What's the purpose?
I was reminded by a hilarious article in the latest Lark News, Warren to buy Saints, build Purpose-Driven Field, about a conversation I had with my brother-in-law last week on Rick Warren and his Purpose-Driven empire.If you have been living underground for the last few years, US mega-church pastor Rick Warren's #1 best-seller The Purpose Driven Life and its many spinoffs, has been the biggest thing to happen to Christianity since...well, Christ probably.
His blend of self-help style faith and simple, catchy messages has worked well and now his 40-day programs have become the default for unimaginative churches the world over. Including mine.
In my first year in Canberra, we did the original "40 Days of Purpose". Then we did "Influencing the City" last year (retitled to "Influencing the Capital" and tweaked to focus a lot on our building program) and now we will do "40 Days of Community" in 2006.
I don't have as big a problem with Warren as much as someone like Bruce Wilkinson and his appalling prosperity-doctrine-for-dummies. He uses verses out of context and he loses a lot of subtleties, but he's not unsound. I do think his focus is a little bit too much on the traditional church and I can't see him really getting through the non-Christian Gen-X-Gen-Y. And in fairness to him, that's not a big problem.
My beef is really with churches like mine that don't bother to have a vision of their own and naively hope that everyone will be "blessed" by the amazing mystical power embodied in the books of Warren and 40-day programs. I've seen it work for individuals, but our church isn't changing much at all. We're not becoming more Christ-like. We're not more caring or compassionate. We're not breaking free of judgmentalism or petty squabbles.
Maybe the time has come to admit that we don't have it all together and that no book or person has the panacea for all our ills. Except one.
Categories: Gospel
posted by Dave @ 2:25 PM
9 Comments:
agreed totaly dave!! i mean Rick is an ok guy and some of the stuff he says aint to bad either..
but be it wwjd, alpha or any "solution to our shrinking church" solution, they dont fire up the hearts of those involved.. unless God does his thang...
thus any program or no program will work if Gods people get a heart for him and a heart for the outsiders..
oh wait this is a comment not my own blog... i think ill post it ;)
Ok a serious comment from me ( i know i can do it if i try real hard) ......
When did church become programs? when did the gospel become a franchise? When did leaders stop hearing from G-d and start hearing from mega confrences?
Its easy to run a church on a formular push the numbers into a computer diveded into cell groups follow a bible study??
Is this what church has become When did we stop trusting ourselfs to hear G-ds voice? When did we start to question our own giftings?
My thoughts a relationship with G-d or anyone for that matter is not done by reading some book or doing some program or joining some group!!
OH hi dave im sarah nice to meet you
Hey Dave, Andy advertised your post on his blog and so I'm coming to visit - hope you don't mind :)
Great thoughts Dave. I personally have no problem with the 40 Days of Purpose because I think it touches on a lot of things that maybe a lot of people are lacking/needing/desiring etc.
My church has never done 40 Days of anything so I can't talk from that point of view :)
But I think you guys are right that each church needs a vision that is given to them by God and not by whoever the latest cool writer is (by the way, I worked at a conference in South Africa where Bruce Wilkinson spoke - he was one of many speakers - definitely not keynote- and we had to hand out copies of the Jabez book to each person as they registered... man oh man - is he popular in that part of the world!)
I have been thinking so much lately about how middle class most churches seem to be, even when they aren't in middle class areas. I have been reading a book called 'The Post Evangelical' by Dave Tomlinson and here is something he has to say on that:
"The consqequence of confusing Christianity with middle-class values is that many people who don't identify with that culture reject the church and in many cases, the gospel, too ... One such person told me: 'To be quite honest, there isn't much apart from faith in Jesus that I share in common with these people; but the frightening thing is that they seem to feel sure I will 'improve' and become like them, given a bit of time and some working on by the Holy Spirit. I doubt if I will stay around that long.' "
Thats just something that I can see alot of in my area (West Ryde in Sydney).
Firstly, I can't believe Andy jsut used the word "thang."
Second, interesting review here;
http://www.gladwell.com/2005/2005_09_12_a_warren.html
Finally my own thoughts. I think that the book is fine for what it is. A book that tries to get a certain group of western christians off their backside and do something. kudos for that.
however, I agree with Sarah a la Feline when she said that this thing called the church is not a program. Call me Yaconelli but hsitorically the church isn't a driven organisation with goals and timescales for relationship with God building. It is a flawed and buggered up thing made up of people who despite our best or worst intentions sometimes get is right and sometimes wrong.
Like I said, I think the book has it's place, but the screwed upness that we loose sleep over and will never shake also requires us to dependant on Jesus. Imagine a worldwide church chugging along like a well oiled machine. Jesus would be just as out of the picture as he is now, we humans tend to do that.
Oh, and I would say the biggest thing since Jesus would be Guttenburg, but thats just me!
-Nick (another Andy invite)
Sarah a la Feline i like that giggles thanks nick !
Ps i think Andrew should do hes own blogging
Glad to see some redirected traffic from Andy's site. Our blogs are going to become the next ooze!
Thanks for the comment about middle class culture, Kristy - very astute. Although most churches are going to be that way in Canberra because it is the prevailing culture!
Sarah - your wisdom astounds me ;) but seriously you are right. Church is not a "program" but a bunch of people who have decided to "do life" together with Jesus (blog church anyone?)
Nick - the fact you agree with sarah chills me to the core ;) i did like the review you posted, i have to admit having a soft spot for the story of how Rick started his church... its just sooo... frigging ridiculous! it could only have been a "God" thing...
Kristy - an interesting comment on the "middle classness" of our christian experience... it is true though we all sit here makeing these comments as middle classers... but there does need to be a realisation of where we sit in the world just becouse the people "around" us are middle class doesnt mean the rest of the world is... part of the shift to a truly global christianity...
any thoughts?
Andy said: but there does need to be a realisation of where we sit in the world just becouse the people "around" us are middle class doesnt mean the rest of the world is...
I agree, which is partly why I've recently become a convert to the idea of short term mission trips to dirt-poor countries. Or even hellish places like Mumbil.
The question is "do we even believe in church anymore?", where "church" is a narrowly defined club with programs and meetings. Or do we strive for organic, random community with believers and non-believers alike, seeking to change the world and bring the nonners into relationship with Christ?
i dont believe in church anymore. Thats why i left. Dosnt mean i am a non believer though.
What about the hellish places like dubbo? You really dont have to look that far
And we are not all middle class its first class here babys
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