The Purpose Drivel Church II
This is the second article in a series examining Mr. Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Church. In the first article, I examined the introduction to the book. Chapter One of the book is titled The Saddleback Story. Of course, we are not interested in his story – for it is just that, a story. As such, I will skip that chapter and move on to chapter Two, which is titled: Myths About Growing Churches.
In this chapter, Mr. Warren rightly presents some truth, but mixes it up with quite a volume of bad stuff. And we will examine how bad this stuff is.
Myth #1: The Only Thing That Large Churches care About Is Attendance
Mr. Warren says, “The truth is, you won’t grow large if that is all you care about.” I am certain that Mr. Warren did not take Nigeria into account when he manufactured this “truth”. Spewn across our cities are churches that clearly care only about attendance – and they are growing! Some of them growing really large! But I am sure that if he had objectively looked across the United States too, he could point to several churches that fit this mold as well.
But, let us suppose that we want to take Mr. Warren’s words more seriously. The question I ask him is, How did he arrive at this “truth”? Scriptures? No. So, again, how? From where?
Rick Warren says:
Attendance campaigns and advertising may bring people to your church once. But they will not come back unless your church delivers the goods. To maintain consistent growth, you must offer people something they cannot get anywhere else.
Where again did Mr. Warren get these ideas from? What goods must we deliver to get people to come back to our church meetings?
What is it that we must offer people that they cannot get elsewhere?
Here is what Scriptures says instead:
Acts 2:41-42
So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
We see that people got saved when they received the Gospel of our Lord jesus Christ. What kept them coming back? The fact that they were now saved. Saved people love to sit together and enjoy sound teaching. Saved people love to fellowship with other saved people. Saved people love to break bread in remembrance of the death of the Lord, and saved people certainly love to pray.
Saved people do not need a carrot dangled before them to come to church meetings. They do not need to be coerced, manipulated, enticed or wooed. Saved people cannot help but want to meet regularly. Why? They love one another.
We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. (1 John 3:14)
It is because of this same love that saved people minister to one another, sharing their possesions with gladness – not hoarding them and flaunting them as many who claim to be saved today do.
But Warren is not done on this issue. In the last paragraph of page 48 and the first of page 49, he writes:
Healthy, lasting church growth is multidimensional. My definition of genuine church growth has five facets. Every church needs to grow warmer through fellowship, deeper through discipleship, stronger through worship, broader through ministry, and larger through evangelism.
In Acts 2:42-47, these five facets of growth are described in the first church at Jerusalem. The first Christians fellowshiped, edified each other, worshipped, ministered, and evangelised. As a result, verse 47 says, “And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Note a couple of things about this verse. first, God added the growth (his part) when the church did its part (fulfilled the five purposes).
I underlined the word “My” in the first paragraph to emphsize a point. I must commend Mr. Warren for being truthful enough to state that this definition of genuine church growth is his. It is certainly not the Lord’s. The point is that the definition of “genuine church growth” is his.
How did he arrive at five (5) facets? Are these facets really what the Bible points out as vital to the health of a church congregation? We will get to this in subsequent articles.
Mr. Warren points to Acts 2:42-47 and concludes that God added to the Church because the church did its part. But this is a blatant lie. He conveniently skipped verse 41 which says, “So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls“.
People were added because of sound preaching and/or preaching. That was it. The adding was the the result of the preaching of the word. It always is.
Verse 42 says that those who were added devoted themselves to more sound teaching, to fellowship and other spiritual activities. On and on down to verse 47. Now see what verse 47 says:
And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Verse 47 simply tells us that those who got saved daily thereafter were added to the church (same as had happened on the other day). In other words, verse 41 tells us what happened on a particular day, and verse 47 tells us that this continued to happen thereafter.
Mr. Warren has turned this passage on its head and made it say what it does not say. Brothers and sisters, God added to the church those who were saved. How did they get saved on that day? By the preaching of the Cross only. How did people get saved after that day? Same way: the preaching of the cross.
God did not (and still does not) add the growth because the church fulfilled any five purposes. That is not what Acts 2:41-47 teach. Rick Warren’s attempt to justify his five purposes fail.
The only thing man is required to do by God in having people added to the church is preaching. When people get saved and regenerated by the Holy Spirit, you couldn’t keep them away from gatherings of believers even if you put a gun to their head.
In this article, I will address one more fallacy from Mr. Warren. On page 49, he asserts that “Church growth is the natural result of church health“. Nothing could be further from the truth. Let’s look at very glaring examples.
The Roman Catholic Church organisation is one of the most unhealthy “churches” on the planet – and it has been for centuries. I would starve and thirst to death, spiritually speaking, in a setting like that. Imagine feeding on Mary, angels, purgatory, masses, and all sorts week after week. Yet, this organisation continues to grow.
In like manner, the Word of faith “churches”, which are arguably the fastest growing church bodies in the world today, are testimonies to the fallacy of Warren’s submission. I can go on, but what’s the point? The issues are clear for us to see.
Church growth can happen (and very often happens) in the most unhealthy settings. However, true, Biblical church growth is the product of one thing – preaching/teaching of the rightly divided word of truth.
Mr. Warren pursues the thought further: “Church health can only occur when our message is biblical and our mission is balanced“. He is correct about our message needing to be biblical. We do not need any explanation for that. The question is, “What does Mr. Warren mean by ‘balance’ with regards our mission?”
How are we to determine what is balanced and what is not? You see, by introducing a factor outside of what Scriptures say, Warren has presented something to us which he (not God) will define for us. That is unacceptable to anyone whose allegiance is to the Lord.
I offer you what Mr. Warren ought to have said instead:
Church health can only occur when both our message and our mission are biblical.
Can any believer argue against this? No. Why? Because it stands on and respects the authority of Scripture.
But by placing the subject of “our mission” outside of the Bible, Mr. Warren successfully downloaded and installed a “trojan” (geeks would understand that) into the system of millions of believers worldwide. This “trojan” he later activates. He defines what “balance” is, and as we shall see in subsequent articles in this series, this “balance” of his is anti-Scriptures in more ways than one.
Again, God bless, and may we be bold enough to stand for that which is written.
