INTRODUCTION
Many critics look at Rick Warren as a
modern false teacher[1] as he is being criticized for his association with some accused false
teachers like Robert Schuller, and using scriptures wrongly by too much
contextualizing or inexplicitly using Bible verses in his works. On another
note, popular theologians defend Warren like John Piper, who said that the
famous author’s faithful heart in spite of their differences in methodological
instincts and inclinations[2].
I have read Rick Warren’s Purpose
Driven Life about twice some years ago and still trying to look at its pages
from time to time. I find his work inspiring and it makes me believe that he is
indeed a faithful child of God who wants everyone to understand his or her
purpose in this temporary home that we have. All the more, I have virtually seen
more of his personality as an individual, a pastor, and an evangelist through
his book THE PURPOSE DRIVEN CHURCH (PDC).
This
paper aims to provide my own summary, review, and reflections about Warren’s
PDC. Reckoning with some reservations, I claim that everything I have written
on this paper is not out of biases but of my own research and reflection about
the book and the author himself. I also laid down my “Pentecostal lenses” as I
look through the chapters of this book, hence, I have tried to look at every
page as how the author wanted to convey every point. Upon finishing the book, I
moved forward to formatting my own interpretation without losing the main
points, especially the Biblical ones, as much as I can.
Chapter 1
SUMMARY
The book kicked off with a powerful
metaphor of how the church and God make a partnership in His sending business,
and Warren underscored it through the word “wave”. He said that it is not our responsibility to
create the waves, it is God’s[3]. What we do is ride on the
waves. So to speak, our task is not to create spiritual waves but to see where
God is creating these so we can join Him there.
From the wave, which is very
significant in Warren’s church context, he moved forward to sharing his own
testimony about how Saddleback Church started. Purposely to set a platform
about how to start a church, not necessarily for every church leader to copy
but to actually consider according to every church’s context.
Warren touched very important points
about how to start a church, covering important steps such as defining the
church’s purposes and how to communicate and then apply these, while reckoning
with the foundation of a healthy church. He also emphasized the importance of
how to target an audience and developing a strategy to reach them.
It is important that everything is
kept Biblical so Warren gave a highlight on how Jesus attracted crowds and how
we can learn from His example. Worship was also carefully discussed especially
in designing the worship service and the music used in the church.
The book ended with a challenge for
growth in all aspects. That from being unreached, people become attendees to
later become church members (congregation), and later developed as mature
members (committed) and then into ministers (core). This is the purpose of
every church.
Chapter 2
IMPORTANT
LESSONS FROM THE PDC
Every page is meaty. I can still
recall the first 20 pages talking about how powerful the metaphor “waves” was
when I first read it. I thought that Warren was right, God creates the waves
and we ride on these. Sadly, nowadays, we see a lot of churches in the world
who get so busy creating their own spiritual waves without asking God or even
just seeking His will and purpose. A lot of our brothers and sisters are
setting their own stages and claim that they are anointed and have the license
to create spiritual waves[4]. Many are missing the mark
and this is the sad reality. Hence, many churches stop growing. And in the book
it says, when the church is not growing, it is dying[5].
From that point, Warren has already
introduced the purpose of every church, which is GROWTH. Every church has to
grow and the only way to make it grow is to make sure that it is healthy. Warren
delivered useful suggestions to make a church healthy and he backed it up with
very good points in setting strategies. All these were the products of his 20
years of experience in church ministry, from how Saddleback church was planted
up to its current flourishing stature by God’s grace.
So how did Warren and the church do
it? By God’s grace, their focus was not just to be faithful to God but to be
fruitful. Warren believed that we are called to be both successful and
faithful. “Christ does not expect us to be more than we can, but he does expect
us to produce all that we can by His power within us.”[6]
For
the growth of every church, Warren emphasized 8 myths that have blinded many
Christians today. To summarize these, I
would have to say:
1. True
enough, not all large churches care about attendance. Most of these grow
because they offer things that make them keep their people. What is important
here is for every church to understand how to nurture the newborns to the point
that they will not long for new mothers. They have to be fed well with God’s
Word and be taught about their purpose, letting them grow in their own skills
and uniqueness for God’s glory.
2. Sure
most large churches do not grow because small churches merged to become one new
church. You will see if a large church had a genuine growth. You can sense it.
3. It
is agreeable that you do not have to choose between quality and quantity. Both
are important in every church.
