Book review
The Purpose Driven Church
by Rick Warren

Full description of book:
Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church — Growth without Compromising your Message & Mission (Originally published Grand Rapids, MI, USA: Zondervan, 1995; IMPrint Edition, Singapore, Singapore: Campus Crusade Asia Limited, 2005). ISBN 981-05-0849-2.

 

Summary:

This book by Rick Warren is an interesting take by Rick Warren on doing church. In his words, he states that there are five purposes of a church which churches are to be growing in, which are

Inasmuch as these various things are defined according to the Bible, they are most definitely correct. However, it is my contention that Warren has subtly distorted all of these activities by the evolving Purpose-Driven paradigm he is bringing into these concepts, which we shall see. As it is, this book is written more towards Christians so it most definitely is better than the Purpose Driven Life book, thus giving a rating of 5 for scholarship, 8 for information, 6.5 for spiritual content, and an overall rating of 7.

Review:

As one begins to read this book, it is amazing to see just how much truth and error can be placed together side by side in just one book. If there is a category for communication, Warren would surely score highly in it. Nevertheless, let us now review the various truths and errors found in this book

The Good...

Calling on churches to be holistic in ministry

As much as Warren's five purposes of the church are severely distorted, it must be admitted that most churches today are skewed in ministry. Warren depicts the various skewed churches as being: The Soul-winning Church (centered on evangelism), the Experiencing God Church (worship), the Family Reunion Church (fellowship), the Classroom Church (Word or Discipleship), the Social Conscience Church (Ministry and Social outreach) (pp. 122-125). This is most certainly a true fact from my experience as well. Warren calls upon churches to balance all five for holistic ministry in a church, and this is one I would definitely agree with. That said, how he does what he claims to do in balancing all five "purposes" and even the terminology of such a balance being "purpose-driven" is highly controversial and one which I will not agree with.

Taking seriously the doctrine of the Priesthood of Believers

The PDC model has lots of flaws, but Warren in this aspect has gotten it right. The doctrine of the Priesthood of Believers is biblical and should be practiced. However, in many churches, only a few do the ministry while the others warm the pews, or participate by voting on church issues. In this, Warren brings a good corrective as he describes in pages 368-391 his method of turning all Christians into ministers. It is also true that committees are a hindrance in a church in general as members are tied up in administration rather than ministry. That said, Warren's seeming preference to abolish ALL committees and voting is a swing to the other side of the pendulum and is not biblical, leading to either anarchy (no oversight) or to some form of totalitarianism (a soft form in Warren's Saddleback church as for example; Warren and his inner group are most definitely not elected). The Bible makes it clear that there are only two permanent "committees" allowed in Scripture: The Diaconate and the Session of Elders (and Pastors), and members are to vote for the deacons and ratify the elders. When churches can reduce the committees to two (ad-hoc committees are not counted), and call upon all members to minister, then we would have truly taken the doctrine of the Priesthood of Believers seriously.

Training members in biblical doctrine

Warren here recognizes that new believers do not even have a biblical worldview and thus he recommends a Christian Education course somewhat like a Systematic Theology course. In his own words, "you cannot assume your new members know anything about the Bible" (p. 351). While there are problems which I will address later, the mere fact that Warren calls churches to design courses for new members who probably know little of the Bible is most definitely a step in the right direction.

& the Bad

Usage of mistranslations of the Bible

Warren shows in this book that he has already started to play "scriptural roulette" by quoting from various bad translations like the Living Bible, Phillips, TEV, and the Message. That said, it hasn't gotten so bad yet as in the Purpose Driven Life whereby the many translations quoted altered the wordings very significant. We can however see one example already in p. 91 whereby Warren uses the LB version of Ezra 10:4 which distorts the true meaning of the verse. As it is written,

Tell us how to proceed in setting things straight, and we will fully cooperate (Ezra 10:4 - LB, as quoted in PDC, p. 91)

Arise, for it is your task, and we are with you; be strong and do it. (Ezra 10:4 - ESV)

We can immediately see the contrast in meaning between these two verses, most obviously in the absence of any talk of cooperation in the true meaning of the text, which is rather a call for Ezra to lead them to repentance.

