Rick Warren is arguably the most influential man in American religion today. Megachurch pastor, friend of world leaders, and trend-setting spiritual entrepreneur, he is widely recognized as the new public face of evangelical Christianity in America. No other modern churchman has matched his success as a leader and motivator of Christians. His book, The Purpose-Driven Life, is the bestselling nonfiction hardcover of all time, with more than 25 million copies sold. At a time when the evangelicalism stands at a political and cultural crossroads, his stature continues to rise.

But who is Rick Warren? What can be learned from the story of the man behind the message? And what does his life say about the state of Christianity today?

Prophet of Purpose: The Life of Rick Warren traces the road Warren has traveled, the influences in his life, his trials and temptations, and the opposition he has encountered along the way. Honest, thorough, and insightful, it explores his spiritual coming of age during the turbulent 1960s, his principled determination to sit out the divisive battles between fundamentalists and moderates in the Southern Baptist Convention in the late 1970s, and his audacious endeavor in the 1980s to build a “church for people who hate church” in the suburbs of Los Angeles. From a handful of worshippers meeting in a tiny apartment, he grew a vibrant congregation of over 22,000 and a global network of pastors who follow his strategies for building churches and transforming lives. In this unofficial biography, Jeffery L. Sheler, who had unfettered access to Warren and those closest to him, presents an intimate portrait of Warren as a man of faith and vision but also of flesh and blood and human foibles–a pastor, communicator, philanthropist, and family man who is driven by a sense of divine purpose to complete the course his God has set before him.

Prophet of Purpose brings Warren and his mission to life and provides a provocative glimpse into the potential future of Christianity in America.


From the Hardcover edition.

Chapter One

America's Pastor

They began arriving at Angel Stadium in Anaheim early in the morning in a steady stream of shiny SUVs and sport sedans that lined up in neat rows and quickly disgorged their passengers--a decidedly upscale mix of young families, middle-aged couples, andsingles of all ages, most of them appropriately attired for a balmy spring day in colorful shorts and T-shirts or tan-revealing sundresses, flip-flops, baseball caps, and sunglasses. Some hurried inside to stake out the better seats next to the dugouts andbehind home plate. Others lingered in the parking lot and clustered around barbeque grills and coolers or tossed Frisbees or lounged in beach chairs and sipped sodas in the warm Southern California sun.
It was a picture perfect day for the ballpark, and the Orange County suburbanites were out in force. But it was not to see their hometown Angels, who happened to be playing in Oakland that afternoon. On this particular Sunday--April 17, 2005--baseball was giving way to worship and to the twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of probably the largest, easily the fastest-growing, and arguably the most influential evangelical congregation in the country, Saddleback Church in nearby Lake Forest.
Renting Angel Stadium had been the idea of Saddleback's fifty-one-year-old founder and senior pastor, Rick Warren, a man well-known for thinking big. It was Warren, after all, who in 1980, fresh out of a Southern Baptist seminary, audaciously announced to a handful of worshipers that the church they were starting from scratch in his tiny apartment would one day number 20,000 and would occupy a 50-acre campus. In 2004 they surpassed that goal. What began with two families as "a church for people who hate church" had grown to a congregation of more than 22,000 regular attenders on a 120-acre campus with an annual operating budget of more than $30 million.
It was Warren, too, who, thinking that other pastors might benefit from the lessons he had learned about church growth, began conducting training seminars in the late 1980s to promote a biblical model of ministry based on what he saw as "God's purposes." In 1995, he explained that model in a book for pastors entitled The Purpose-Driven Church. It sold over a million copies and helped launch the Purpose-Driven Network, a global alliance of now more than 10,000 congregations in 162 countries. Seven years laterhe wrote a spin-off, a book intended for laypeople called The Purpose-Driven Life. It became the best-selling nonfiction hardcover of all time--more than 25 million copies sold in the first three years alone.
The resulting fame and fortune catapulted Warren onto the national and international stage. Suddenly he found himself deluged with media interview requests and with calls from leaders in government, business, academia, the sports world, and the entertainment industry--even from foreign heads of state--seeking personal spiritual guidance or offering speaking invitations. At a time when many evangelical leaders were enlisting in the culture wars and aligning themselves with narrow partisan causes, Warren used his new public platform to call attention to the plight of the poor and the powerless, especially to AIDS victims in Africa.
At the same time, Warren and his wife, Kay, were determined that their sudden wealth would not alter their lifestyle. They became "reverse tithers," giving away 90 percent of their income and keeping just 10 percent. Most of the proceeds from The Purpose-Driven Life went to establish nonprofit foundations for AIDS relief and for pastoral...

 

 

"This book is a wonderful gift to all of those folks who know Rick Warren only as one of our most articulate and influential religious leaders. Jeff Sheler shows us a very human husband-father-pastor whose own very personal purpose-driven life is all the better because of doubts and set-backs experienced along the way."

 

"Jeffery Sheler illuminates the journey Pastor Warren has taken from his childhood in Ukiah to the Saddleback Church. Sheler seamlessly tells the story not just of how Warren built his church and became a bestselling author, but how he became a moral voice on global poverty, HIV/AIDS and global climate change, issues that should call everyone from the faith community to get involved. A compelling read about a man in the middle of so many of the issues of our time."

 

"Prophet of Purpose is essential for anyone who wants to understand America's most prominent pastor and the tectonic shifts on the religious landscape he represents. Sheler's detailed account of Warren's background carries great explanatory power."

 

"Engaging and fair-minded ... [Prophet of Purpose] allows the reader to appreciate just how remarkable Warren's rise to prominence really is."

 

Prophet of Purpose by Jeffrey L. Sheler
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