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June 10, 2021

Having Decimated the Cause of Christ, Rick Warren to Retire

By Anthony Wade

Rick Warren is retiring, after setting fire to all of Christendom...

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"Let them know about your next sermon series. Always either begin a sermon series on Easter or the next week -- and make sure it's a series that meets the felt needs of an unchurched person. Yes, they need the Gospel and a relationship with Christ. You and I both know that's their foundational need, but most people will come to your church because they have a need for friendship, want a better marriage, want to be a better parent, want to feel they're living a life of significance or there may be some other need. When you do a series like that, let Easter visitors know in your letter. It'll give them a reason to come back to your church." -- Rick Warren 2014

I usually start devotionals with a scripture but perhaps the above quote more perfectly summarizes the damage Rick Warren has done to the cause of Jesus Christ and His gospel. It was written in 2014 to pastors advising them with strategies for how to ensure their Ester visitors come back the following week considering Easter is the most attended service of the year. This quote can be best summarized as, "don't preach the Gospel!" Instead of addressing their sin and allowing the Holy Spirit to draw them, Rick Warren advised that the unsaved masses that visit church need to hear how significant they are. That the gospel is not a good enough reason for someone to want to come back to church the following week. That is the legacy of Rick Warren and the purpose driven church he has created throughout this country. Now he is ready to retire. With the incalculable damage already wrought, we say good riddance.

No one has done more damage to the cause of the gospel in my time than Rick Warren. That is not hyperbole. The Purpose Driven Life (PDL) is only part of the problem as that mainstreamed the switch of focus from Christ to the individual. It was always ironic that the PDL opens with the words, "It is not about you" and then spends the remainder of the book assuring the reader that it is indeed all about them. It is bad enough that the only place salvation is addressed Warren offers up a nine word "Sinner's Prayer" and then gleefully declares that if you simply read the nine words that you are now part of the family of God! That unbridled arrogance will probably lead millions to one day stand before Christ while lamenting, "Lord Lord."

The PDL often hides however the real damage from Warren which occurred ten years earlier with the publication of the Purpose Driven Church (PDC), a guide for pastors that has shaped the modern mega church landscape for all definitively negative reasons. I once did a four-part series on the specific PDC pillars which have ruined modern Churchianity. The first of such is to redefine salvation itself. Those who did not know Jesus Christ as their savior were often referred to as the lost or the unsaved. Warrenology however viewed these terms as negative and the new church would begin utilizing the term "unchurched." So instead of pursuing people who need to be saved, the church began seeking people who needed to attend a church. The assumption baked in of course was that the mere attendance at church would magically resolve the salvation issue but as already pointed out, when you employ a nine-word Sinner's Prayer and a cloud of dust, no one actually gets saved. Romans and Acts make it abundantly clear that no one gets saved without the full, uncompromised Gospel.

Think about the insidious damage this wreaks in the church. Pastors raised on the PDC focus not on saving individuals but on churching them. Entire industries have grown up overnight to service this new niche as we have to attend the latest leadership conferences or read the hottest book from the most popular cult of personality pastor. For real emphasis, just consider how many people over the past few decades have been fully churched but remain completely unsaved. Warren and his acolytes will swear to them they are indeed saved but they do not know Christ at all. This is not an academic exercise but a spiritual one and it is now how church is done. Just as the enemy always wanted -a church that does not focus on salvation.

The second erosion of biblical church design is that the PDC focuses on marketing to goats while starving the sheep. The bible is very clear in Acts that the true design of the church is for the preaching of the gospel so that the sheep would grow into the fullness of Christ. I know that many will be confused because they have been taught the opposite but the church was not designed for the lost. The things of God are utter foolishness to them. Do we want them to attend a church service? Of course because that is where they might finally hear the gospel that can save them! Unless of course they instead hear about how significant they are or how to improve their marriage.

Warren however changed the focus of church to market to the unsaved. Many churches got rid of crosses because the lost found them offensive. Good! It should be offensive. Jesus did not come to sing Kumbaya but to bring a sword. What we now see however a church focused on silly sermonettes gleaning pseudo-spiritual lessons from the latest blockbuster movie or proof-texting a carnal point the preacher wants to make. The cross? Nowhere to be found. The blood, never heard from again. Too many times I have received emails from sheep across this country who are literally being starved out of their churches. When they bring up why they should study the bible and not Mark Batterson's new book, they are accused of division or asked to leave. Reading Romans 16 however reveals that division is brought into the church by false doctrine, not those brave enough to point it out.

