Now, just so Steven knows... I find Obama's choice on this a lot more interesting than what that article I posted above puts on. I have been hearing of many pastors who have applied some of Warren's theology to their churches and their churches have shrunk by large numbers. I am curious what other christians think of this.....
Our Church has been growing, And many copies of "the Purpose Driven Life" have beeen given out here.
I have read the book 1 chapter a day at least 3 times. It is not as good as the Bible but it is about as close as any book I have found.
Herman
Have they not heard of his wife and her book Dangerous Surrender?
Surrender. It is not an inviting concept, is it? Yielding. Relinquishing. Our very nature resists these concepts.
Intimacy with God. Now that is far more appealing. Dont we all long for a deeper personal experience of Gods presence?
Kay Warren takes us on a startling adventure, across the globe and over the backyard fence, bringing us face to face with the powerful and mysterious link between surrender and intimacy with God. This wasnt a journey she intended, but once she took the first step there was no turning back. Her worldyour worldwill never be the same again.
Now Kay Warren invites youcompels youto explore living a life fully surrendered to God. You will enter the stories of men, women and children that will forever alter your understanding of God. You will come face to face with truths that will forever alter your understanding of yourself. You will be challenged to attempt the impossible and discover in the process that God is far deeper, far wider, far closer than you ever dared to dream.
We are loved by an invisible God who calls us to make him visible by becoming his hands and feet, his touch and his warmth. Kays journey, stories, and insights will beckon you to surrender yourself wholly to God and in so doing to personally experience his presence in a way youve never known.
Read more at: Kaywarren.com
Who would have been a better pick? Joel Osteen? Franklin Graham? I thought T.D. Jakes, with all his ties to Obama, was a shoe-in.
This message has been edited by Vinekeeper on Dec 20, 2008 7:36 AM
Here Herman, read this about your savior Rick Warren:
Rick Warrens Strategy for church growth splits congregants
The Wall Street Journal,
More articles on this topic: Rick Warren
IUKA, Miss. In April, 150 members of Iuka Baptist Church voted to kick Charles Jones off the deacons board. The punishment followed weeks of complaints by Mr. Jones and his friends that the pastor was following the teachings of the Rev. Rick Warren, the best-selling author and church-growth guru. After the vote, about 40 other members quit the church to support Mr. Jones.
Mr. Warren, the effusive pastor of stadium-sized Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., is best known for his book The Purpose Driven Life, which has sold 25 million copies and urges people to follow Gods plan for them. He has spawned an industry advising churches to become purpose-driven by attracting nonbelievers with lively worship services, classes and sermons that discuss Jesus impact on their lives, and invitations to volunteer.
But the purpose-driven movement is dividing the countrys more than 50 million evangelicals. Some evangelicals, like the Iuka castoffs, say its inappropriate for churches to use growth tactics akin to modern management tools, including concepts such as researching the church market and writing mission statements. Others say it encourages simplistic Bible teaching. Anger over the adoption of Mr. Warrens methods has driven off older Christians from their longtime churches. Congregations nationwide have split or expelled members who fought the changes, roiling working-class Baptist congregations and affluent nondenominational churches.
Last summer, the evangelical church of onetime Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers split after adopting Mr. Warrens techniques. That church, Valley View Christian Church in Dallas, wanted to increase membership and had built a huge sanctuary several years ago to accommodate hundreds of people. Church leaders adopted a strategic plan built around Mr. Warrens five fundamental purposes: worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry and evangelism. One goal was to make sure more than 19 percent of the churchs members were adults in their 20s and 30s, says the pastor, the Rev. Barry McCarty.
The Rev. Ron Key, then the senior minister, says he objected to the churchs Madison Avenue marketing. I believe Jesus died for everybody, Mr. Key says, not just people in a target audience. He says the leaders wanted church that was more edgy, with a worship service using modern music. Mr. Key was demoted, then fired for being divisive and insubordinate.
About 200 people, many of whom had left the church earlier because they thought it should give more money to mission work, began worshiping in a Doubletree Hotel, and later in a college gym, with Mr. Key as pastor. Ms. Miers, the White House counsel, worships with them when she comes to town, a White House spokeswoman says.
