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The Purpose Driven ChurchThe Purpose Driven Church
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 | The Purpose Driven Church |
Have you seen "The purpose driven church" by Rick Warren?
I don't know how I'm going to be able to put this book down so that I can go to work in the morning.....
Talking about the history of how he started Saddleback church from his living room (to eventually grow to 10,000 members in about 15 years) he says:
"We've never encouraged other believers to transfer their membership to our church; in fact, we have openly discouraged it. We don't want transfer growth. In every membership class we say, 'If you are coming to Saddleback from another church, you need ot understand up front that this church was not designed for you. It is geared toward reaching the unchurched who do not attend anywhere. If you are transferring from another church you are welvome here only if you are willing to serve and minister. If all you want to do is attend services, we'd rather save your seat for someone who is an unbeliever. There are plenty of good Bible-teaching churches in this area that we can recommend to you."
"This position may sound harsh, but I believe we are following the example of Jesus. He defined his ministry target by saying, 'It is not the healthy who need a docto, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners' (Mark 2:17) At Saddleback we continually remind ourselves of this statement. It has helped us stay true to the original focus of our church: To pbring the unchurched, irreligious people of our community to Christ."
"In order to understand the mind-set of unchurched southern Californians, I spent the first twelve weeks after moving to the Saddleback Valley going door-to-door talking to people. Even though I knew what these people really needed most was a relationship to Christ, I wanted to listen first to what they thought their most pressing needs were. That's not marketing; it's just being polite.... I didn't know enough to call my suvey of the ocmmunity a 'marketing' study. To me it was just a matter of meeting the people I intended to reach. Those who had been coming to our small Bible study helped me take the community survey. They irony was this: Many of those who came to our home Bible study and helped me survey the unchurched in our community were unbelievers themselves."
I hope that is enough of a taste to see why this book is moving to the front of my reading list.....
- Garnet
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