By Mark Kelly
The handful of people who get so bent out of shape about Rick Warren must have been positively salivating at the prospect of the March 7 edition of ABC’s Nightline: Rick Warren and Purpose Driven Strife. The word ‘exposé’ was being bandied about.
Alas, those tricky TV people – always cooking up headlines that make you think the story is going to be more controversial than it actually is.
People with the fortitude to stay up for shows in that time slot didn’t see an exposé. Instead, they got to hear Pastor Rick himself respond to the accusations that the Purpose Driven model is causing division in some churches.
No one disputes that some people have left churches because of changes attributed to implementing the Purpose Driven paradigm. Division and disagreement in a church are always regrettable.
The question is what really causes the division?
— I’m a preacher’s kid, and I’ve worked most of my career for church-related organizations. That’s given me a front-row seat for all kinds of church fights. One thing they have in common is that they are hardly ever about what they seem to be about. If you take the trouble to explore the back story of the conflict, you almost always discover a history of animosity and opposition between the principals. The issue over which division occurred is usually just “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” You can’t take situations like that at face value.
— Another thing investigation will reveal is that some “Purpose Driven” changes made in churches are not Purpose Driven at all. A common misunderstanding about PD is that it is synonymous with “contemporary.” While many churches that use the paradigm do employ a contemporary worship model, there are plenty of others who worship in their traditional manner. Purpose Driven isn’t about a style of worship; it’s about focusing on all five of the biblical purposes of the Church to achieve congregational health and experience spiritual and numerical growth.
— Some of the conflict is caused by pastors who don’t follow our advice – or even bother to get training before implementing what they think is a Purpose Driven approach. If a pastor attended our training, he would hear Pastor Rick say, in the strongest possible terms, that trying to change a traditional church to a contemporary style is a big mistake. Changing a service can unnecessarily alienate some church members. Better to reach a new segment of people by adding a service designed to connect with them.
— When you get right down to it, some church members are more concerned about preserving the status quo than about reaching people Jesus died for. It’s sad, but there are people in every church who would rather die than agree to change. And it doesn’t have to be a major change. People have left churches because the walls got painted a color they didn’t approve of. Folks like that certainly aren’t going to approve of changes that will bring people into the congregation who enjoy a different kind of music and don’t dress “appropriately.”
Before you give much weight to a critic of a “Purpose Driven” change, look into the situation more closely. It may be that the change wasn’t PD at all. It may be the critic is someone who disliked the pastor from Day One. It may be that he values his comfortable tradition more than rescuing people who are headed to hell in a hand basket.
There were several other interesting aspects to the Nightline segment. More on that in days to come.
Related article:
Churches Debate Popular Purpose-Driven Model
