Rick
Warren, Saddleback Church, and the SDA Church
By Vance Ferrell
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Foreword by Ron
Beaulieu: Vance Ferrell was a
credentialed Seventh-day Adventist minister, before resigning because he said
in his autobiography that he felt he could not abide by principle and remain
an SDA minister. Vance operates a very
large discount SDA book business and he would not risk being sued by the
church for incorrect information.
Therefore, the content of this article by Vance is most credible. Vance
includes an article from the Adventist Review which fully
substantiates his findings. End
foreword. Rick Warren and Saddleback Church WM1229 DATE OF
PUBLICATION: JULY 2004 Several years ago, we wrote
about the training program for ministers at Bill Hybels’ Willow Creek
Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois (Going to Willow Creek [WM–1003-1004]. It is a
large Sundaykeeping church near Chicago. At the time, a statement was made in
the Review that a very large number of Adventist ministers were taking that
training course (see box at bottom of this page). In 1999 alone, 76,000
pastors and leaders from other denominations attended meetings on the campus
of Willow Creek. Any church can join the Willow Creek Association for $249 a
year. Over 3,300 local churches in America are members, including many of our
own. They go there to learn how to talk more people into becoming church
members. The latest training
course our pastors are attending to improve “church growth” are the seminars
at an immense Sundaykeeping church in southern California. It is the
Saddleback Church, in Lake Forest, California. The remainder of this report
will be about Saddleback. 40 DAYS OF PURPOSE We recently wrote about
Rick Warren’s “40 Days of Purpose” which was presented over a period of six
weeks in Adventist churches throughout the nation. “Over 8,000 churches
from all 50 states and 19 countries have now participated in 40 Days of
Purpose.”—Saddleback Church brochure. During those consecutive
Sabbaths, our people read through, and heard, sermons about Rick Warren’s
latest book, The Purpose Driven Life. (His earlier 1995 book was The Purpose
Driven Church.) From another Saddleback
brochure, we learn that 40 Days of Purpose was publicly endorsed and used in
a large number of denominations, including the following: Assemblies of God,
Baptist, Church of God, Evangelical Free, International Pentecostal Holiness,
Seventh-day Adventist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Nazarene, Vineyard, along with
many others. Church growth seminars
teach visiting pastors how to bring more people in off the streets and get
them to join the church in droves. Church growth seminars teach that doctrine
and standards should not be emphasized. Music, sociability, and excitement
are key factors in bringing in and holding the multitudes, but not religious
beliefs. THE SADDLEBACK CHURCH What is the Saddleback
Church like? This is from one of Saddleback’s brochures: “Our task is to equip
pastors all over the world to plant and renew churches to become balanced,
grow healthily, and reproduce . . Rick Warren has taught the PD principles to
more than 108,000 pastors on the campus of Saddleback Church alone.
Satellite-based simulcast events increase that number to more than 160,000
pastors. Add international events—Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, China, the
Philippines, Hong Kong, Amsterdam—and the number rises to over 180,000! . . “We are working on
publishing and distributing several PD tools in multiple languages. This
includes the International Workshop on DVD (currently in 18 languages), study
guides, and class materials, to name a few.”—Saddleback Church brochure. THE DECEMBER 18, 1997 ADVENTIST REVIEW ARTICLE “What to do with Willow
Creek? “Fact: America’s most attended church, a noncharismatic
nondenominational church in suburban Chicago, continues to shape not only its
immediate community but, more notably, the 2,200 member churches from 70
denominations participating in the Willow Creek Association. WCA endeavors to
“help the church turn irreligious people into fully devoted followers of
Christ. “Fact: Adventists, both
pastors and laypeople, consistently make up one of the largest groups at
Willow Creek’s half-dozen annual seminars—including church leadership conferences
in May and October and a leadership summit in August. “Fact: The three latest
Adventist churches to divide or depart [separate from the
denomination]—Oregon’s Sunnyside, Maryland’s Damascus, and Colorado’s Christ
Advent Fellowship—were clearly influenced by Willow Creek’s ministry
hallmarks (small groups, spiritual gifts discovery, friendship evangelism,
contemporary worship), if not its congregational status. “Fact: Many Adventists
who haven’t been to Willow Creek are sick of hearing about it from Adventists
who have been to Willow Creek. In some cases local members have divided over
how “seeker-sensitive” their church services should be. “What to do with Willow
Creek? . . I’m grateful for Willow Creek. It was there that my former academy
church, Forest Lake, got intentional about worship; that Adventist friends
and relatives recognized their natural abilities—from drama to maintenance—as
natural ministries . . I’ve never exited the
$34.3 million [Willow Creek] complex without positive thoughts. “From this
perspective I offer these sentiments: “Adventists should give
Willow Creek a fair shake. As a people often prejudged, we should avoid
prejudging others. . Adventists should continue gleaning from Willow Creek. .
