RICK WARREN... HUMBLE AND AWESOME LEADER

I just started to read "The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? by Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, so this is not a book review post. My friend, Hamon, got back from a pastoral training conference at Saddleback a couple weeks ago and he was talking about meeting Rick Warren. From his week at the conference, he said that he was impressed by his humility and vision as a pastor.

It can be easy to get caught up in creating and running a mega-church of 15,000 weekly attendees. I've seen some of this in Korea, where a few of the largest churches in the world reside. Some pastors begin to think that it's their church instead of the whole congregation's. Biblically a church is the body's not the pastor's.

Anyway, Warren's book was #1 on The New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction. I believe this is great and reflective of our society today. People are seeking for a purpose or purposes in their lives and Christianity is an answer for many. My initial read of the book is that it is very simple and straight-forward. It is almost like a Christian devotional book, so for those not open to Christianity, or especially anti-Christ, it probably will be offensive.

Hamon was telling me that with the financial gains from the book Warren gave back his salary to Saddleback Church from his 20+ years of service there, and he will not take anymore salary in the future. He and his wife will also set up a fund to help Christian organizations which is from 90% of his gains, and the remaining 10% will go to their living costs for the rest of their lives. Whatever way you cut it, these are very respectable actions that reflect the humility in their lives. Awesome.