsaved people."
Blue Said :No, No, No, you are a friend of God because you are a child of God, even when sitting on a stand in camo in the freezing cold waiting for Bambi to come along.
Jesus said :John 15:14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
Amen sister!
He never sugarcoated anything and he certainly never failed to preach the Gospel to the Jews, like Rick Warren did.
Where is it in Scripture that anyone needed a worship leader in order to Worship God?
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