At a time when many churches are struggling with declining or aging congregations, advocates of the purpose-driven movement credit it with energizing congregations, doubling the size of some churches and boosting the number of megachurches of more than 2,000 members. Mr. Warren says his church and nonprofit arm have trained 400,000 pastors world-wide. He reaches many more through sales of his sermons, books and lessons on the Web. Mr. Warren says he donates 90 percent of his money to fund philanthropy and overseas training.
Mr. Warren preaches in sandals and a Hawaiian shirt, and he encourages ministers to banish church traditions such as hymns, choirs and pews. He and his followers use praise team singers, backed by rock bands playing contemporary Christian songs. His sermons rarely linger on self-denial and fighting sin, instead focusing on healing modern American angst, such as troubled marriages and stress.
As membership in Protestant churches stagnated in the 1980s, Mr. Warren, a Southern Baptist in Orange County, Calif., learned from surveys that the regions Reagan-era baby boomers said they didnt connect with their parents churches. He figured they might find God if they could sit in a theater-style auditorium and listen to live pop music and sermons that could help them with ennui and personal problems. Through Mr. Warrens Internet marketing savvy, tens of thousands of subscribing pastors learned about his church, which draws 20,000 people each weekend. In the past decade, many pastors jumped to replicate his methods, creating new churches and transforming existing ones.
Christians have long divided over efforts to adapt and modernize their faith. Some believers worry that purpose-driven techniques are so widespread among Protestant churches that they are permanently altering the way Christians worship. Some traditionalists say Mr. Warrens messages misread Bible passages and undermine traditions. Mr. Warren is gutting Christianity, says the Rev. Bob DeWaay, author of a book critical of the approach. The Bibles theme is about redemption and atonement, not finding meaning and solving problems, the Minneapolis pastor says. A spokesman said Mr. Warren believes the Bible addresses sin and redemption, as well as human problems.
Some pastors learn how to make their churches purpose-driven through training workshops. Speakers at Church Transitions Inc., a Waxhaw, N.C., nonprofit that works closely with Mr. Warrens church, stress that the transition will be rough. At a seminar outside of Austin, Texas, in April, the Revs. Roddy Clyde and Glen Sartain advised 80 audience members to trust very few people with their plans. All the forces of hell are going to come at you when you wake up that church, said Mr. Sartain, who has taught the material at Mr. Warrens Saddleback Church.
During a session titled Dealing with Opposition, Mr. Clyde recommended that the pastor speak to critical members, then help them leave if they dont stop objecting. Then when those congregants join a new church, Mr. Clyde instructed, pastors should call their new minister and suggest that the congregants be barred from any leadership role.
There are moments when youve got to play hardball, said the Rev. Dan Southerland, Church Transitions president, in an interview. You cannot transition a church and placate every whiny Christian along the way.
Mr. Warren acknowledges that splits occur in congregations that adopt his ideas, though he says he opposes efforts to expel church members. There is no growth without change and there is no change without loss and there is no loss without pain, he says. Probably 10 percent of all churches are in conflict at any given point, regardless of what theyre doing. That, he contends, is not just symptomatic of changing to purpose-driven. It would be symptomatic in changing to anything.
Despite successes elsewhere, the exodus at some churches adopting the purpose-driven approach has been dramatic. Since taking the job of senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Lakewood in Long Beach, Calif., seven years ago, the Rev. John Dickau has watched attendance slide to 550 from 700. Ive often wondered, wheres bottom? he says.
Mr. Dickau has emulated Mr. Warren by favoring sermons about marital and family issues. He says he has attended several Church Transitions conferences to glean new insights and is personally coached by Mr. Sartain. Still, Mr. Dickau says, he made plenty of missteps, mainly, moving too fast. He proposed that the church drop the word Baptist from the name, to reach people who wouldnt identify with a denomination, but the congregation vote failed.
He jettisoned the piano for a guitar. And still people left, he says because the music is modern, because the congregation no longer uses hymn books, because the center screen that displays the song lyrics obscures the cross. Having a smaller congregation has meant trimming the $1.7 million budget to be able to afford adding to the sound system and new stage lights, which cost $150,000, Mr. Dickau says.
Still, he says he doesnt regret adopting a purpose-driven approach. This church wont be here that much longer if we dont make these changes, he says.
The Rev. Bob Felts, pastor of Brookwood Church in Burlington, N.C., says his former congregation seemed enthusiastic about the purpose-driven approach in the 1990s. So he eagerly introduced the concepts to his new church starting in 2001.
