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During his weekend sermon, Warren laid out a plan for
Saddleback's next "Decade of Destiny" in which he's
anticipating exponential growth. And the plan has no
room for fake Christians, he indicated.
May 24, 2010:
Pastor Rick Warren has a message f or the some 20,000
people who attend Saddleback Church: If you want to
remain a passive Christian, find another church.
During his weekend sermon, Warren laid out a plan for
Saddleback's next "Decade of Destiny" in which he's
anticipating exponential growth. And the plan has no
room for fake Christians, he indicated.
"Let me just be honest with you as somebody who loves
you. If you passively just want to sit around in the
next 10 years and just waste your life on things that
won't last, you probably want to find another church
because you're not going to really feel comfortable
here. Because if you're in this church, I'm coming after
you to be mobilized," said the renowned southern
California pastor.
Saddleback celebrated its 30th anniversary last month
and in preparation for the megachurch's next decade,
Warren took the congregation back to the first church in
the New Testament for a look at what "real Christianity"
is all about.
"There are a lot of things done in the name of
Christianity in the church that Jesus Christ would
disavow," he lamented. "There's fake Christianity,
there's phony Christianity, there's pseudo-Christianity.
"I want us to look at the real deal. What does it mean
to really be a follower of Jesus Christ?"
Preaching on Pentecost Sunday – the anniversary or
birthday of the first church – Warren said that just as
a child is born with its entire DNA, all the DNA was in
the body of Christ when it was birthed more than 2,000
years ago.
Unfortunately, the churches and Christians he sees today
in the 21st century are a far cry from how they were in
the first century, he noted.
Aligning Saddleback with the DNA of the original church
– which grew from 120 believers to dominating the Roman
Empire within 300 years – Warren directed the
congregation to adopt and strengthen eight
characteristics of real Christianity as found in the
book of Acts.
They include: supernatural power through prayer, using
everybody's language and every communication channel for
mission, mobilizing everybody from kids to seniors,
life-changing truth, loving support or fellowship,
joyful worship, generous sacrifices and exponential
growth.
"Real Christianity uses everyone's gifts," said Warren,
author of The Purpose Driven Life, as he rejected
passive and consumer Christians.
"Everybody's a minister," he stressed. In the original
church, there were no audiences. Rather, everyone was a
contributor and participator which led to the tremendous
growth of Christianity.
Over the next 10 years, the megachurch will be launching
Saddleback worship services in every city in Orange
County and in other cities across the country and the
world. The Lake Forest, Calif., church also plans to
become the first church in history to send someone to
every nation in the world to share the Good News.
"We're going to sing until the whole world knows" is the
theme song for the next decade, Warren said.
"If we went back to New Testament real Christianity, not
the fake stuff ... do you think we could reach more
people for Jesus?" he posed.
"Without a doubt. We'd reach more people in the next 10
years than the 30 years combined." Lillian Kwon,
Christian Post Reporter
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