The third distortion of the biblical design for the church stemming from the PDC is a shift in the role of the pastor. Instead of shepherds, pastors are now to be considered vision casting CEOs. Mega-heretic Andy Stanley, a renowned Warren adherent, is actually on record as saying that we should not even use the term shepherd anymore. His weak reasoning was that the term was only used because of the culture of time, which has obviously changed over the millennia. The gospel transcends time and culture however and God views the office of pastor as being a shepherd, period. Jesus Himself is the Good Shepherd. This is one of the reasons why so many pastors were left helpless during the recent pandemic. Viewing themselves only as a vison caster and Sunday morning speaker, they simply had nothing to do when the church had been locked down. This is why so many virulently objected and eventually thumbed their noses at authority to reopen their churches in violation of state ordinances.

This switch was perfect for the rush of uncalled hirelings to flood the pulpits. Being a CEO is business but being a shepherd is personal. These imposters know how to put a sermon together. They may have even gone to seminary. Many are fantastic orators, captivating audiences with their speechcraft. Paul warned that the wisdom of words could strip the power from the gospel. The entire aspect of vision casting is equally unbiblical. We already have a vision caster and His name is Jesus. He has already given us His vision, it is called the bible. Warren's blueprint for church growth however takes the job of horizontal church growth away from the Lord and places it on the narrow shoulders of the vision caster. No wonder so many pastors fall from grace! They are too busy trying to do God's job! If a pastor is given a 200-person congregation that does not grow exponentially, Warrenology calls that pastor a failure. If those 200 are found in the Lamb's Book of Life however, the pastor will hear well done my good and faithful servant. Sure, Joel Osteen may see hundreds of thousands of people but if the vast majority are unsaved because he refuses to present the gospel, his day of judgment will go decidedly different. Until pastors retreat to their proper biblical role, we will continue to see the growth of apostate churches led by men who are destined to fall.

The last infection foisted upon the body of Christ through the PDC is the concept of blessed subtraction. Mark Driscoll famously once bragged about the pile of dead bodies underneath the Mars Hill bus he was driving. These were the people who dared to disagree with his vision. If you watch that clip in full however, he starts by saying that he is all about blessed subtraction. This was not surprising as Driscoll was a huge Warren disciple. The concept of blessed subtraction, taught in the PDC, is that it is ok for pastors to seek the removal of sheep from their sheep pen. Warren mocked people who would disagree with vision as being "pillars of the church" who hold everything up. How this plays out is that the new purpose driven pastor wants to start preaching topically about carnal matters, or has the church read an unbiblical book such as The Shack or the Purpose Driven Life and the biblical church members object. They do so according to scripture but in the end the pastor "suggests" that they need to leave the church. In extreme cases the pastor musters congregational support to shun the offending sheep. This obviously flips the parable of the 99 and 1 on its ear.

The large-scale result is the landscape of modern Christendom is littered with bleeding church hurt sheep. I know many and I am sure you do as well. Most will never return to organized church, which is exactly the goal of the enemy, facilitated through the purpose driven church leaders. Everything becomes a numbers game for them. Kicked a sheep out? No problem as long as you bring two new ones in! Who they actually are becomes irrelevant. Church was not designed to be evaluated using the carnal metrics of this world. Narrow is the road and few are those who find it. Not mega church numbers, few. When Paul left Ephesus he told the elders he was free of their blood because he did not hesitate to preach the entire gospel to them. Paul warns Timothy to guard his doctrine because the eternal lives of his hearers hung in the balance.

What Rick Warren did is fundamentally change how God designed his church. He changed the role of the sheep and the pastors. This is how we have gone from feeding the sheep to entertaining the goats. Whenever you see some ridiculous church promotion realize that is a result of Rick Warren. When you see an absurd sermon series like gleaning life lessons from Avengers End Game, realize that it is because of Rick Warren. When you see secular music in worship realize that it is because of Rick Warren. When your church suddenly starts reviewing Steven Furtick's new book instead of the bible, realize that it is because of Rick Warren. When you ask your pastor why he would focus church pulpit time on Furtick and not God's word and he suggest you leave his church, realize that it is because of Rick Warren. When your church spends Resurrection Sunday focusing on making you feel better about your sinful state instead of telling you that you need a savior, realize that it is because of Rick Warren. As are the eternal sufferings of those whose lives are required of them before they get another chance to hear the gospel.

While it is good news that Rick Warren is retiring I am afraid it is too late. The damage has already been done.

Reverend Anthony Wade - June 10, 2021



Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

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