Posted on 12/30/2009 8:46:19 PM PST by My Favorite Headache
Pastor Rick Warren urgently asks faithful for $900,000 December 30th, 2009
It’s been a heck of a year for mega-pastor/bestselling author/power broker Rick Warren of the enormous Saddleback Church. It started out with Warren’s invocation at the historic inauguration of one President Barack Obama - and it concludes with Warren asking his flock to cough up nearly $1 million in just two days to keep the church out of the red.
“Dear Saddleback Family,” begins today’s missive from Warren. “THIS IS AN URGENT LETTER unlike any I’ve written in 30 years. Please read all of it and get back to me in the next 48 hours.
“I have thrilling news to share with you below but first some seriously bad news: With 10% of our church family out of work due to the recession, our expenses in caring for our community in 2009 rose dramatically while our income stagnated. Still, with wise management, we’ve stayed close to our budget all year. Then… this last weekend the bottom dropped out.
“On the last weekend of 2009, our total offerings were less than half of what we normally receive - leaving us $900,000 in the red for the year, unless you help make up the difference today and tomorrow.”
The church does not make its financial information public, so it’s impossible to tell just how big of a hole in the boat this $900,000 represents. A spokeswoman for Warren said the church does not release detail on its finances, so it’s hard to put the shortfall in context. (Suffice to say it may not represent a terribly significant portion of Saddleback’s annual budget, and that his personal appeal may well close the hole, and then some.)
In his letter, Warren goes on to detail the church’s accomplishments for the year, and then says:
It’s obvious that your giving through your church family is providing more “bang for the buck” than anything else you could support. It is no wonder that our ministry was named the top religious newsmaker of 2009 as reported by Associated Press.
YOU CAN HELP SAVE THE DAY 3 WAYS BEFORE JAN 1.
1. Click HERE right now to and give as large an end-of-the-year gift as you can to help avert this crisis. If we all do what God leads us to do, we’ll all be a part of a miracle. 2. Mail in your gift today. Gifts must be postmarked in 2009 to be posted as 2009 gifts for tax purposes. Mail to: 1 Saddleback Parkway, Lake Forest, CA 92630. 3. Drop your gift in the box at the front door of the Ministry Center at 1 Saddleback Parkway so you know for certain we get it TODAY or Thursday….
I love you so much. It is a deep privilege to be your pastor….
And, perhaps, a pain to be his accountant.
5
Really? They have thousands of congregants and they live paycheck-to-paycheck?
I don’t believe it. Something screwy is going on.
I agree. I don’t belong to a church and while I’d like to, none seem to “fit.”
I noticed that Pastor Warren was in the front row, next to Will Smith and Jada Pinket, at the recent Nobel Peace prize awards. I wonder how much it cost to go there?
That’s nice if they actually manage to do an unemployment dole. I think Salvation Army takes less off the top, though.
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You might be happier in a little congregation where you pretty well know everybody by the second or third visit.
Don’t think he would want to be part of the Kingdom and then go about killing Christians after Christ’s reply.....Paul was trained to be a Jewish lawyer (educated in the Scriptures)..he was not a rich young ruler..
Rick Warren’s church was not always a mushy brand of Christianity. Many of his early congregants were former members of the local Presbyterian church, who left when the Presbyterians began to ordain women. Yes, women, on top of the fact that the local Presbyterian minister got a divorce. The women at Warren’s church were the ones that campaigned against the mention of witches and fairy tales in school books and against action figures that they claimed were Satanic. Oh, and I knew some of them that didn’t allow rock and roll music in the house or car.
The question would be, a ruler of what. Not in the secular governmental sense, but Paul would be considered a maven of mavens in Jewish circles. His views would have great clout in matters of expected religious practice. Think the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
God is One who provides. Have you forgotten?
Absolute turn off and red flag when a pastor asks for money.
I wouldn’t donate a dime to a church that won’t make it finances public.
That’s above my paygrade.
I have no silver or gold, but i’ll continue to pray for him... and not for money, but his soul.
“Some speculate the rich young ruler was the future Apostle Paul.”
Never heard that before. Is there any scriptural basis or is it just speculation?
Ax Baraq fo’ some TARP......
Yep, McLame and Warren gave 0bama legitimacy when it was most needed.
When one this rich makes the pitch (I’m a poet and I don’t know it, I rhyme every time) then askance looks are understandable. Why didn’t he just go to his own pocket?
But church giving to other Christians is as old as biblical days. It’s hard to imagine how this gets organized if the pastor stays out of it.
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