Wayne Shepherd :
We are grateful for you and for the message God has given you Tell us about the connection between the purpose driven life and your call for a new kind of reformation…
3 things..have changed my life…2 ½ years ago One was the overwhelming success of the book. It has been the best selling book in the world now for 3 years…in 50 languages Publisher’s weekly said it’s the best selling hardback book in American history… "
Does he mean, better selling than the Bible???
Here, Rick is insinuating,
in my estimation anyhow,
(and he infers this frequently),
that it must be an act of God that his book
"sold more copies" than
any other book in American history.
158 weeks.Wow. This sounds impressive.
How convienent to make sure you and I
know how impressed with should be with Rick and his book.
Now, as to making a living from the gospel
note that PASTOR Rick
who has sold so many of his books...
158 weeks worth
on the New York Times Best Sellers list...
and made all that money
(literally, ”millions and millions” of dollars)
pedaling his "Christian" wares
throughout the world as a pastor.
But here he says that he
is above such a thing
as making a living from the gospel.
"He will not accept that right...
because he wants to serve the gospel for free!"
.
"Kay and I had to figure out... because God doesn’t give you this for your ego, especially if you are a pastor... what to do with the, literally, ”millions and millions” of dollars…that were coming in. So we made 5 decisions: 1. Stop taking a salary from our church.
2. Not change lifestyle one bit...no second home, no yacht …lived the same place now for 15 years…
3. Give back all the salary that the church had paid me in 25 years; I added it all up and gave it all back, because I didn’t want anyone to think that we had done this for money.
He paid back the church all the money
he made off of it so that he wouldn't owe them a thing
and so that it would not look to them
like he had done this for money.
(Rick says, he could now say
that he had served his church for free,
for twenty -five years!"
But... is that the truth?
Is that what occurred?
NO!
For those 25 years, the church WAS his sustenance.
HE drew a salary for twenty -five years.
Does he really expect us to now think that
erased all of that simply by
paying back the salary he made?
How much did he make selling his
books and materials over
all of those twenty five yeas?
He said, "literally, ”millions and millions” of dollars."
(Question: Is it a "secular myth" that there are pastors who do church for money only?..)
Wayne Shepherd : So in other words, success did change you?
Warren: "Oh it did, you know, the bible says that the goodness of God leads to repentance… some people repent because they have a scandal, I repented because God was being so good. And we set up three foundations, ACTS of MERCY to help those infected with AIDS, the Equipping the Church, which helps trains pastors around the world , we have trained over 400,000 " (Are you impressed by the numbers?
Rick certainly is a man who like numbers A LOT...
everything is about numbers, number, numbers!
)
"(...trained over 400,000)....pastors from 162 countries over the 20 years, the third was the Global Peace plan. And the last thing is we became reverse tithers… where when Kay and I we got married 30 years ago we started tithing 10%. Each year we raised it a percent, second year 11%…… because every time I give it breaks the grip of materialism in my life, everytime I give it makes me more like Jesus, it makes my heart grow bigger, so now,………. we give away 90 (percent) and live on 10 (percent). That was actually easy the easy part, what to do with the money- from this the success of this book…, what was difficult was, “What do I do Lord with this influence?”, this fame, this notoriety? Because all of a sudden, I was being invited to ‘Harvard and Oxford, and Cambridge, you know, to speak, the Senate, the White House, Hollywood…__and business leaders were calling me, because this was not my plan, my plan was to simply pastor a church and help other pastors…that’s all I wanted to do with my life""And as I read scripture, God gave me Psalm 72, which is Solomon’s prayer for influence. In psalm 72, Solomon’s wealthiest and the wisest and the most powerful man in the world at that time, as the King of Israel and yet he says, God, I want you to give me more.. I want you to spread the fame of my name to many countries, I want you to give me more influence. And it sounds very selfish until you read the rest, which says, “so that- the king may help the widow and the orphan care for the poor. defend the defenseless. Released the oppressed. help the foreigner, . the immigrants, all the marginalized in society…poor, sick, elderly, and disabled, and out of that Psalm, God spoke to me and He said , the purpose of influence is to speak up for those who had no influence. And that, Wayne changed my life. I had to repent…It wasn’t like I was doing bad stuff, I mean, we were pastoring Saddleback church and which now has 82,000 Numbers)names on the roll and, I was very busy, we baptized 15,000 (Numbers) new believers in the last 10 years, Numbers)so I wasn’t just twiddling my thumbs… But God says, but, your not caring about the people I care about most. Your are not caring about the marginalized… the poor, the sick, the uneducated. And I had to say, “God, I will use the rest of my life whatever affluence and influence you give me to help the church you know, recover this. And as I began to read scripture I found over 2000 verses Numbers)on the poor, and I had to say, how did I miss this?
(yes, how Rick, how did you miss that?
and BTW, did you miss anything else along the way?)