Willow Creek has its place in prophecy too. Granted, it’s a different place.
But we can learn from each other . . “I think of Mountain
View church in Las Vegas; of the freshly planted New Community in Atlanta; of
my home church, New Hope, in Laurel, Maryland; and of other churches mature
enough to incorporate Willow Creek principles. . “We can learn from each
other.”—“On Willow Creek,” Adventist Review, December 18, 1997 [bold print
ours]. Here is more on Warren
and his Sundaykeeping church: “Rick Warren aimed to
first build one great church, then show others how to build theirs. He has
devoted decades to teaching 300,000 pastors his principles for revival and
renewal . . Christianity Today dubbed Warren ‘America’s most influential
pastor’ in a cover story last fall . . “Saddleback Church has
grown from a Bible study in his condo in 1980 to 15,000 baptized members
today. Another 70,000 people who’ve attended at least one service are in the
church’s database. “Every weekend nearly
19,000 worshipers choose from among nine ‘venues’ as varied as the 3,000-seat
main sanctuary, the coffee bar or the ‘beach hut’ for high-schoolers. Built
into the landscape—designed by theme park experts—are settings for 40 Bible
re-enactments, including a stream that can part like the Red Sea. “From everywhere, but the
acres of asphalt parking, a visitor can see, live or on tape-delay like
Gospel TiVo, Warren at the pulpit, expounding on the Bible’s script for your
life . . “In the pulpit, Warren
delivers 40 minutes of preaching. Then, mid-sermon, he literally chills out
for 20 minutes, behind a bank of fans or in his icy office, to avoid blackout
headaches from a rare adrenaline disorder. Another of the church’s 13 pastors
carries on until Warren returns for a wrap-up . . “Warren is part of the
ultra-conservative Southern Baptist Convention, and all his senior staff sign
on to the SBC’s doctrines . . yet Warren’s pastor-training programs welcome
Catholics, Methodists, Mormons, Jews and ordained women . . “His 1995 book for
pastors, The Purpose Driven Church, was all about surfing pop culture’s waves
to draw in the unchurched.”—USA Today, September 21, 2003. If strange, new things
are happening at your local church, it maybe because your pastor has studied
at the feet of Sundaykeepers at Willow Creek or Saddleback. Or maybe it is
because he learned new techniques at a local conference ministerial retreat,
under the direction of men carefully trained under the direction of
non-Adventists who have no respect for obedience to the law of God, at one or
both of those churches. MARKETING STRATEGIES This Willow Creek /
Saddleback type of revival is actually religious marketing! Bill Hybels and
Rick Warren rely on marketing strategies, psychology, polls, opinions,
compromise, business and psychological consultants, and business research
findings. Their places of business
are “worship centers.” Their mode of operation is Biblical words and phrases,
and lots of modern musical styles in order “to get people connected” and
touch their “felt needs.” The real problem of
people is sin in the life. They need to return to God in heartfelt repentance
and, in Christ’s enabling strength, put away those sins and keep God’s
commandments. But such things do not matter to these men. Instead, modern
entertainment methods are used to attract and hold the people, self-help
books are provided to keep them contented, and leadership conferences are
given to lure other pastors elsewhere to copy their methods. Astoundingly, books
produced by those new-style churches are widely advertised, sold in our own
bookstores, and used in our churches. Rick Warren’s marketing
consultant is CMS, “a full-service custom marketing and communications agency
headquartered in Covina, California,” which is skilled in aiding the Church
Growth Movement. “At CMS, we view it as
our mission to help our clients grow their businesses.
