Myths of the Modern Megachurch. Key West, Florida. Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Florida, in May 2. Pew Forum’s biannual Faith Angle conference on religion, politics and public life. Conference speaker Rick Warren, pastor of the largest church in America, addressed misconceptions many Americans have about mega- churches. He also discussed his best- selling book, The Purpose Driven Life, as well as current trends in the evangelical movement, the work his church is doing for AIDS and poverty relief in Africa, and some of his views on hot- button political and cultural issues.

Other conference speakers were John Di. Iulio (University of Pennsylvania), who spoke on faith- based initiatives, and Reuel Marc Gerecht (American Enterprise Institute), who spoke on Islam and democracy. Speaker: Rick Warren, Senior Pastor and Founder, Saddleback Church, Orange County, California. Respondent: David Brooks, Columnist, The New York Times. Moderator: Michael Cromartie, Vice President, Ethics & Public Policy Center; Senior Advisor, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. MICHAEL COMARTIE: Rick Warren is the author of the New York Times #1 bestseller The Purpose Driven Life, which sold a record- breaking seventeen million copies in its first 1. He is also the founding pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, one of America’s largest churches.

He and his wife, Kay, began the church with one family in 1. Watch Up The River Online Ibtimes. Today the church averages over 2. The 4. 0 Days of Purpose and the Purpose Driven movement have become a world- wide phenomena featured in numerous newspapers, magazines and TV shows.

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Time, Christianity Today and several other publications have named Rick Warren “the most influential pastor in America.”We’re delighted that Rick could be with us for this conference. Rick, thank you for coming and we look forward to hearing from you. MR. WARREN: Thank you. My favorite introduction was one time they said, “And here is Rick Warren, of whom Billy Graham said, ‘Who?'” (Laughter.)I am truly honored to be here. I really mean this. When I saw your names and who was going to be on this list, I thought, you know, these are men and women that I read all of the time and I respect, and I want to thank you for the columns and the articles that you write.

Just to be sitting up here with David Brooks, I feel like we ought to reverse this, let him talk and let me comment on him because I love reading his stuff. I read all of your stuff all of the time and I just wanted to start off by saying thank you. Watch Online Watch The Intruders Full Movie Online Film on this page. Thank you for helping me grow, helping me develop. As a writer, you never know who is reading your stuff and so I just wanted you to know I am reading you.

I read a book a day and I read tons of magazines, tons of articles, and I just devour enormous quantities of material, and thank God for the Internet. I get The New York Times and I get The Wall Street Journal, and I get the local papers in L. A., but the rest I have to read online or in the magazines that I subscribe to. There is a verse in the Bible that says the intelligent man is always open to new ideas; in fact, he looks for them. And so when Mike invited me to come to this and I saw your names, I really jumped at the chance. I enjoy these smaller, intimate meetings. You know, when you speak to 2.

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So really, anywhere I go is going to be smaller than the group I talk to on Sunday. So it’s not like I’m going to get a big wow out of a crowd. I would much rather come and do this kind of thing where we can dialogue and talk back and forth. Last night, I was in Miami speaking to this huge international convention of all of the Spanish- language publishers and they gave me the city key to Miami, but really I would have more fun with you here today.

And then I saw you were doing it at Key West and that sealed the deal – (laughter) – because I subscribe to the Gilda Radner philosophy of fashion: I wear what doesn’t itch. Laughter.) And this is as formal as I get. I get a Hawaiian shirt every week when I speak. I wear a suit once a year on Mother’s Day to honor my wife and that is about it, and so this is right up my alley. I also wanted to come and challenge you to see your writing as a stewardship of influence.

God has put you in this position. As you can imagine, I get a lot of invitations to speak – I get about four or five a day – and so I have been choosing pretty carefully which ones to accept. And I came here because I only speak to influencers, and God has given you a degree of influence. And I would challenge you – pardon me for using a religious term – to speak in a prophetic voice.

What I mean by that is in our world today we need more than information, we need more than interpretation: we need action. We’re drowning in information, and there is a famine of meaning – what does it all mean? So I have been asked today to speak on the evangelical mega- church and then a case study of Saddleback, and part of what I would like to do is share my journey – I would like to tell you the story behind the story of my life changed. You know, when you write the best- selling book in the world for the last three years, that changes your life and I’m not the same person I was three years ago. And, you know, maybe I can share that. But since you’re journalists, before we look at this idea of the myths about the mega- churches, I would like to just give you maybe four or five trends or stories I think you need to be aware of that have come in on the scene, because as I travel around the United States, and around the world, I see them over and over.

The first trend that I would say you need to be aware of is the return of the evangelical movement to its 1. Watch Beyond The Edge Streaming. What are those roots? Compassionate activism – and I am not talking about politics; I am talking about the fact that about a hundred years ago, Christianity split into two wings in the Protestant division and this hasn’t been happening with Catholicism, but it did happen in Protestantism. There is a fellow named Walter Rauschenbusch, who is the man who came up with the term “social gospel.” Rauschenbusch was a liberal theologian and he basically said we don’t need this stuff about Jesus anymore; we don’t need the cross; we don’t need salvation; we don’t need atonement; we just need to redeem the social structures of society and if we do that people will automatically get better. This is basically Marxism in a Christian form. And there were even magazines like The Christian Century, which was a pretty audacious title when it started at the beginning of the 2.

Key West, Florida. Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Florida, in May 2005 for the Pew Forum’s biannual Faith Angle conference on. Pearltrees is a place to organize all your interests. It lets you organize, explore and share everything you like.

Christian century; we are going to bring in the millennium simply by changing the social structures of society. Well, nobody believes that anymore after two world wars and a bunch of other stuff. But what happened is Protestantism split into two wings, the fundamentalists and the mainline churches. And the mainline churches tended to take the social action issues of Christianity – caring for the sick, for the poor, the dispossessed, racial justice and things like that.

Today there really aren’t that many Fundamentalists left; I don’t know if you know that or not, but they are such a minority; there aren’t that many Fundamentalists left in America. Anyway, the fundamentalist and evangelical movement said they were just going to care about personal salvation when they split from the mainline churches. What happened is the mainline churches cared about the social morality and the evangelicals cared about personal morality. That’s what happened when they split. But they really are all part of the total gospel – social justice, personal morality and salvation.

And today a lot more people, evangelicals, are caring about those issues. Bono called me the other day and said why don’t you come up to the U2 concert at the Staples Center because we’re both active in AIDS prevention.

My wife and I have given millions to the prevention of AIDS and those afflicted and those orphaned by AIDS.