Now, it can be granted that this occur in very few instances. Nevertheless, this is most certainly a bad practice which shows his trivialization of the Word of God in picking and choosing what he wants to see among the the versions to promote his paradigm instead of learning to submit himself to its teaching. And such a practice would give rise to deplorable fruit as it manifests itself in the Purpose Driven Life.

Blatant Eisegesis of Scripture

The eisegesis of verses of Scripture and their distortion has already began in this book. For example, in p. 39, Warren uses Mk. 2:17 and eisegete it to teach that [at least] Saddleback church is meant to exist for unbelievers and not believers, and therefore by extension all PD churches should exist to reach their target group of people and thus discourage Christians from coming to their churches, or transfer growth. Mk. 2:17 however teaches regarding salvation; that only those who realize their depravity and need for Christ would be called to Christ, and thus having absolutely nothing whatsoever to say about church growth or targeting people groups at all! In p. 57, Warren again distorts Scripture in quoting 1 Cor. 3:10 to state that Paul was skilled at developing churches, whereas the first part of that verse itself "By the grace of God has given me" has already contradicts Warren's eisegesis as showing that Paul was not actually skilled at developing churches but that he was depending totally on Christ to do so [As an aside, who actually develops the church?]. The second part is NOT a reflection of Paul's skill but rather of the resultant effect of God working through Paul in doing so.

In p. 243, Warren horribly mangles the text of 1 Cor. 14:23 to say that we "must be willing to adjust our worship practices when unbelievers are present". Somehow the actual context of comparing prophecy against tongues is absent from Warren's consideration. In p. 294, Warren states that Paul's message at the Aeropagus in Athens (Act. 17: 22:31) was to start "on common ground", and therefore our evangelism methodology should follow Paul's example in starting on common ground with unbelievers. However, although Paul did connect with the Athenians, he did not plead 'common ground' with them, but constantly shine the light of Scripture on their errant ideas and philosophies. Connecting evangelism has to do with communication, NOT with the message that is to be communicated at all, and most definitely NOT to accommodate the message to meet their felt needs. Paul in Acts 17 systematically dismisses the Greek philosophies there one by one and call them "superstitious". Paul therefore was not finding "common ground" with the Athenians but rather confronting the Greek philosophies in his speech to the Athenians[1]. The only "common ground" there which is scriptural is communicative common ground, but this is not what Warren is trying to say.

Warren again mangles the text of 2 Cor. 8:5 in p. 319 by using it to postulate a two-tier commitment level which smacks of the error of pietism. It is most definitely true that Paul here states that the Macedonian Christians gave themselves first to Christ, then to the believer. However, this does not teach a two-tier commitment spirituality, but rather the first giving is NOT unto mere salvation as Warren teaches, but unto the Lordship of Christ. Therefore, this differentiation tells us that we must be devoted to Christ first and foremost before we decide to help and minister to the fellow saints. Thus, is it more of the temporal development of service, since commitment to Christ already entails everything much more than any commitment to the brethren will.

Lastly, we will look at the distortion of Rom. 9:20-21 in p. 375. As with all Arminians, Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, Warren wrests this entire passage which talks about God's sovereignty in salvation and distorts it into a passage on serving God, stating that we are to serve God in whatever vessel he has made us out to be. I am so sure that the vessels of wrath here surely 'serve' God well in their reprobation and destruction, but most certainly this is not what Warren has in mind.

Embracing the idol of Church Growth Theory and Sociological Methodology

In Warren's own words, "is is natural for it [a church] to grow if it is healthy. ... If a church is not growing, it is dying" (p. 16), thus showing his equating of the health of the church to numerical growth. The growth = numerical growth equation can be seen in the fact that the entire context of his passage was on evangelism; reading "this generation for Christ" (p. 15), and also that "Church growth is the natural result of church health" (p. 49).

