Purpose-Driven Disaster
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We are actively soliciting information and personal stories from those who have been involved with Rick Warren's Purpose-Driven books and material. What we have found is that this is a model which has the effect of decimating churches. In plain English, it kills them or it kills the most spiritually alive & vibrant parts of those churches. The personal books written for individuals actually appear to be part of the process in order to "get the church on board".
We continue to investigate this and we would encourage you to send us your stories.
Many Godly Christians have found one conclusion about the Purpose Driven movement:
Its the Wrong Purpose !!!
It does not say that it is, in fact it says the opposite. But if you evaluate the Warren Model based on what it actually accomplishes (rather than what it SAYS that it accomplishes) - it is clear that the churches that increase in membership only experience a Short-Term gain in members, and seem to be trading that for a Long-Term Financial Debt - contracted by Local Churches in order to finance in some cases more than TWENTY YEARS of DEBT.
After having looked at this carefully, We are jumping right into this debate...because we are concerned about the Church. It is sad that it is those Christians with Discernment, who are the ones who are usually the first to be affected by the Warren-Model and who leave their Churches. Sadly, the mistake is NOT with them, though many of them still have trouble with this. The Warren Model is a very sophisticated system designed to deflect "confrontational criticism". As it turns out, that is also one of its liabilities, but we will address that...in time.
How the Rick Warren Marketers deal with Resistance to their proposals
What we have heard from others doing this is that the Rick Warren/PDL marketers anticipate resistance in the church. They wait until the resistance becomes pronounced enough. Then they offer THOSE people their own Church service, but they make sure it is not the Main church service. They save the main Church service for their new techniques, which are designed to give the appearance that if there is Movement and Motion, that there must be progress. It is the presence of a very conscious attempt to induce Emotional Exitment, along with the Pronounced Absence of the Holy Spirit - that should first make people stop and ask themselves what is TRULY going on.
What happens - pragmatically - is that those who are the ones who are the most concerned about the SPIRITUAL growth (and Not the numbers game) - are the ones who agree to their own marginalization, as they become separated from the Rest of the congregation {due to their asking for their own Church Service/this isolates them from the rest of the Congregation}. Then the marketing-side (read: new advisors to pastors) slowly devote less and less resources to that "second" service and those people simply leave. Never mind the fact that people seem to miss the point, that what they really should be doing if they truly wanted more people was to:
1) go out and witness to them individually about Jesus Christ,
2) have the pastor step up a face to face visitation program, and
3) especially PRAY PRAY PRAY.
How the Rick Warren/PDL Ensnares the Pastor through being "responsible" for the financial debt. The subtle shift of the priorities of the church...from the Spiritual life of the Church...to the Financial Servicing of the Long Term Debt.
Another characteristic of this PDL model is that this marketing system is such a
"perfect" [ & sad] setup for Pastors. IT could be that they will
get New numbers (i.e. more people) and that they should wait for this. But
instead, the Pastors move ahead with Construction projects for a bigger church.
This is presented "in the context of" not
wanting to quench the Holy Spirit. But in truth -
the main things that are not quenched are the Bank loans, and the Financial Debt
that the churches are agreeing to take on.
After having done that, it is no wonder that the pastor - internally feels as
though it is only "responsible" to
support it [the new Church-model of numbers growth]. After all, not only does he
have a church congregation to help, he has a brand new
debt-structure that he has to maintain, every month.
Good thing Jesus was never into buildings. Its good for everybody, the
"church", the bank, the construction people, and the marketers. And
every new church with its own BUILDING is a "success" story.
Taken just by itself, one church with one new building would not make a whole
lot of difference. But taken by the Thousands of Churches that have adopted this
program, we can only wonder just how many hundreds of
missionaries will have their support cut or cut short...in order to help pay for
the building...So the way that the local church becomes
"successful" - according to the PDL model in many cases - is that they
seem to take resources away from the People in order to
give those resources to a building instead.
And new church buildings must be sustained by people who WANT to stay there.
Getting a person in the door is one thing...that is the Easy part. But keeping
them there in order to help them grow spiritually is something else
entirely...and if the Holy Spirit seemed to grow the church rather large during
the first 3 or 4 centuries when there were No
church buildings in the days of the Early Christians, it is hard to see
how the Holy Spirit would be limiting himself to the Walls of the new building.
We thought that the "Holy Spirit is only in the building" was the
Roman Catholic model, and that Protestants were staying away from that, having
criticized the RCC for taking resource away from helping the PEOPLE in their
community.
If the PDL/Marketing people called themselves "bankers" and said
"we are here to indebt you for 20 years",
then people would be a lot more cautious.
What was that Bible passage about the requirements for those who are the
Advisors of a Pastor - [they used to be called Deacons and Elders] - that those
people had to be very well spiritually grounded, very knowledgeable about the
Bible, and very on fire for the Lord, and they had to be tested for some
time...they did not come in off the street.
In the Warren model, these pastors are literally changing the Spiritual advisors
of the church, without going through any evaluation process about them
personally, - and without the consent of most Churches and most church elders.
An observer might be tempted to say...that Jesus is being marketed right out of
his own church...
The results of Truly
seeking God in a church setting - as a true part of the body of Christ is 2
things: a) those who have a broken heart,
a burdened heart for those who are lost and b)
a new lifestyle centered around Prayer in order to have a much better
understanding of the personal will of God. In a real
revival, the result of the additional burden for the lost that people
sense, is that they start to look at their own lives, in order to identify what
obstacles might exist...to the work of the Holy Spirit, and NOT that they start
to measure the work of the Holy Spirit based on Attendance Numbers.
Having felt some of the power of the Holy Spirit, at a true revival, those who
felt this would only want MORE. Is that what is happening in the Rick Warren
model ?
Instead - in the warren model - the people who love God and
are truly concerned about following Jesus...are the ones who Leave the church...
That should be telling us something serious: the Warren Model does not
track...with how the Bible says that people should be responding to the Holy
Spirit. There is a Polarity, a sense of Opposite directions, between A) The
Biblical Model of the Holy Spirit led Local Church and B) The Chuch Model of
Rick Warren based on 1) Church Numbers and 2) Church
Financial DEBT.
It is right to think of it as a "Warren
Model" - it is a man-developed humanistic
system, it is the product of men, and the result is that most churches
focus LESS on God, Less on their own spiritual nature, and that the Pastor
suddenly feels much more constrained to make people FEEL Good, so that they will
keep coming back and paying for his new Church Building.
We can only hope and pray that many more people will wake up to the dangers of the Purpose Driven life Model.
My Journey Through the Church Growth Movement
The Delphi Technique and Rick Warren (?)
Background of the Seminary that trained Rick Warren
by Pastor Gregory L. Jackson
(may take a bit of time to link to)
TEXTUS RECEPTUS - NO REGISTRATION -
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