Warren, Rick: The Purpose Driven Life

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

Okay, I know that I am probably the last person on earth to read Rick Warren's "Purpose Driven Life." I heard Warren beautifully share the gospel on a Christmas eve TV program and that, coupled with the fact that a niece of mine came to Christ as a result of the book caused me to want to read it for myself.

I have heard the "anti-purpose driven" talk from several from within the Church and seen some of it on NazNet and elsewhere. I also know that the Nazarenes came up with their own version of it and are marketing it.

Honestly, I have been impressed with the book, especially the first half. Either I wore out a bit on it or Warren lost some of his pizazz in the second half, so I read more out of discipline than inspiration after the first 150 pages or so.

However, I found a lot of inspirational stuff in the book as a whole. Warren's description of true worship and full commitment to God is powerful stuff.

Now, he's a Baptist through and through and because of that his "we all sin" theology slips in every once in a while. Because of such things I know it has to be read with a certain amount of reservation. Still, this is pretty solid material that I think will help those who read it.

American society is awash with religious teaching today. I don't think we Nazarenes do ourselves any favors in trying to direct our people away from material like this. Instead, we need to clearly and consistently make our case concerning the 1% of the material that we have issues with and then not discourage our folks from reading it. (Frankly, we might as well do it, they are reading and listening to people from across the spectrum anyway.)

So, I give "Purpose Driven Life" a solid thumbs up and recommend it to those who seek to be better disciples of Jesus.

[Sue Pyles]

I am with you all the way! I have given the book as gifts.
I was priviledged to attend a Rick Warren
Purpose Driven Life Conference.
He had a question and answer time with those of us who were fortunate
to have lunch with him. What a guy!
I have talked to only one Nazarene pastor who feels that it should not even be mentioned in the Nazarene Church.
He was quite upset when he saw it at a booth at our District Assembly.
I think we can be open-minded enough to learn from each other.

[Ron Davis]

I was not as disciplined as you were. I read half and then quit. I think to a degree with both of the his books that after the first half you understand what he is saying and what cames after is a bit redundant or is not as critical to his main point.

It has been a while since I read the book but to me he went to far with the idea that God has a plan for every detail of my life and it is our duty to determine what that is. The end result of that thinking for me is that we can become paralyzed with over-analysis.

After writing this I wonder if the book review forum is meant to be used as a discussion forum for the content of the book.

At the time I read the book I was somewhat resistant to it because it seemed to be the most recent fad in Christian culture following the example of "The Prayer of Jabez", and "What would Jesus do?".

[Hans Deventer]

After writing this I wonder if the book review forum is meant to be used as a discussion forum for the content of the book.

Not as in trying to convince others of one's views, but the answer is yes if it is as in talking about what you liked or did not like about the book in question.

Good question, Ron, I'll add it to the "read this first"

[Mike Schutz]

We did both "Purpose Driven" and "The Quest."

I must admit that I did find "Purpose Driven" simplistic, as did my wife and 15 year old son.
However, what the process did for our church was re-energized small groups, as it roughly doubled the number of people in them. That was two years ago, and they continue to grow. It also helped move adult Sunday school classes from "teacher-focused" to "participant focused."

[William Hunter]

We have done Warren's book and one adult class is doing Quest. My DS has said that the greatest need of the church today is adult spiritual development. These two books move in the direction of meeting that need.

About two yrs. ago I read a book by Rhonda Hughey titled: "Deperate For God." It is a book that challenges you at your deepest levels of spiritual growth and attempts to move us farther into Christ. My DS has recently found this book and as I understand it, is making it available to all our pastors and full-time staff at our upcoming Pastor Team Retreat. He desires to lead a dist. wife 90 day prayer emphasis. I think he is right on here. All the church growth stuff, and such book as Driven and Quest, help some, but Desperate pushes us to new encounters with Christ that we all need. I am just now re-reading Desperate and I am again challenged to go much farther into Christ.

I am thankful for such material that seems to address the need for spiritual advancement in the church. Taken all together, we should see many walking with Christ at new levels of intimacy with Him.




We did both "Purpose Driven" and "The Quest."

I must admit that I did find "Purpose Driven" simplistic, as did my wife and 15 year old son.
However, what the process did for our church was re-energized small groups, as it roughly doubled the number of people in them. That was two years ago, and they continue to grow. It also helped move adult Sunday school classes from "teacher-focused" to "participant focused."

[Marsha Lynn]

I first "read" this book on a Sunday afternoon. I had borrowed it from the library to see what all the hoopla was about. One afternoon was enough to determine that there probably wasn't too much in it I hadn't seen before.

When the church of which I'm a member did the "40 Days of Purpose," I dutifully read all 40 chapters. My impression of the book didn't change. The program was a positive thing for our church in that it brought new people into Sunday School classes, but that was more related to the structure of the program than the content of the book.

For the most part, I found the book readable and valuable as a sort of spiritual primer, which is all it claims to be. I have two major problems with it:

1. The scripture references. Warren consistently writes, "The Bible says ..." and then quotes context-stripped verses from the version that best supports the statement he is making. The references are all provided so that people can look them up and read them in context, but there is still too much proof-texting involved for my tastes. Even without the lack of context, there's a big difference between, "The writer of Ecclesiastes says ..." and "Paul writes ..." Reducing both to "The Bible says ..." leaves disembodied words which really say very little. After all, the Bible says ... "Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses" (1 Timothy 5:23 NIV). Shall we put that verse on the same level as, say, the great commandments?