Half the members, he said, balked at his decisions to dress casually, restrict choir performances and use electric instruments. Services now may start with a piercing electric-guitar solo, boosted with amplifiers from the $50,000 sound system. Nearly five years into the process, Mr. Felts says he has more young people than in years past: 40 percent of those who attend are under 22, as opposed to 20 percent years earlier. But attendance shrank to 275 this summer from 600. (He expects returning students from the area college to swell the rolls by 70.) Mr. Felts says he had to cut tens of thousands of dollars from the annual budget, which is now $600,000. He says some departing members have accused him of ruining the church.
Mr. Felts says that despite his churchs troubles, most churches that follow the purpose-driven way are growing. It takes time and persistence, he says. Youre talking about a new paradigm.
Mr. Warrens philosophy has become such a lightning rod that some church leaders are reluctant to declare that they are using purpose-driven methods and some congregants see hidden agendas in the smallest changes at their churches.
Since Iuka Baptists founding in 1859, its services had remained much the same. Sunday morning began with hymns such as How Great Thou Art and O Worship the King, followed by prayer and a lengthy sermon. Many of the white working-class families who attend the church have known each other since high school.
But the church was in debt and wasnt growing. After Iukas pastor moved to another church in 2003, a search committee recruited the Rev. Jim Holcomb, 48. He preached with gusto, liberally salting his sermons with personal stories and jokes. Changes were coming, he told members, and he warned that the church could lose some members because of it.
Mr. Holcomb says he partially read an earlier Warren book called The Purpose Driven Church and read Mr. Warrens essays in the Ladies Home Journal. He says Mr. Warrens teachings were never part of his agenda. He was promoting aggressive, evangelistic outreach to bolster the church. If thats purpose-driven, then Im purpose-driven, he says.
Innovations that are hallmarks of many purpose-driven churches soon began rippling through Iuka Baptist. Mr. Holcomb began a second worship service at 8:30 a.m. Sundays with a praise team that sang hymns as well as Christian pop songs with lyrics beamed on a screen. In 2005, Iuka Baptist adopted its first mission statement, a tactic that Mr. Warren says helps the church focus on its objectives. One of the schools adult Sunday school teachers bought each of his 12 students a copy of The Purpose Driven Life. The churchs youth minister assigned the book to his 60 middle-school and high-school students.
The church began to grow. Membership this spring was 694 local members, up 170 since Mr. Holcomb became pastor, according to church staff. But the changes dismayed several older members. Charles Jones, 67, had belonged to Iuka Baptist for 59 years and was one of 15 deacons, or lay officers. He and his wife, Nena, were married at the church, as was their daughter.
The Joneses grew disappointed that they rarely heard Mr. Holcomb deliver messages from the pulpit about Gods wrath or redemption. He didnt preach on somebody going to hell, says Mrs. Jones, 61. Mr. Holcomb says he has always preached sound biblical messages.
Mrs. Jones began scouring the Internet to investigate all the changes taking places at Iuka. Her searches led her to Web sites run by critics of Mr. Warren as well as to Mr. Warrens own Web site.
More than a dozen church members, including the Joneses, began meeting privately to complain about changes. Church leaders became angry. The Rev. Jim Holcomb has been slandered and insulted by some of you, the churchs minister for education, the Rev. Kim Leonard, thundered at one service. Mr. Holcomb and Mr. Leonard deny that Iuka Baptist was becoming purpose-driven. Mr. Leonard says it was coincidence that the new initiatives resembled strategies advocated by Mr. Warren and his movement.
Then a Web site run by a critic of Mr. Warren posted a letter from Mrs. Jones describing her worries about Iuka Baptist and comparing the congregations admiration for Mr. Holcomb to the cult followings of Jim Jones and David Koresh. The posting sparked angry emails from church members. A church meeting was soon called. Hundreds of people packed into the pews. After heated arguments, the congregation voted 150-to-41 to throw Mr. Jones off the board. The members also accepted the resignations of two other deacons, friends of Mr. Jones who had been asked to leave the board. In the weeks that followed, 40 church members quit.
With no church to worship in this spring, Mr. Jones led 30 former Iuka members in prayer one May night at a public park. He asked God to bless their former spiritual home and those who had forced them from it.
Keep your eyes on Iuka Baptist Church, Lord, Mr. Jones said, his head bowed, that you may open their eyes and their hearts.
