A: They are both known for surrendering.
I’ve been stewing for the past few days about comments from Rick Warren, recorded recently (I’m not sure where it happened), and posted in audio format by The Way of the Master Radio at Youtube. Literally Warren says that preaching and prayer will not grow a church, a fact “proven” by studies that state that people forget 95% of what they hear. Warren had several other ridiculous things to say, but this point is the one I can’t get past.
That Warren believes this has been fairly implied by his methods, but now he’s just come out and said it. When I ponder these remarks from ‘America’s pastor’ it just makes me so sick. It literally makes me feel physically ill.
I am a teacher in my church I have trained teachers in the past and am planning to continue training teachers as a part of my church’s new campus. One of the axioms I have camped on is that as a teacher people are only going to remember 5% of what you say, and you job is to choose the 5% that they will remember. I’ll concede to Rick Warren that what people remember is minimal, but this is a cause for determination, not surrender.
Why has Rick Warren surrendered? You guessed it, I have a few ideas. Here they go:
- Rick Warren despises the power of the Scriptures. By “despise” I mean that he reckons their value to be nil. Maybe hoe should re-read Hebrews 4:12-13: “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”
- Rick Warren despises his audience. You read that right. He thinks so little of them that he resorts to what he has now openly referred to as “bait” (see above link) to draw people in. Apparently his congregation has no capacity to learn the Scriptures, so Warren has turned to methodology. Let’s look at what 2 Tim 4:2-4 says about this: “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.”
- Rick Warren is concerned more with the visible church than the true church. By the visible church I mean simply the sum of professing Christianity. Matt 7:21 reminds us that not everyone who professes faith is actually saved. Warren clearly measures his church more by size than by the spiritual health. of its members. If i believed that preaching and prayer were not changing the people in my church, I would conclude that my church was DEAD! That’s not that crazy is it? Trading quantity for quality has been a defining mark of the church’s descent into liberalism, or the loss of doctrine from the church. It’s sad to see Warren jumping into the new liberalism with both feet.
- Rick Warren has put the cart before the horse. His measure of what it good is what works, NOT what is Scriptural. This is also called pragmatism. Pragmatism sees the church in terms of a business model, with the pastor as the CEO. Comments like those Warren recently made highlight this. If the church grows, he says, it must be good. Never mind the fact that Bibles are harder to find at Saddleback than MP3 players.
In a way I’m relieved. Now we can plainly see that as a pastor of a church, Rick Warren lacks faith in the Bible. My question to all of you out there is: what do your pastors think of the Bible? Look hard. Is the Bible the catalyst for change, or is it the man in front of it? Is the Bible the foundation of church life, or is it research results? Is the Bible, and the gospel, the power of God for salvation, or is it manipulation? Rick Warren has answered. What’s yours?
Preach the Word.