We do this by working with each client identifying opportunities and
developing innovative, creative and profitable services which assist them in
the execution of effective marketing, sales and communications program . . We
are best able to serve clients when they allow us to act as partners . . CMS
is made up of a team of talented individuals whose dedication and expertise
have earned them a solid reputation for creating results.”—CMS website:
christian-ministry.com. CMS clients include
Quaker, Isuzu Motors America, the City of West Covina, Saddleback Valley
Community Church, Purpose Driven Ministries (a Saddleback subsidiary),
Smalley Relationship Center, and Walk through the Bible (Bruce Wilkinson’s
Prayer of Jabez organization). Do not expect Moses’
presentation of the Ten Commandments or John the Baptist’s call to repentance
to be included among those management skills. Instead, you will find polls,
tracking surveys, and management skills aimed at producing satisfied
customers who keep returning for more of the product offered by the business.
In other words, give the customer what pleases them. “Collecting, organizing
and managing data is essential to understanding, evaluating and planning of
any successful promotion. That is why we developed our CMS Intelligent
Redemption System. It is sophisticated proprietary software that allows us to
program and initialize data . . Our purchasing standards and fulfillment
procedures build-in tracking and accountability . . CMS Fulfillment Center
specializes in direct mail projects, new product introductions, and promotion
launches.”—CMS website. Warren has an internet
site for pastors throughout the world, called pastors.com. It is “a global
internet community that serves and mentors those in ministry worldwide.” In addition, Warren has
a weekly online newsletter, with an immense following. “Over 60,000 pastors
subscribe to Rick Warren’s Ministry Toolbox, a free weekly email
newsletter”(pastors.com). Ministerial students in
seminaries everywhere (probably including our own) are required to read
Warren’s books and learn his principles. “Rick’s previous book,
The Purpose Driven Church, has sold over a million copies in 20 languages.
Winner of the Gold Medallion Ministry Book of the Year, it is used as a
textbook in most seminaries, and was selected as one of the 100 Christian
Books That Changed the 20th Century.”—pastors.com. “Rick Warren is well
known as the pioneer of The Purpose-Driven Church paradigm for church health.
More than 250,000 pastors and church leaders from over 125 countries have
attended Purpose-Driven Church seminars in 18 languages. Peter Drucker calls
him ‘the inventor of perpetual revival.’ ”—Ibid. Warren is deeply admired
by Peter Drucker, because he is also a marketing strategist. The commercial
methods Rick Warren and the Saddleback Church of selling products seem to
work as well for selling religion as anything else. In a 2002 article in
Business Week, Drucker’s plans and purposes are described: “He brings a
communitarian philosophy to his consulting. . He said that what he’s all
about is this search for community, the search for where people and
organizations find community for noneconomic satisfaction . . “A lot of his ideas have
become so accepted that it’s hard for anyone to understand how original they
were at the time he introduced them. It’s sort of like Freud and
psychoanalysis. Peter was the first, for example, to help managers understand
that they had to define their businesses from a customer’s perspective.”—Ken
Witty, “Peter Drucker’s Search for Community,” Business Week Online, December
24, 2002. Rick Warren follows the
same plan: Design the worship and the music and everything else—to appeal to
the comfort of the people who live in the community. Rick Warren believes
that what he is doing is infallibly guided and has the fullest approval of
God; for as he says, “Never criticize what God is blessing” (Purpose Driven
Church, p. 62). Whatever the methods may be that bring large crowds in the
