Posted on 01/02/2010 8:37:35 PM PST by Steelfish
Are you a member of said church?
Yes!
Great Post!
Yes this is true.
The more lies - and Satan is the Father of lies- that are posted about Rick and Saddleback, the more God Blesses the church.
Everything I have is by the Grace of God. It is not mine, it is His.
If you are a member, their work is your work and their shortfall is your shortfall.
The fatcat you’re worried about isn’t going to see a dime of that money, and he’s already giving most of his income. The members have a responsibility, and they have met that responsibility. Its not that big a deal for them, remember that million dollar shortfall came from a couple of short Sundays, and it was made up with one good Sunday. Thats how they are able to maintain the large numbers of projects they are engaged in. If you want to be a part of the work they do, you can join, and you’ll take on their burden. If you don’t, then probably God has a place where you can be useful but again, where ever that is, their work is your work, and their budget is your budget.
Have you asked about when these issues are discussed? Doesn’t the church vote on at least a yearly budget and all that goes with it?
As far as Saddleback goes, I actually watched today’s sermon on this and it’s kind of been blown way out of proportion by the media.
There are other more important issues to take with Rick Warren and the Purpose Driven model but this particular issue isn’t one. It’s not unusual for churches to have a budget shortfall at the end of the year and then have an offering to make up the difference.
Anyone who agrees with you is godly, disagrees.......Satanic. Convenient isn’t it.
My pastor went to one of Warren’s church growth conferences. Our pastor said he had this vision of buying 100 acres and building a mega campus. This is what we did during the real estate boom. Now the planned community that this campus was supposed to be built around is bankrupt, our congregation went from 3,000 to 1,500 and we have debt out to our eyeballs.
Thanks Rick for making your impact felt all around the world.
In his church growth conferences, Warren teaches how the bylaws of the church need to be changed so that the pastor gets more control over the church.
I am telling you from personal experience, our church is in shambles now because of Warren’s business model that 100’s of thousands of pastors have learned.
It is truly sickening.
My issue with the whole purpose driven mess is that pastors listened to their own desires and not what God wanted for their churches.
Some of the blame has to be put where it belongs here. I’ve had enough experience with pastors who “had this vision of grandeur” fall for what worked in one church and wanted the same kind of thing for themselves. Men had their ears tickled and we both know what God says about that.
Yours is a revealing insight into the boom bust consequences of the economy on churches around the country. I saw for myself these mega churches sprouting up around my area and I was happy for the Christian Church it was happening. Many times, though, Christians would leave their smaller churches and go the the large churches because of the improved services offered. I didn’t see a church as a place for human services. For me it was a place for fellowship and spiritual growth. However, if a church was providing human services in the community, what better place for it? So, the big churches fulfilled a good thing if their efforts also helped grow the body of Christ.
It is my observation that some of these mega churches were all glitter and little glory. They were a place to get lost in the numbers without the accountability you would get from the small church body. Unfortunately they attracted members of the small churches who wanted hide in a mega church merely to fulfill their carnal natures. I eventually saw the mega church as a place for Christians to backslide in their faith. My pastor of a tiny church said that there were too many preachers who wanted to please the ears of the congregation rather than be pleasing to God. We called it “name it and claim it religion.” He could tell which churches were not keeping with God’s word by the size of their congregation.
Rick Warren’s religion was the classic name it and claim it religion. It is not God’s word and it is a shame that Christians are taken in with it and not on track with their Christian walk.
This year our church charged for the Christmas presentation...
I have a great testimony (Post # 70)in what Warren did to our church (I don’t give him all the “credit.” Our pastor should take the brunt of it.) See Post #70
I didn’t realise that Warren doesn’t take a salary from Saddleback, so I retract my first statement!
I also think that once his books started selling, he returned all the money paid to him in the past as a salary to the church.
If Saddleback has only 10,000 members, it's only $90 per member. That's not much.
If Saddleback has only 10,000 members, it's only $90 per member. That's not much.
And in fact I think I saw somewhere that they have 20,000.
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