"I mean , I went to a bible college and two seminaries…. I have got a doctorate. How did I miss 2000 verses on the poor?? It was the cultural blinders that kept me from seeing who God cared about. "~~~~AFTER THE STATION BREAK~~~~
Wayne Shepherd :Welcome Back.
Guest Rick Warren with us tonight…
Rick, you have told us how God has moved in your heart to change you, but that has to have an outward manifestation doesn’t it? And you have put together a pretty comprehensive plan for all of us to respond to a needy world...
Warren: "You know, the second thing that happened, after I knew that my heart had to change…My wife Kay had been invited to Africa, to - a, she had been in Malawi and Mozambique, and then in S, Africa, working with those infected and affected by AIDS and I had gone over just to be with her and while I was there, Bruce Wilkerson had invited me to be a part of teaching the Purpose Driven Church seminar to African pastors in S Africa and so, actually while we were there, um, we did the seminar,we broadcasted to about 400 sites which covered about 80-90,000 pastors across the continent of Africa and, I really thought that is why I was there…bur after it was over I had some friends and I said, take me out to some of the villages and I had gone out with Tim Morgan from Christianity Today, …and Bruce to some villages before the conference, but after the conference we went to some too. and as we went out to this one village a young pastor came up to me and he said, “I know who you are “and I said, “How do you know who I am” and he said “ You’re Pastor Rick” and I said, “ How do you know who I am ” and he said “I get your sermons every week:"
"A long time ago I decided I didn’t want to be on TV or the radio, we were not going to broadcast our sermons because I didn’t want to be a celebrity, so we put all my sermons on the Internet, Saddleback was the first church on the Internet, back in 1992, before there was even Netscape or Internet Explorer and we allowed pastors who could pay for them to download these sermons and we give them away to free to the rest of the world. "
The purpose of this is so that pastors
can use Rick’s sermons to feed
their own congregations.
" I -I looked at this guy and said, “How do you get my sermons? You don’t even have water, or electricity here, how do you get my sermons?” And he said”, “No, but he said, they are putting the Internet in every post office….. “Once a week I walk an hour and a half to the nearest post office and I download your free sermon and I go back and I preach it... "
People are so disparate for what Rick teaches!
Gee, after hearing these we can conclude that Rick’s
sermons are as important as water or electricity.
(Note, when Rick Warren unveiled his
PEACE PLAN to his own congregation..
he did say that that uneducated,
untrained pastors of churches were
one of the greatest evils in the world.
His Peace Plan is working!
Look how he rid the world of one of those
"evil giants" the one of uneducated
untrained pastors..who had never
been to seminary, like Rick. All .
because this man,
pastor used his sermon!)
Hold on there Rick... it brought you to tears..
and this because ."leadership training"
is one of the biggest problems in the world?
Seriously?
Later in this session, discussing the meritws of the PEACE PLAN,Tim Morgan asks:
Why does the peace plan put so much emphasis on the planting of churches and not on soul winning as we have seen on other big mission efforts?
Warren: "Right, Right. That’s a fantastic question ah, Tim, because the greatest tool for-for fulfilling the great-...er... commission is not soul winning, it’s planting a church. It’s a good thing, to win a person to Christ, it’s a better thing to teach that person, how to teach them- teach them -how to teach somebody else to win somebody to Christ. It’s greatest of all to teach somebody how to plant a church. "
One can easily " guess" what brand name of church..
"Now, How long does it take to plant a church? It takes one day. I’ve done it hundreds of times…you just gather a group of people together.. 5-6 people and- and-start a church.
Well.. this is only part of a most interesting piece. Many other interesting statements were made by Warren this day... in this conversation on OPEN LINE PROGRAM, October 7, 2005 with Host Wayne Shepherd and Rick Warren and the other phone guest, Tim Morgan. Listen to it in it's entirety if you can. You might have to contact Moody Radio.
Wow Rick... that easy? And that is all you do?
Just gather some folks and "whalla" a church!
YEah!!!
Do you preach anything?
"Paul often would be in a village, one or two days and he ‘d leave a church. In fact, in Paul’s missionary journey’s the longest he ever stayed in any city was Ephesus and Corinth-and it was 2 years, and that is where he had the most problems.. He should have left sooner." Just gather some folks and "whalla" a church!
YEah!!!
Do you preach anything?
(Really Rick? Seriously?
Paul should have left sooner?
How do you know?
Rick , why do you sound like you think
that you know better than Paul did?
Was Paul not following the leading of God... and the Holy Spirit?)
Well.. this is only part of a most interesting piece. Many other interesting statements were made by Warren this day... in this conversation on OPEN LINE PROGRAM, October 7, 2005 with Host Wayne Shepherd and Rick Warren and the other phone guest, Tim Morgan. Listen to it in it's entirety if you can. You might have to contact Moody Radio.
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