your church, they are right; that is, if the large crowds come. Focusing on
the “customer’s prospective” brings success and the approval of God. The key, according to
these men, is to make the people living in the town happy. For Warren, this
means focusing on the felt needs of unbelievers rather than the true needs of
God’s family. The marketing experts call this the “dialectic process.” Here
is how one person describes it: “In this movement, it is
imperative that unbelievers are brought into the church; otherwise, the
process of continual change cannot begin. There must be an antithesis
(unbelievers) present to oppose the thesis (believers), in order to move
towards consensus (compromise), and move the believers away from their moral
absolutism (resistance to pagan changes). If all members of the church stand
firm on the Word of God, and its final authority in all doctrine and
tradition, then the church cannot and will not change. This is common
faith.”—Robert Klenck, The 21st Century Church. Many different
organizations are reinventing themselves in order to follow the established
tracks of corporate America. They may call their particular version of this
system “Total Quality Management,” “Outcome Based Education,” or “Purpose
Driven Churches”; but all follow the same pragmatic blueprint: “Aim for
“measurable results.” Use Teams, dialogue, facilitators, “lifelong learning,”
contracts, and continual assessments of “progress” toward the planned
outcome. All involved must conform or leave the system. THEOLOGY “Quietly whisper the
prayer that will change your eternity: ‘Jesus, I believe in you and I receive
you.’ If you sincerely meant that prayer, congratulations! Welcome to the
family of God! You are now ready to discover and start living God’s purpose
for your life!” (Rick Warren, in Foundation Magazine, March-April 1998). No repentance. No sins
to put away. Nothing in the Bible to obey. Just celebrate, come to church and
sing and celebrate. “Knowing your purpose
focuses your life. It concentrates your effort and energy on what’s
important. You become effective by being selective.”—Ibid. Instead of repent,
confess your sins, believe, and obey; as Warren describes it in his writings,
this new-modeled faith teaches: Accept Christ, focus your life, increase
motivation, and begin an eternal celebration. Here are Rick Warren’s five
purposes for your life: “You were planned for
God’s pleasure. You were formed for God’s family. You were created to become
like Christ. You were shaped for serving God. You were made for a
mission.”—The Purpose Driven Church, p. 1 (contents). According to Warren, all
you need to know are your five purposes and you can forget the rest. “Knowing your purpose
simplifies your life. It defines what you do and what you don’t do.”—Rick
Warren, The Purpose Driven Life, p. 31. Notice that you do the
purposes. You do them all by yourself. And none of it requires obedience to
Bible truth. Surely, somewhere Rick Warren says something about sin. Yes, he
does. Here it is: “All sin, at its root,
is failing to give God glory . . Refusing to bring glory to God is prideful
rebellion . . The Bible says, ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of
God.’ ” —Rick Warren, quoted in Foundation Magazine, March-April 1998, p. 55. Warren here confuses
cause with effect. We fall short of giving God the glory by sinning. A
failure to bring Him glory is the effect, disobeying His commandments is the
cause. What is the best kind of worship? Warren explains it is essentially
the kind you like the best. “Worship must be both
accurate and authentic . . The best style of worship is the one that most
authentically represents your love for God, based on the background and
personality God gave you.”—The Purpose Driven Life, p. 102. “Many Christians seem
stuck in a worship rut—an unsatisfying routine—instead of having a vibrant
friendship with God, because they force themselves to use devotional methods
or worship styles that don’t fit the way God uniquely shaped them.”—Ibid., p.