Warren's embrace of the Church growth idol can be further seen in his embrace of Donald McGraven and the Church Growth theory he espouses (p. 29). This resulted in him treating church growth as a sociological phenomenon as can be seen in his study of growing churches and finding the factors that make them tick (pp. 17-18; 30-31). This idolatry of numbers and success can be seen in his statement that we should "never criticize what God is blessing" (p. 62), with the context making it clear that church numerical growth is the issue here. One wonders if and why doesn't Warren study groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses to see how they grow, and state that since they are growing God must be blessing them too. After all, mere numerical growth is an indication of God's blessing according to Warren, right?

Throughout this book of his, the entire Church Growth Theory is assumed and is ubiquitous throughout the book. Examples of sociological methodology include the reduction of Church health and growth to the following of mere principles (p. 68-69), the usage of various sociological studies to dictate how church should be done, thinking of the pulpit as being the vision casting platform of the church (p. 118), saying that we need many different churches to reach everyone (p. 156), the postulation of targeted evangelism and the practical denial of preaching the Gospel freely (p. 158--172), not to mention creating the portrait of "Saddleback Sam" (p. 169-171) and designing seeker services with the "unchurched" in mind (pp. 251-277), among others.

The embrace of Church Growth Theory extends even to Warren's understanding of the Great Commission, being understood by Warren that fulfilling the Great Commission means having a numerically growing church (p. 64). However, is this the true understanding of the Great Commission? Scripture does not state so. The Great Commission tells us to be witnesses for Christ and to disciple people (believers) from all nations who come to believe in Christ through our witness (Mt. 28:18-20). However, nowhere is it stated that we are to be in charge of growth and that for good reason, for it is Christ who saves and Christ who builds His church (Mt. 16:18), which brings us to the next topic, Warren's Finneyist Pelagianism.

Finneyist Pelagianism and Compromise of the Gospel

The embrace of Church Growth Theory by Warren goes hand in hand with the denial of God's sovereignty and an embrace of Finneyist Pelagianism[2]. We have seen already in p. 49 that Warren thinks that Church growth is the natural result of church health. Warren similarly states that the church is to be "increasing its number of converts" (p 52), that it takes skill to grow a church (p. 57), plus timing and the right tools (p. 58) , and that we should evaluate activities according to results (p. 107). This is practical Pelagianism and is the old heresy of Finneyist Revivalism which states that "A Revival of Religion is not a miracle. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means"[3].

We can see Warren's Finneyist revivalist heresy further in his stating that "It is my deepest conviction that anybody can be won to Christ if you discover the key to his or her heart" (p. 219), in stating that we need all kinds of churches since no single church can possibly reach everyone (and he is not saying that due to practical considerations such as geography and language barriers) (p. 156), that a revival may possibly be "in your hands" if you change the mood of the service by brightening the environment (p. 266), the type of music used in a church would determine "the kind of people your church will never be able to reach" (p. 281) and that Saddleback may be able to reach many more people if they had used MIDI-quality music in their services earlier on (p. 290). Warren similarly thinks that successful ministry is defined by basically doing all we can and expecting results from God (p. 397). All of this is a practical outworking of a belief that conversion and revival is, as Finney says, "a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means", and thus God and His sovereign will is thrown out of the picture altogether. And in fact, this is what the Church Growth Movement is: practical Pelagian Revivalism.