Mr. Holcomb, the pastor whose changes at the church started the controversy, has left Iuka for another church. A search committee continues to look for a new pastor. Deacon Kenny Phifer said the committee wont hire a pastor who will make Iuka purpose-driven.
I guess we have had our problems before Rick Warren came along. This is a town that many people move to and from and we did go from 200 to 60 about 12 years ago over other issues. I thank God that we worship God and although many of us have read Rick Warrens books we do not worship him. It is almost -40 degrees here today. Have a breakfast, funeral and then heading towards Edmonton so it will be a big day.
Herman
Thanks for responding Herman. I had hoped you would respond along those lines. Most of what I post gets no response so I went a little overboard to see if you were reading what I put. Now that I have your attention take a look at this:
How often have I seen a man sitting
on one of the garden
benches at Laity Lodge, his
hand wrapping his chin, thinking
thoughts harder than our quotation-
stones; or a woman staring across
the river, her flat, glassy expression
concealing a cerebral storm at oceanic
depth? At the Lodge and in the
Camps, many people seek insights
about their past and light for their way
forward; I have certainly been one of
them. Seeking Gods guidance is an
ongoing pursuit for all of us.
In our younger years, we believe
well figure things out one day, but
maturity brings with it the understanding
if we are paying attention
that our destiny lies beyond our
own reckoning. Yet we
are continually obliged
to plan and prepare for
the future; to mark up
the calendar, every
appointment expressing
a choice about the
story we perceive ourselves
to be living. At moments of crisis
we can find ourselves not knowing
whether to turn right or left because
the storm, as in a hurricane, has
blanked-out the landscape.
So how do we find direction, knowing
that our choices guarantee nothing
and that we must make our choices
nevertheless? Early in the history of
Laity Lodge, I was confronted with a
hundred and one decisions I didnt
know how to make, especially about
the key issue of staffing. Then a wise
friend suggested that Gods guidance
to me might be summarized as:
drawn, not driven. God draws us
through loves calling into our providential
destinies, while the world and
its Siren song drives ususually in the
guise of necessity. Business necessity.
Social necessity. Religious or
Community necessity. Being driven
often comes with a sense of agitated
buzz, with Oh, well, I guess Ive got
to do this. But, afterward, doing it
leaves me frazzled.
But Thomas Kelley says that if
were in Gods will, we can feel just as
confident saying No as about saying
Yes.
Being drawn, on the other hand,
involves that calm sense of Yes! This
is the way I should go. Its got my
name on it. Theres a quiet sense of
desire to do the thing, even a feeling
of anticipation. I want to do it. If we
yield our lives to Christ each morning,
we can joyously affirm: I delight to
do your will, O my God (Psalm 40:8).
Of course, many commitments into
which we are drawn, marriage being
the chief example, create simple duty.
No husband should waste his time
wondering if he is drawn to go to
work. Having been drawn into the
commitment of marriage, both men
and women simply have to shoulder
some mighty onerous responsibilities.
When we are presented with truly
free choices, though, the prospect of a
career change, for example, or in the
course of managing ourselves and perhaps
other people at work, as well as
how to be responsible marriage partners
and parents, we should seek what
the Lord is calling us to do.
How does He call us? What fits
with the gifts that He has given?
What does our conscience say? What
would the Lord find pleasing? Alive in
Him, what excites me? What has a feel
of pleasure and joy? What avenue has
been, by nature, grace, and circumstances,
prepared? No purely material
advantage or fear of being criticized
should ever outweigh such
considerations.
The ultimate testthe final
decideris to Let the peace of God
rule in your hearts (Colossians 3:15).
Never violate that peace. Its your red
Stop light and your green for Go.
If you get a yellow light for Caution,
then you wait on the Lord. Allow
the peace that comes from Christ to
control your thinking. That peace is
the guide for our guidance.
What has a feel of pleasure and joy?
What avenue has been, by nature, grace,
and circumstances, prepared?
Some Thoughts from
Howard E. Butt, Jr. . . .
Following Gods Will: Drawn, Not Driven
From the news commentaries I've heard, Obama and Warren have become friends and agree to disagree on a number of issues. I assume that Obama is using warren as a way to reach to the "other side", those that voted against him. I really think it's a nonissue except to some cranky groups, would people have felt better if Obama had chosen a lesbian Episcopalian minister? I've never read anything Warren has written, I have a basic distrust of all "mega-churches" and denominations.
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