102. Warren then proves his
point by quoting the Bible; but his proof text comes from a radical modern
translation. Instead of quoting “The hour cometh, and now is, when the true
worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father
seeketh such to worship Him” (John 4:23, KJV), Warren quotes the verse in The
Message, a paraphrased Bible translation by Eugene Peterson: “That’s the kind
of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly
themselves before him in their worship” (ibid., p. 103). BIBLE TRANSLATIONS Rick Warren is careful
to quote the most way-out translations of the Bible, because they nicely
water down obedience and generally omit it entirely. In one of his sermons,
instead of quoting the KJV of John 3:36 (“He that believeth on the Son hath
everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but
the wrath of God abideth on him.”), Warren quotes The Message: “Whoever
accepts and trusts the Son gets in on everything, life complete and forever!” Warren urges his hearers
to only use new translations: “We often miss the full
impact of familiar Bible verses, not because of poor translating, but simply
because they have become so familiar! . . Therefore I have deliberately used
paraphrases in order to help you see God’s truth in new, fresh ways.”—Ibid. In the same source
quoted above, instead of “Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy
name” (Matt 6:9, KJV), Warren quotes a modern version: “Our Father in heaven,
reveal who you are” (Message). Instead of “My Father is
greater than I” (John 14:28, KJV), Warren quotes “The Father is the goal and
purpose of my life” (Message). Instead of “For to be
carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace”
(Romans 8:6, KJV), Warren quotes “Obsession with self in these matters is a
dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free
life” (Message). MUSIC In order to better
understand the seriousness of this situation, you should be made aware of the
fact that Rick Warren calls his church, “the flock that likes to rock.” He is
referring to the music at Saddleback. According to Warren, every possible
type of music is good, as long as it has Christian words! “There is no such thing
as ‘Christian’ music; there are only Christian lyrics. It is the words that
make a song sacred, not the tune. There are no spiritual tunes.”—The Purpose
Driven Life, p. 66. “You must match your
music to the kind of people God wants your church to reach . . The music you
use ‘positions’ your church in your community. It defines who you are . . It
will determine the kind of people you attract, the kind of people you keep,
and the kind of people you lose.”— Warren, Selecting Worship Music (July 29,
2002). So that is how our
pastors, who have attended Rick Warren’s seminars, determine what kind of
music to use: the kind which will reach the most people in the community! Now you can better
understand why your local church is changing on Sabbath morning. “God loves all kinds of
music because he invented it all—fast and slow, loud and soft, old and new.
You probably don’t like it all, but God does! If it is offered to God in
spirit and truth, it is an act of worship. Christians often disagree over the
style of music used in worship, passionately defending their preferred style
as the most biblical or God-honoring. But there is no biblical style!”—The
Purpose Driven Life, p. 65. Warren emphatically
teaches this to Adventist ministers and thousands of other pastors who attend
his seminars. Music is a driving force in the Church Growth Movement. It
brings the world into the church very fast; and that is a much-valued
objective to “church growth” pastors. “Now at Saddleback
Church, we are unapologetically contemporary . . I passed out a three-by-five
card to everybody in the church, and I said, ‘You write down the call letters
of the radio station you listen to.’ “I wasn’t even asking
unbelievers. I was asking the people in the church, ‘What kind of music do
you listen to?’ When I got it back, I didn’t have one person who said, ‘I
listen to organ music.’ Not one . . So, we made a strategic decision that we
are unapologetically a contemporary music church. And right after we made
that decision . .Saddleback exploded with growth . . “I’ll be honest with
you, we are loud. We are really, really loud on a weekend service . . I say,
‘We’re not gonna turn it down.’ Now the reason why is baby boomers want to
feel the music, not just hear it . . God loves variety!”—Rick Warren, quoted
in Foundation Magazine, March-April 1988. At Super Conference
2003, “over 13,000 ministers and students” heard Rick Warren speak at Jerry
Falwell’s Liberty University in Virginia. His message was “Attracting a Crowd
to Worship.” He introduced the talk by saying that it was aimed at those who
were “stuck in the past.” “I believe that one of
the major church issues will be how we’re going to reach the next generation
with our music . . To insist that all good music came from Europe 200 years
ago; there’s a name for that: racism! . . Encourage members to re-arrange and
rewrite. New songs say God is doing something awesome!”—Rick Warren quoted in
sunlandneighborhoodchurch.com. Jesus said, “Yet because
you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the
world hates you.” (John 15:19). But Warren has a different view of the
matter: Find out what the world loves, and give it to them in your church. By
so doing, you ‘will achieve the great goal of your ministry: jamming your
church with wall-to-wall people from off the streets. Forget those
old-fashioned ideas about standards, beliefs, and doctrines. “[We use] drums,
clashing cymbals, loud trumpets, tambourines and stringed instruments . .
