Rick Warren talks about 'purpose driven' strategy

Rick Warren is the author of 'The Purpose Driven Life'

25 July 2005

Rick Warren, author of the best-selling The Purpose Driven Life, made his first visit to the UK in July to outline his vision for church health at the debut European Purpose Driven Church Conference in Nottingham.

For the uninitiated his book, The Purpose Driven Life, which outlines how every human has a divine purpose according to God’s master plan, has sold over 25 million copies worldwide, easily rivalling Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. He is also famous for the startling growth of his church. Saddleback Church in California started with just one family; there are now 50,000 names on the church roll. His blueprint for growing churches is contained in the Purpose Driven Church paradigm for church health.

That blueprint is now being rolled out in Europe. Catching him for a chat between sessions at the Nottingham Conference, made possible by a partnership between the Alliance and Purpose Driven UK, he was keen to emphasise that the Purpose Driven model could work in this country. “If a principle is biblical then it is trans-cultural,” he says. “This is not an American strategy, but a New Testament strategy. Of course it has to be adapted, but the purposes don’t change. In fact there are far more purpose driven churches outside the United States. KICC in London, the UK’s largest church, is a purpose driven church.”

Purpose-Driven is built around five fundamental purposes – fellowship, spiritual maturity, service, evangelism and worship. The whole thing has to do with balance: making sure none of the five purposes gets neglected, and that no one of them dominates the church.

That is the theory, but there are obvious difficulties in applying the purposes to a church steeped in a particular tradition. “You need to start multiple services,” is Warren’s answer. “At Saddleback we have services at six different times and the music and style is different for each one. The idea is not to do away with the old, but to put more hooks in the water to catch more fish.”

Saddleback has 16,000 in attendance each weekend, and is one of America’s mega churches. So is this what we are aiming for in the UK? Definitely not, according to Warren. “The Purpose Driven strategy has nothing to do with size or denomination,” he says. “It is about church health, not church growth. I don’t particularly like large churches. Churches will grow to however big God wants them to be. There is no correlation between the size and strength of a church. Big isn’t necessarily better. The important thing is for a church to be in balance.” But applying the five purposes is not an optional extra. “If churches are not doing this then they are just a social club,” he claims.

Sceptics should note that Warren has some important devotees. The President of Rwanda is keen for his country to become purpose driven. George Bush has contacted him, as has our own Prime Minister, in connection with The Purpose Driven Life. “He has a heart for the poor,” he says of Tony Blair. Warren was also recently included in Time magazine’s list of the 100 men and women whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world and his profile was upped again when an absconded criminal in the US was persuaded to turn himself in after absorbing the book’s message.

But not everyone is impressed. “I think one of the criticisms we tend to get most is that this is just a money making machine,” says Warren. In fact, he and his wife Kay are reverse tithers and currently give money back to Saddleback and projects close to their heart such as their latest baby, The Global Peace Plan. P-e-a-c-e stands for plant churches, equip the leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation. In essence the plan aims to help and empower the poor and disenfranchised. He says: “The purpose of influence is to speak up for those who have no influence.”

The UK Director of the Evangelical Alliance, John Smith, who worked hard to persuade Warren to come to the UK, says of him: “I have known Rick for a number of years and have found him an inspirational writer, speaker and teacher. He has a penchant for making the complicated understandable and for making the Church effective in our modern world. He continually goes back to biblical principles, rather than a particular model. I cannot commend him enough for his commitment to the local church and biblical principles. I know that many of our members have found him an invaluable help to them in their Christian lives.”

Warren was equally affirming: “I want to say how much I value the Evangelical Alliance and John Smith. We love and pray for you.”

For more information on Rick Warren and the Purpose Driven Church please visit: www.purposedrivenuk.com