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You got it right!

Just watch for purpose driven to enter the Catholic church. It's written vaguely enough ...

[this is often actually a formal technique called 'studied ambiguity' although many people do it unconsciously because they instinctively avoid confrontation]

... that you can take from it whatever you want. Warren is a pro at beauraucrat-speak, feeding each side just enough of what it wants to keep them coming back, and creating a false union between two opposing sides that cannot be reconciled and have no common ground.

It doesn't directly challenge anyone's *beliefs* at all - or tell you "in Christ alone" you should put your trust. It only challenges your personal preferences. Now, challenging personal preferences in itself is not bad. But it gives you no grounding upon which to make any decision regarding these things, so one's personal preference must be sacrificed for the preferences of the up-and-coming-crowd who manage to gain control, with no real thought for how it is affecting others who have something of intangible value to give to the church.

It also never specifies what message we are not to compromise. The messages I have always come away with from Rick himself and every other purpose driven or church growth pastor boils down to this:

"feeling down? Feeling stale? Feeling purposeless? not growing? Serve the church more!"

Serving the physical church oranization becomes the panacea for everything that ails you. Never are we told to withdraw, to get alone with God, to quietly study the Scriptures and be SURE what we are believing is true... and almost never to rely on other people, and especially not a mob of people, to give us our direction. This testing of everything, this challenging of Paul, is what we should be doing DAILY as the Bereans did (Acts 17) for which Paul COMMENDED them. In contrast, in purpose driven churches (with rare RARE exceptions) pastors disenfranchise those who challenge them, even if they are sincere believers.

Sad, isn't it?