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Saddleback Valley Community Church Historical Backgrounder: Lake Forest, Calif. The Man with the Plan Rick Warren, self-proclaimed “country boy from Northern California,” arrived in Southern California in December 1979 fresh out of seminary with his wife, Kay, their baby daughter and only $1,000 to his name – all they had was packed into the back of a U-haul™ truck. But they had a dream to plant a church that would be “a place where the hurting, the depressed and the confused can find love, acceptance, help, hope, forgiveness and encouragement.” With many good Bible-teaching churches already operational in Southern California, Pastor Warren turned his attention to those individuals who didn’t attend church regularly. Two weeks after they arrived in the Saddleback Valley, the Warrens began a small Bible Study with seven people meeting in their apartment. On Easter Sunday 1980, Saddleback Valley Community Church held its first public service, and 205 people showed up – most of whom had never before been to church. Since those humble beginnings, the Warrens have grown Saddleback Church to become one of the largest churches in America, averaging more than 22,000 in attendance each week on the 120-acre campus. The church is comprised of over 5,000 small groups, and offers more than 300 ministries serving the congregation and the community. It is estimated that one in nine people throughout the region call Saddleback their church home. 1980s – The Local Decade Warren identified his first 10 years of ministry during the 1980s as the “Local Decade,” during which he built Saddleback Church as a national model for other pastors to follow. This included the development of “Celebrate Recovery” and other programs with transferable principles that could be replicated in congregations across the country. One of the most significant paradigm shifts was the emphasis on the foundational element of small groups, which has grown to more than 3,500 meeting in every city in Southern California. 1990s – The National Decade Warren and his team approached the 1990s as the “National Decade,” during which they leveraged the principles honed in the laboratory of Saddleback Church into a movement based on helping each local church become driven by the purpose it is to fulfill, rather than by personalities or programs. More than 400,000 pastors and church leaders from 162 countries have been trained in Saddleback’s Purpose Driven paradigm. In addition, over 30,000 churches went on to sponsor “40 Days of Purpose” for their congregations. This training has been supported by Warren’s book, “The Purpose Driven Church,” which sold over 1 million copies since its release in 1995. It has been translated into more than 25 languages, won the Christian Booksellers Association Gold Medallion Award and was named one of the “100 Christian Books That Changed the 20th Century.” According to Warren, “In the church, some things never change, and some things have to change – the key is knowing the difference.” While other church leaders were preoccupied with church growth, Rick Warren put the emphasis on church health – maintaining balance between the five purposes of:
But church health inevitably leads to growth, as evidenced by Saddleback’s own multiple-factor multiplication during this time of focus on blessing other congregations. Today, the Purpose Driven phenomenon encompasses over 40,000 churches in its network. In addition, over 140,000 pastors and church leaders subscribe to his free weekly “Ministry Toolbox” email newsletter and access other materials made available on http://www.pastors.com. The Purpose Driven Movement Encompassing the Church and Individual Lives Numerous headlines about the role the message of this book played in helping Atlanta hostage Ashley Smith gain freedom from her captor, alleged gunman Brian Nichols, again catapulted it to the No. 1 spot on all four major bestseller lists – The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and Publisher’s Weekly – for three consecutive weeks more than three years after its publication. According to Daisy Maryles of Publisher’s Weekly, that is unprecedented for any title to become universal No. 1 best-seller across all lists so long after initial release. More importantly, this book has become the platform for a New Reformation, led by Warren. The first Reformation was one of belief – looking to the Bible, not tradition as the foundation of faith. This next reformation, which similarly comes on the heels of a polarization of our culture – will be one of behavior – determining how the church acts to put “legs” on its faith. If “The Purpose Driven Church” struck a nerve among pastors and congregations across America, “The Purpose Driven Life” created a wave. This “tsunami” of sales and spiritual impact further solidified a movement of God in the hearts of men and women that will change the world. In a short time, Warren and his stealth ministry strategy were thrust into the national media spotlight – beyond the church community that had been watching the momentum slowly build. In the wake of this success, Warren was driven back to the Bible for answers on how to respond and deal with the dual dimensions of “the ministry of affluence and the ministry of influence.” He found the first easy to contain, and created a five-fold financial plan that enabled him and his wife to be fiscally independent of the church and model generosity for its members. With respect to the second, Warren says God revealed to him that the purpose of influence is “to speak out on behalf of individuals who have no influence.” As a result, he identified the five global giants for which the church can become the ultimate distribution and change agent to overcome, including spiritual emptiness, lack of moral leadership, poverty, disease and ignorance (illiteracy). 2000s – The Global Decade In the early half of the Century, Warren focused on his third phase of ministry, dubbed the “Global Decade.” During this time, Saddleback broadened its reach during with the opening of four satellite campuses located across Southern California including Corona, Irvine, Laguna Woods and San Clemente. While Warren continued to support the Purpose Driven churches in 129 countries around the world, most of his energy was focused on mobilizing millions of Christians to fight the five global giants of the world, which he identified as spiritual emptiness, self-centered leadership, extreme poverty, pandemic disease and illiteracy/education. Ordinary People, Empowered by God, to Make a Difference Together “The goal of the PEACE Plan is for ordinary people, empowered by God, to make a difference together,” said Warren. “The reason we are doing this is because we have the responsibility and the authority to do it, as Christians, and because of history’s inevitability that through the Church, God’s manifold wisdom and plan for the whole world will be made known.” In the first phase of the program, which began in 2003, Saddleback Church sent more than 7,400 church members in small teams to 68 countries. When the second “PEACE 2.0” phase launched in the fall of 2007, one of the emphases shifted from not just planting churches, but also promoting reconciliation. The new concentration was an effort to broaden involvement of more churches around the world, as well as to engage organizations in the public and private sectors, including many business and government leaders who expressed a desire to participate during the first four years of the Plan’s implementation. In May 2008, Warren launched another element of the PEACE Initiative with the announcement of the PEACE Coalition – a new international alliance of churches, businesses, ministries, universities and other institutions working together toward achieving the PEACE Plan. 2010 and Beyond – The Decade of Destiny As Warren looked at the past 30 years of Saddleback Church, he cast the vision for the future and began the Decade of Destiny. This time will be focused on enhancing the church’s campus programs and operations; expanding the campuses and groups; and extending the church’s reach through PEACE. In the early part of the Decade of Destiny, the Saddleback Church opened five new campuses in the cities of Anaheim, Huntington Beach, Orange and Rancho Capistrano, growing its total of satellite campuses to nine. In addition, the church began an Internet campus located at www.Saddleback.com. Warren also launched a plan aimed at equipping church members in seven key areas: spiritual, physical, financial, relational, vocational, emotional and mental. In January 2011, Warren, along with leading medical experts Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. Daniel Amen and Dr. Mehmet Oz, developed The Daniel Plan, a 52-week journey, based on the prophet Daniel who chose healthy eating instead of the king’s rich foods. More than 8,500 individuals signed up to participate.
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