Warren's practical Pelagianism, which is somehow compartmentalized from his mentally professed Cal-minianism, is most evident when it comes to the Gospel and evangelism. According to Warren, "a Gospel presentation that emphasizes the assurance of heaven as the benefit of salvation will probably be ineffective in ministering to a young adult who thinks he has his entire life in front of him" (p. 164) and that the "unchurched" do not go to church because of theological reasons but because they are "misinformed, turned off, or too busy" (p. 193). Similarly, the reasons according to Warren for people not attending church are either theological, relational, emotional, lifestyle or cultural (p. 174). All of these 'reasons' miss out the true reason why unbelievers do not go to church, and that is because of SIN; because we are all by nature God-haters (Rom. 3:10-18). This denial of the true effect of sin can be seen in Warren's analogy of a car accident in p. 228, whereby he likened meeting the felt needs of people to a doctor performing surgery on a car accident patient who is bleeding profusely, while he alluded to traditional Gospel presentation as being like a doctor talking to such a patient "about the Greek word for hospital or the history of the stethoscope". In actual fact, using Warren's analogy, preaching the unadulterated Gospel is actually similar to performing surgery to save the patient, whereas Warren's preaching to felt needs is like giving such a patient a computer gameset because the patient desires to have a gameset to play then. Warren's total disregard of the true effects of sin upon the human race shows up here and cause him to give a wrong prognosis to the true problem of the rebellion of Man against God. In another aberration, we are told that the church should be marketed to provide the unchurched with benefits they cannot find anywhere else in the world (p. 313), most certainly a huge compromise of the Gospel and the denigration of sin.

From this, we can see that Warren promotes a Pelagian view of Man practically speaking and embraces the heresy of Finneyist Revivalism. With a defective view of Man practically, as opposed to the mere mental assent to Orthodox teaching of Sin in his official beliefs, Warren's ministry philosophy is an abomination in the eyes of God.

Seeker-sensitivity

With a Pelagian Revivalist mindset, it is no wonder that Warren strays into being Seeker-Sensitivity. While he does try to state that the PD paradigm is not seeker driven (p. 79-80), what he states in the rest of the book is seeker-driven. Of course, such is only in terms of methodology, but in order for the message not to be altered, the message must be altered in terms of its emphasis (which does alter the message too), if a tactic of bait-and-switch is to be avoided.

In p. 53, Warren made the statement that Jesus drew large crowds yet never compromise the truth (p. 53). In pages 224-225 and 227-229, Warren claims that Jesus preached to felt needs and his sermons are applicational. All of this however, fails to do justice to what Jesus actually did. First of all, we must remember that Jesus was preaching to the Jews to show them the sign that He was the promised Messiah, and that is why he preached how he preached. The miracles similarly is not because Jesus want to meet their felt needs but their real needs, for the diseases etc suffered by the people were true needs of these people, therefore Jesus healing them does not mean that we must go and meet the felt as opposed to real needs of the unbelievers. With regards to Jesus' preaching, Warren must have conveniently missed out on Jn. 6, whereby Jesus preached a message which drove all prospective disciples but his twelve apostles away, which should put away all our wrong notions of Jesus' "complete emphasis on meeting needs and healing hurts" (p. 224).

Warren quotes the Sermon on the Mount as being application based teaching (p. 228) and through this defend "life-application" preaching because Jesus did it also. But such is to assume that Warren's understanding of the Sermon on the Mount is correct, which it is not. The Sermon on the Mount, far from being a "life-application" message (p. 229), functions more like the parables in hiding its true meaning from the crowd. It is thus meant to show forth the truths of the Kingdom of God, and not mere moralisms as Warren think it does. Therefore, when Warren defends "life-application" preaching, that only shows his shallow understanding of the true teachings of Jesus and just focusing on the surface-level moralisms which are not the true meaning of the Sermon on the Mount. Similarly, his understanding of the Bible as essentially "a book of stories" (p. 232) shows his surface level understanding of the biblical text, which even through the narratives are meant to teach Kingdom principles not mere "Life-application" moralisms. Therefore, Warren's statement that "Preaching to felt needs is a theological sound approach to introducing people to God" (p. 296) is seriously in error.

Warren continued by linking evangelism strategy with Jesus' supposed strategy in calling people to faith in him. In Warren's words, we are to follow Jesus in calling unbelievers to "Come and see" (p. 235). This neglects the fact that Jesus was God, and the people whom he called are those from the Covenant community of Israel, and therefore by calling people to come and see, he was actually calling professing believers in God to follow him and learn from him, and therefore this does not promote a two-tiered level of Christian commitment or Pietism, which we will discuss later.

