Warren enters 26th year of ministry with new vision

LAKE FOREST, Calif. — Forging across the great West, travelling 1,500 miles from Texas to Southern California the then-26-year-young Rick Warren with his bride, Kay, had a vision with a purpose ... a dream to plant a church with heart.

When the Warrens first married, they prayed, “Lord, give us ministry direction.” They affirmed daily, “Lord we’ll go where ever you call us.” After confirmation in their hearts, Rick and Kay, with 4-month-old baby, Amy, packed up a U-Haul and headed to Orange County, Calif.

The Warrens, with a heart for the unchurched, surveyed hundreds of families in the Saddleback Valley, starting their first meeting in the living room of their condo where Warren said he “taught on faith.”

Moving to their inaugural site, a high school gym, Warren preached his first public service on Easter 1980.

It is from these seeds of faith and vision that the church has expanded to nearly 25,000 members, with more than 2,600 small groups, 200-plus ministries, and 5,000 sent on missions. This Easter, more than 45,000 people marked the 25th anniversary of Saddleback Church.

From humble beginnings and deep conviction, the church is one of America’s largest.

A new vision
As Rick and Kay enter the next phase of ministry, they have expanded their vision beyond America. And, at an April 17 celebration of the ministry’s first 25 years, Warren unveiled an ambitious Peace Plan in which he hopes to train and mobilize more than one billion people, using churches throughout the world as the launch pad to slay the five global giants: poverty, disease, spiritual emptiness, ignorance and lack of servant leaders.

“We come into this Peace Plan with great humility,” Warren said. “We will be like a giant mushroom expanding and exploding around the world. Whatever it takes, it will be a holy moment.”

The five-point Global Peace plan is succinct: plant churches; equip servant leaders; assist the poor, care for the sick and educate the next generation.

The plan, he said, will be accomplished through small groups, which will attack all five giants, network church-to-church distribution, then send to the whole world.

For those acquainted with Warren’s organizational skills, the Peace Plan seems remarkably familiar. Its foundation could be called a cousin to Warren’s highly successful, “Purpose Driven Life.”

Expecting to sell a few thousand copies, and giving away thousands more, Warren made publishing history several years ago when his Purpose Driven Life achieved the No. 1 best-selling hard-back non-fiction book in history. Its been translated into more than 25 languages, and has won numerous awards.

The precursor to that success came with “Purpose Driven Church,” which sold nearly two million copies and was used to train pastors/leaders to grow their congregations.

Appearing on FoxNews, the Today Show and ABC News, among others, and featured in hundreds of articles, Rick Warren and “Purpose Driven Life” are household words.

Yet, to the congregation, and those who love him, he’s “Pastor Rick.”

“My great passion is to make a difference in people’s lives,” Warren said.

Casual shepherd
From his first days as pastor, often clad in Hawaiian shirts and wearing no socks, Warren has the inbred ability to move listeners and inject humor in the most serious of messages. Yet, his wisdom goes much deeper.

“He’s one of the most dedicated men I’ve ever met,” said Horace Willard, a 20-year-member of the church who has travelled with Warren. “He’s an awesome man of God.”

The accolades are no surprise to wife, Kay
“I’ve never met anyone quite like Rick,” said Kay. “He’s incredible ... He’s unique, so very unique.”

Perhaps the greatest illustration of Warren’s wisdom is whom he chose to marry.

Kay is a godly woman dedicated to her church and to God. She co-authored “Foundations,” which illustrates 11 core principles on which to build your life, has invested her life into God’s Kingdom and the people of the church. Known for her warm smile, her compassion runs deep for those who are hurting.

Following the publication of Purpose Driven Life, the Warrens set up three foundations to distribute 90 percent of the proceeds from their book back into global ministry, including those stricken with HIV/AIDS. They have frequently travelled to Africa on a missions trips. They take no salary from the church.

“I’m not the same man as I was 25 years ago, and Kay is not the same,” Warren said. “She’s been with me from the beginning. We’re changed. I had a two-fold plan for my life. I never wanted to be a televangelist, or to be in the media. Being in the spotlight can blind you.

“The first 22 years, somehow Saddleback Church stayed under the radar of the media. The book Purpose Driven Life blew my cover.”

Global influence
Through prayer, Warren sought God’s direction for the next 25 years.

“I prayed Lord, what do I do with this stewardship, this affluence, this influence,” Warren said.

The Lord led him to Psalm 72.

“It was clear,” he said. “I’m to use my notoriety to help those throughout the world with no notoriety, the immigrant, the sick, the homeless, the hurt. For the next 25 years I’m focused on the rest of the world.

He’s starting with Rwanda.

“Isn’t it just like God to choose a little country like Rwanda, that after horrible genocide, that others have ignored,” he said. “And that country is our first international model in ‘The Peace Plan.’”

Both Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship, evangelist Billy Graham— and even President George W. Bush—embrace Warren’s Peace project. It has also brought a warm response from Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda.

“Warren is an organizational genius with his quality of caring for the underdog,” Colson said. “I’ve looked for a man like him for years.”

Warren and Colson plan to integrate the Purpose Driven model and Warren’s Celebrate Recovery materials in every prison in America and then globally.

“I commend your compassion and your commitment to your faith to change one heart, one life at a time,” Bush wrote to Warren in a letter of commendation.

Commissioning the flock
To launch the new effort, and celebrate Saddleback’s first 25 years, Warren hosted the April 17 rally at Angel Stadium.

“At Saddleback, we’re a ministering church,” Warren said. “We train people, we train pastors and we send them out. In his deepest of hearts he prayed, “Lord what do I do with all of the people you’ve brought here? What’s next Lord?”

Warren then cited the words of God in Isaiah 43.

“‘Watch for the new thing I will do,’” the pastor said, then issued a commission.

“A global expansion of God’s kingdom, a global mission, takes radical devotion,” he said. “Whatever it takes, God is going to use you.

“God gets the biggest glory when we take on the biggest problems. The Peace Plan, its a relationship for the global glory of God. God’s purposes, God’s people, God’s plan, God’s glory.”

Published, May 2005

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