Saddleback is unapologetically a contemporary music church. We’ve often been
referred to in the press as ‘the flock that likes to rock.’ We use the style
of music the majority of people in our church listen to on the radio.”—Rick
Warren, Selecting Worship Music. RELATIONSHIPS It is not standards or
doctrines that count. Instead, use relationships to bring everyone in the
church into conformity with what is believed and done in the local church: “God says relationships
are what life is all about.”—Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life, p. 125. “For unity’s sake we
must never let differences divide us. We must stay focused on what matters
most—learning to love each other as Christ has loved us, and fulfilling God’s
five purposes for each of us and his church. Conflict is usually a sign that
the focus has shifted to less important issues, things the Bible calls
‘disputable matters.’ When we focus on
personalities, preferences,
interpretations, styles or methods, division always happens.”—Ibid.,
pp. 161-162. Every member must sign a
covenant to make unity above everything else (ibid., pp. 166-167). Saddleback
is basically a very friendly, entertainment church. —vf Commentary by Ron Beaulieu The following articles
by Berit Kjos, explain exactly what
is behind the Celebration Movement and the so-called purpose driven church
program. SDA’s should have been the
first to recognize Satan’s plan for treason in the church and betrayal of all
that is holy and sacred. SDA’s should
have seen all the connections involved with the World Council of Churches and
Satan’s plan to destroy the salvation of members of such churches, now
including the professing Seventh-day Adventist church. http://www.newswithviews.com/BeritKjos/kjos63.htm http://www.newswithviews.com/BeritKjos/kjos64.htm The above articles along
with the one you have just read by Vance Ferrell, involve the SDA church in
some of the most abominable treason that Satan has ever perpetrated against
God’s people. Truly, the following
statement by Ellen White is more apropos now than ever before: Change Leaders:
"Satan has COME IN with his specious temptations, and has led the
professed followers of Christ away from the [PILOT] Leader (Christ), classing
them with the foolish virgins." Testimonies
to Ministers, p. 130. Change Leaders:
"Refusing to follow in the path of obedience, they transferred their
allegiance to Satan. The enemy rejoiced in his success in effacing the divine
image from the minds of the people that God had chosen as His
representatives. Through [ECUMENICAL] intermarriage with idolaters and
CONSTANT ASSOCIATION WITH THEM [Isa. 8:9-20], Satan brought about that for
which he had long been working,--a national apostasy." Fundamentals to Christian Education,
p. 449. The following prophetic
statement by Ellen White clearly demonstrates that she was a true prophet for
it is being fulfilled before your very eyes.
If you would like a two hour video filming of a live SDA Youth
Celebration service at an Oregon SDA Campmeeting, free of charge, just write
to the address following the following E.G. White statement: "The things you
have described as taking place in The Holy Spirit never
reveals itself in such methods, in such a bedlam of noise. This is an
invention of Satan to cover up his ingenious methods for making of none
effect the pure, sincere, elevating, ennobling, sanctifying truth for this
time. Better never have the worship of God blended with music, than to use
musical instruments to do the work which last January was represented to me
would be brought into our camp meetings. The truth for this time needs
nothing of this kind in its work of converting souls. A bedlam of noise
shocks the senses and perverts that which if conducted aright might be a
blessing. The powers of satanic agencies blend with the din and noise, to have
a carnival, and this is termed the Holy Spirit's working." E. G.
White, Selected Messages,
Vol. 2, 36. For the video showing
everything you just read about in Ellen White’s above statement, write: Ron Beaulieu, RR 3, Site 3, Box 1, Rimbey, Alberta Canada, T0C 2J0 God bless, Ron |