A major part of Seeker-Sensitivity is that we should not place any stumbling blocks in front of unbelievers (p. 243), using 1 Cor. 10:32 as a proof-text. Also, using the favorite proof-text for Seeker-Sensitivity, 1 Cor. 9:22-23, Warren states that we are to be "all things to all men" in order to save some (p. 197). This, however is eisegesis of the texts in question, since what Paul is saying that we are to sensitive to others, but it DOES not say that we are remove all offenses, only needless ones. For the message of the Cross IS foolishness and an offense by itself to unbelievers (1 Cor. 1:18-25), and as such we should never attempt to remove the offense of the Cross.

We can therefore see Warren's seeker-sensitivity and how unbiblical it is. Warren is compelled to go down this road however, as his Finneyist Pelagian views necessitate it.

Denial of the Universal Offer of the Gospel practically

In principle, Warren most certainly affirms the Universal Offer of the Gospel. However, through the promotion of targeted evangelism, he denies the Universal Offer of the Gospel. This can be seen in pages 158-159 whereby Warren states that targeting audiences for evangelism is biblical, even using the parable of the sower (Mt. 13:1-8) against its actual teaching (p. 181). Warren states that "No farmer in his right mind would waste seed, a precious commodity, on infertile ground that won't produce a crop" (p. 181), and therefore exhorts us to be targeted in our evangelism.

The problem with this is not so much to do with practice, for it is true that we cannot just proclaim the Gospel to everyone because of various reasons, of which one is our own physical limitations. Rather, it has to do with our intentions in evangelism. Do we intentionally limit the proclamation of the Gospel to our "target audience" unless those outside ask us to share with them the Gospel? With regards to the Parable of the Sower and the Seed analogy, how can anyone know the state of the soil he is planting the seeds of the Gospel in? Does such a person somehow have an insider knowledge of the state of anyone's heart before God? If not, then how can such targeted evangelism occur if we are to base out tactics on plating only in the good soil?

The objection can be made that Jesus did so target his audience for evangelism. In pages 158-159, Warren stated that Jesus intentionally limited his ministry to the Jews (p. 158), seeing that Jesus publicly identified his ministry target as the Jews even while healing the Canaanite woman's daughter (Mt. 15:21-26). Jesus also told his disciples to go to the lost sheep of Israel but not to the Gentiles or the Samaritans when he send them out for ministry (Mt. 10:5-6). In this, we can see Jesus does indeed limit his earthly ministry. However, does this fact inform us that audience targeting is biblical? Rather, is it not because Israel is the Covenant people of God, and therefore they have the privilege of hearing the Gospel first before the Gentiles who were not in the Covenant? Certainly, besides the difference between Jews and Gentiles (and probably Samaritans which are half Jews anyway), did any of the Apostles or early Christians discriminate in the proclamation of the Gospel between different groups of Gentiles? NO!

From all this, we can see the dangerous view advocated by Warren. While innocent enough methodologically, embracing it as an idea is deadly to evangelism, and creates classes of people into those who are objects of evangelism and those who are not.

Denigration of the importance of Doctrine in Christianity

We have earlier discussed the good of Rick Warren in this book exhorting us to train members in biblical doctrine and not assume that they know even the basics of the Christian faith. Certainly, this is very good indeed. However, the problem comes when it comes to discussing doctrine and theology per se, in which we can see that Warren actually denigrate doctrine and limits it to mere mental assent as opposed to having a biblical and holistic view of doctrine.

In page 316, it can be seen that Warren separates being a Christian and a member of a church from the need for doctrinal instruction. Besides promoting pietism, such a response shows that Warren treats doctrine as something which is good, but nonetheless having little to do with practical Christianity. This is further shown in page 342 whereby Warren claims that "the last thing many believers need is to go to another Bible study. They already know far more than they are putting into practice".