2. The final two "purposes" -- service and evangelism. According to Warren, service is what we do for other believers; evangelism is what we offer non-believers. I don't know where to even begin describing how much that dichotomy bothers me so I'll simply say that it bothers me a lot.

All right, all that is pretty negative. To maybe compensate a little (in case Rick Warren comes along and joins the discussion), I will add that I read The Purpose-Driven Church before The Purpose-Driven Life came along and found it very worthwhile. There's a possibility that the oversell of TPDL predisposed me toward a negative view of it.

Marsha

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

I first "read" this book on a Sunday afternoon. I had borrowed it from the library to see what all the hoopla was about. One afternoon was enough to determine that there probably wasn't too much in it I hadn't seen before.

When the church of which I'm a member did the "40 Days of Purpose," I dutifully read all 40 chapters. My impression of the book didn't change. The program was a positive thing for our church in that it brought new people into Sunday School classes, but that was more related to the structure of the program than the content of the book.

For the most part, I found the book readable and valuable as a sort of spiritual primer, which is all it claims to be.

Marsha

Thanks for adding your take on the book. I think your observations are valid.

While reading the opening portion of your post I had a minor "ah-ha" moment I thought I would share.

When I read Purpose Driven, I wasn't expecting to learn anything new and was pleasantly surprised at Warren's treatment of the fully surrendered life and his approach to genuine worship. I had not anticipated any personal growth material in the book at all, so finding a couple of things like that were a real plus for me.

My reading was more out of curiosity and wondering if I could find material that I thought might be helpful to others. In other words, I was reading it as a pastor rather than a person doing devotional reading.

Your response that when you read it you didn't find anything there that you didn't already know indicates that you were checking out the book to see if it would be personally helpful to you.

Isn't it interesting that we approached the book from such different points of view? You didn't see anything new, and thus were disappointed with the book, while I found material that I thought would be helpful to people who were getting started on their spiritual journey and was impressed with the result.

Since we approached from different directions, we are likely both right in what we got from the book.

Even as I write this I am becoming aware of just how much of my reading is at the "evaluation for other's use" and how little is with the expectation that it will be helpful for me. In fact, I imagine that is a somewhat flawed approach!

None of this is a big deal, and as I said, it produced a minor "ah-ha" moment for me.

[Marsha Lynn]

Interesting observation, Scott. Perhaps I need to think more about who might be helped by books I encounter on basic Christianity.

It would be interesting to see how many people, locally, trace significant spiritual insights back to our "40 Days of Purpose." I thought it was great that we were all reading the same book, even though I wasn't particularly impressed with the book. I can't think of any book, actually, that I would choose for such an exercise. That question might be material for another thread.

For the most part, I want to spend my reading time on books that speak to me where I am. As I integrate those books into my view of the world, they tend to come out in verbal ways that might impact others. For example, this morning during Sunday School, I found myself trying to remember a quote from Letters to Malcolm by C. S. Lewis. (As usual, my attempt to paraphrase Lewis fell far short. I need to anticipate these times and take the actual quote with me.) No one in my SS group is an avid reader. They may never get to that excellent treatment of prayer by Lewis. That's the sort of material with which I need to be familiar in order to teach.

Sometimes I feel like I don't invest enough time studying before teaching. Other times I realize that the time I spend methodically working my way through the Bible over and over and reading good Christian non-fiction (including NazNet posts) is actually all prep time for life's conversations, including those that happen during SS. Some people watch television and movies and find object lessons to share in them. I'm woefully ignorant in that area. If I'm going to have anything significant to say, it will have to come primarily from the time I spend praying and reading.

Marsha

PS: Not that it particularly fits in this thread, but I decided to hunt down the Lewis quote I mangled so badly this morning. It is: "William Law remarks that people are merely 'amusing themselves' by asking for the patience which a famine or a persecution would call for if, in the meantime, the weather and every other inconvenience sets them grumbling."

Thanks for adding your take on the book. I think your observations are valid.

While reading the opening portion of your post I had a minor "ah-ha" moment I thought I would share.

When I read Purpose Driven, I wasn't expecting to learn anything new and was pleasantly surprised at Warren's treatment of the fully surrendered life and his approach to genuine worship. I had not anticipated any personal growth material in the book at all, so finding a couple of things like that were a real plus for me.

My reading was more out of curiosity and wondering if I could find material that I thought might be helpful to others. In other words, I was reading it as a pastor rather than a person doing devotional reading.

Your response that when you read it you didn't find anything there that you didn't already know indicates that you were checking out the book to see if it would be personally helpful to you.

Isn't it interesting that we approached the book from such different points of view? You didn't see anything new, and thus were disappointed with the book, while I found material that I thought would be helpful to people who were getting started on their spiritual journey and was impressed with the result.

Since we approached from different directions, we are likely both right in what we got from the book.

Even as I write this I am becoming aware of just how much of my reading is at the "evaluation for other's use" and how little is with the expectation that it will be helpful for me. In fact, I imagine that is a somewhat flawed approach!

None of this is a big deal, and as I said, it produced a minor "ah-ha" moment for me.