The Purpose-Driven Church by Rick Warren

I read his The Purpose-Driven Life a while back, and I was impressed with his skill as a translator: putting Christian principles into language that modern ill-educated Americans can understand. (Although I disliked his pick-and-choose approach among Bible translations, and was annoyed that all of his "For further reading" references in the appendix were to his own stuff.)

This book starts out with the not-entirely obvious premise that the main purpose of the Church is evangelism, and goes on to lay out methods for designing a church to do this. He eventually gets around to describing what you do with the body of believers, but that comes rather late in the book. It isn't that he thinks of edification only as an afterthought, just that he believes the priority, and the hard part, is getting non-believers into the church.

He emphasizes making non-believers comfortable, thinking carefully about who you want to attract, doing your research on who is in the area and what sorts of things they like, and taking care with the music and the facilities and the welcoming procedures to make sure everyone is comfortable. Of course, believers are asked to commit to things like daily Bible study, tithing, and getting involved in some ministries in the church.

It all seems logical and benign. And it seems to work so well. And yet. . .

Three words: Segregated by design. His model targets one group at a time. If the church gets big enough to fire up new services or new congregations, they can target new groups, but if not, you wind up trying to entice just one subculture; one age group. There's something wrong here. "If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be?"

I think there are at least two things wrong.

• I think he underestimates the appeal of the unusual and the exotic. Californians are notorious for seeking out the weird and mystic. If you are searching for something new to give your life meaning, why would you expect it to be described in completely familiar ways?
• And he back-shelves the life of the church and corporate worship. He stresses (repeatedly!) that these things are important, but sticks them in the Wednesday corner and keeps the unbelievers away from them. I'd imagine his prescriptions seem even more dramatic to liturgical Christians.

Read it for yourself, and see what you think. I think that I must not obstruct the work of God--far be it from me to discourage evangelism--but that I have to try to make sure the other work of the church is not slighted. So I'll honor what he has accomplished, but emphasize what he has overlooked.

A comment from a dear reader:

Too often a person hears only that it is easy to become a Christian and nothing about how difficult it can be. For the past several weeks I have been reading the New Testament to ferret out the commands Christians are given - direct commands, interpreted commands (as from Paul), and guidelines. If we began to teach new (and old) believers these things, we would have a different church, a different Christianity. I remember hearing decades ago about a young man (Korean or Chinese, I believe) who was memorizing Romans 12. It was a long time before he returned to recite it. He said he was trying to live up to each thing in it before he felt he knew it. Perhaps we should direct more believers to Romans 12.

I'm still working on that chapter--not ready to recite yet.