Now, having said that, it must be clarified that Warren does not so simplistically compartmentalize doctrine into mere mental assent to the truth of God's truth. Rather, they should be put into practice, and this is to be done by teaching members the perspectives and skills together with convictions they need to put doctrine into practice (pp. 352-362). Warren therefore compartmentalize doctrine in the sense that doctrine and true belief in doctrine does not necessarily lead to a Christ-centered life in his opinion, which thus contradicts Rom. 10:17 where God's Word is said to have the power to change lives in and of itself. It is in such a manner therefore that it is stated that Warren denigrates the importance of doctrine in Christianity, not a blanket denigration, but a denigration of its inherent power to transform people; methodological denigration, not epistemic denigration.

Embrace of Pietism

We have already alluded to Warren's embrace of Pietism in various places in his book in previous sections. We will see here therefore in more detail Warren's embrace of the error of Pietism, and of creating tiers of Christianity and Christian commitment.

In p. 133, Warren breaks up the groups of people in- and out-side of the church into 5 Circles of Commitment: The Community, Crowd, Congregation, Committed, and the Core. Warren when describing the Committed as he contrasts them with the Congregation indicates that such people are serious about their faith whereas the Congregation isn't. Now, this is not an issue of whether they are certain people who are in point of fact actually in any of such stages descriptively but the idea here is that Warren thinks that it is perfectly fine for a person to be committed to the Church (Congregation) but not totally to the Faith (Committed). This is most certainly an upside-down approach in the area of doing church, for people are to be saved for Christ first before being added to the church which is the faith community of those who believe, and therefore we are to call people to be committed to Christ first than to the Church. In fact, this is expected of all believers and it is unnatural for a believer to not to want to grow deeper into the Christian faith. By positing a dichotomy between the commitment to Christ and the Faith with commitment to the Church, Warren postulates a two-tier Christianity between merely receiving Christ, and biblical discipleship. Such an idea is further reinforced in his book as he describes the methodology of his baseball diamond model of Christian growth (p. 138), thus showing that the moving of the member is first towards the Church, then towards Discipleship.

Living for a cause and winning people for a cause rather than Christ

Last but not least, the error of Warren's PD paradigm as stated in this book is that it substitutes a Christian cause for Christ; purposeful, changed lives for the blood atonement. While it is true that the Gospel produces changed lives, seeking the fruit of the Gospel and using it a bait is no different from desiring the gifts but not the Giver; an abomination before the Lord indeed. We can see such a 'gospel' of changed lives manifested as Warren states that "changed lives are a church's greatest advertisement" (p. 222) while talking about how to attract crowds, and that what really attracts the "unchurched" to a church is changed lives — a lot of changed lives (p. 247). This is not to mention the entire focus of Seeker-Sensitivity, which reels in unbelievers through its "gospel" of felt needs which we have discussed earlier. The statement we have earlier discussed in page 313 also show us that it is in actual fact winning people to a "gospel" of getting their benefits in the church which they cannot get in the world.

In Christian service, Warren does not do any better, for he states that he himself serve because he wants to make a difference in the world (p. 20). To boost morale of Christians who serve in his church, he told of how he periodically restates his purpose and vision for his church Saddleback (p. 111) and to honor the heroes in the church who do the work (p. 114). While we should in fact thank those who serve God in whatever manner, it is not right to think that therefore the way to keep the church going is to continue to honor those who serve as if these people are serving so as to be honored.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be seen that Warren's book The Purpose Driven Church has some good points and many deadly errors. It is truly a pity that Warren has decided to use his gift of communication in spreading error and detestable heresy while building his empire. May we read this book therefore with a discerning eye, in knowing the truths of Scripture and rejecting the Purpose Driven paradigm.

References:

[1] For a good, detailed exposition of Paul's speech to the Athenians, see Vincent Cheung, Pressupositional Confrontations (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, USA, 2003)

[2] For a brief expose of Finney's heresies, see Phillip R. Johnson, A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing — How Charles Finney's Theology Ravaged the Evangelical Movement at http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/articles/finney.htm.

[3] Charles Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 4-5, Public Domain.