4. Never
compromise the message and the mission of the church in exchange of “growth”,
that is in number. Jesus never compromised the truth and we should do the same.
Let the church grown genuinely without sugar coating or giving shallow messages
that intend to protect the feelings of many.
5. Of
course, Dedication is not the sole reason for church growth. Many pastors have
surrendered their lives to the Lord and His Kingdom for many years yet the
church will not grow. We cannot judge a pastor’s heart by looking at the size
or quality of the church. That would be a sloppy gauge to use.
6. It
is best for a church to be flexible always. Wisely giving way to diversity.
Because there is not “sole” key to church growth. Try many strategies as much
as possible.
7. As
I said above, God expects us to be both faithful and fruitful. It is important
to see fruit internally and externally, quality and quantity.
8. Do
not look at large churches negatively. Perhaps you are jealous? We can learn a
lot from particular large churches that are not just growing in numbers but
also in character. Realize that not all mega churches are prosperity gospel
churches. See the good ones and learn from them.
After
Warren talked about the myths, he focused on the “fuel” of every church. He
said that there is always something that drives a church, some are driven by
tradition, personality, finances, programs, buildings, events, and seekers.
There was a challenge in that chapters that a church should have a clear goal
and purpose and that all these other things that are being gassed up should be
reconsidered and set inside the formatting vault. Every church should have a
Biblical paradigm in setting the purpose, and that purpose should be God’s
purpose. “Plans, programs, and personalities don’t last, but God’s purposes
will last”[7].
In
this matter, Warren suggested that the purpose should be well “defined”,
“communicated”, “organized”, and then “applied”. [8] It will take a long time
and committed study and analysis of the church context just like how a house is
built. This is the foundation, which takes a long time to be set and most of
the time, it is expensive and needs careful work. But once it is successfully
set, you are sure that the house is strong and unshakeable no matter how strong
the wind would be.
After
knowing and applying the purpose of the church, it is important to learn how to
reach out to the community and how to keep them. Warren introduced their system
like a dart board, where the people of the church are categorized from being
(1) Unchurched - community, (2) Regular attendees- crowd, (3) Members- congregation,
(4) Maturing members- committed, (5) Lay ministers- core. The goal is to hit
the “bull’s eye”, meaning, every unchurched goes to church, become a regular
attendee and later decides to be a member of the church, then grow as a
committed Christian, ultimately leading one to become a lay minister or later a
pastor, missionary, evangelist, preacher, or whatever the calling will be.
This
is not just plain program. Every step is critical. Every stage is important and
should be given proper attention and care. For example, the unchurched are to
be provided with clear explanation of salvation in the membership class. It is
also important to carefully explain how trusting Christ becomes the first
requirement for membership. The membership class becomes a very essential venue
to set the foundation among the new attendees and hence the church needs to
have the best teachers possible to assign in this ministry.
Saddleback
church has three versions of membership class: (1) a children’s version for
older elementary kids, (2) a youth version for junior high and high school, (3)
and adult membership class.[9] Members start to grow
because the church set expectations on them. Saddleback church even provides a
membership covenant.
Membership
in Saddleback church has four requirements: “(1) a personal profession of
Christ as Lord and Savior, (2) Baptism by immersion as public symbol of one’s
faith, (3) completion of the membership class, (4) a signed commitment to abide
by Saddleback’s membership covenant.”[10]
Now
once a regular attendee becomes a member, he or she is expected to experience
progress in spiritual maturity. Warren says that maturity does not depend on
how much you know but most likely evidenced in character. And usually, what
goes along with maturity is the member’s commitment in ministry. As the process
progresses, the member becomes deeply rooted in the Word of God, making it hard
for him or her to not just sit but do more for the advancement of God’s
kingdom. This time, he or she becomes a committed minister. Some even become
church planters, who start pastoring daughter churches.
From
simple membership to increased commitment, everyone in the church becomes
fruitful. This is what the Lord Jesus wants from us. He does not want us all to
be stagnant. He expects our faith to be dynamic in a way that we become active
and become a blessing to others.
The
church is made to grow and bear fruits not for itself but for the world. Hence
the blessings are not meant to be kept flowing inwardly but most especially
outwardly and to be spewed out as far as possible. This way, the influence is
widened and the impact is made more remarkable, in Jesus name.
Chapter 3
APPLICATION
UPON READING PDC
While
reading Warren’s PDC, I cannot help but think of my home church. This church is
about to celebrate its 13th anniversary this year. But our
membership is not as great as others would expect it to be.
The
history of our church is rooted from a university-based organization which our
pastor has started. Hence, members actually come and go over the years because
as the members graduate, they evacuate to the bigger cities for more
opportunities. The ones who became strongly committed to minister were just the
ones left. Praise God there were ones who were left! Some of us feel sad about
the number of members in our church but as Warren said, quantity does not
define a church. However on the other note, Warren still said that quality and
quantity are important.
I
would say that people in our church are doing well in the maturing process as
Christian ministers. Their commitment is outstanding. However, I admit that we
do not have a good system. And I guess that the problem lies on it.
Our
current system is overly contextualized that there is no prepared teaching or
we do not even have an organized membership class for new attendees. Our
culture is so much emphasizing on discipleship of the members, eating “meaty”
teachings. Some members are assigned for one-on-one discipleship through the
elder members of the church who are capable of the said task. I would say that
the one-on-one system is great but still, I guess having a firm and organized
membership class will make a huge difference in a positive sense.
In
our context though, it will be complicated to draft a membership program. We
need to prepare not just three (as Saddleback’s), since Saddleback resides in
an urban area and our church ministers to both urban and rural/mountain
ministries. We need to cater to the needs of both worlds.
I
have tried drafting a discipleship system for our church and still I feel that
it is not enough. We need to translate many teachings at least in Tagalog
versions so they become more understandable in the contexts that we have.
Another
thing that our church is becoming passive about is not having a more intent assessment
of members. There are no labels like the dartboard of Saddleback’s. We seem to
just have two types of people in the congregation, the committed and the
uncommitted. And we are guilty of not having a vision for every member. Perhaps
this is because Saddleback’s culture is so different from us, where people do
not actually like labels and people here usually take it as a competition.
With these, I would like to cast a
vision for my church for its growth in Jesus name:
1.
Growth is necessary. Our church seems sick
today but it will be well soon in Jesus name!
2.
A better discipleship system is soon to
arise!
3.
Our pastor will be more open-minded for
changes and the members will all embrace everything as long as it is according
to the Word of God.
4.
Every member will commit himself or
herself to ministry work and bring glory to God.
5.
The church will be united in riding on
God’s waves and should not engage into creating its own waves.
6.
The church will multiply in number but the
growth in number becomes directly proportional to the progressing maturity of
every member.
I
believe our church is on the right path but it has to undergo a transition when
it comes to being organized. God is the God of order and I believe he wants
things to be in order inside the church. Hence, I pray and lift up to the Lord
this aspect. That through this, our church will grow according to His sovereign
will.
I
pray that the Lord will continue to guide me as I take the task of being one of
the developers of the church’s discipleship system. Often times I get
frustrated about it because some of our council members become very passive
about this. I pray for their commitment to set strict rules to undergo the
programs set through the system that I am designing by God’s grace.
I
pray that the church’s members will have the thirst and hunger for Biblical
education as they consider it as an important way of dressing up while being in
the war. God’s Word in Biblical education practically comprise the armour that
we wear in the spiritual warfare. Nonetheless, if not put into action, it is
non-sense.
In
all these, I declare and decree LOVE to be fueling every action. If God is with
us, then love is with us and with everything we do, for God is love. Moreso,
the Bible says all these will just be non-sense if not done in love.
I
thank the Lord for His great love lavished on us but I pray that we do not
trample on this love that He has given us. May this love be brought about in
our lives and overflow externally towards people who need Jesus too.
In
Jesus’ name…
[1]
Discerning Truth, http://www.discerningtruth.org/showthread.php?250-Is-Rick-Warren-a-False-Teacher.
[2]
Desiring God, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/john-piper-interviews-rick-warren-on-doctrine.
[3]
P.14
[4] I
hear a lot of stories about charismatic “Christian” evangelists who come to
different churches in Asia but when you look at their own background, you will
be surprised. I heard one evangelist who had wives in Cambodia, Thailand, and
the Philippines. Though he had a huge crowd, what do we expect from the
attendees, will they grow with such contaminated roots? Let’s pray for those
who continuously miss the mark. I believe the Lord is not done with all of us
yet so everyone still has the hope to get into the straight path towards the
Lord’s righteous Kingdom.
[5] In
page 16, Warren said that the church is an ORGANISM not an ORGANIZATION. It
should be healthy so it grows.
[6]
P.65.
[7]
P81.
[8]
P95-150.
[9]
P319.
[10]
P320.
