David T Gross

Dr. Dippold

Principles of Admin

March 13, 1998

The Purpose Driven Church book Review

I think that this book was very good. In this paper I will split up my summary reaction of this book by chapter.

In the first two chapter Warren talked about his church and about faith and how the church was started, I liked the Idea that he started the church by winning sinners to Christ rather than just getting Christians from other churches. Then he wrote about the myths of growing churches which some of them I have heard before, they are defiantly myths, though some large churches I have been to have been real cold and shallow.

Part two of this book then talks about becoming a purpose driven church, He first started out by asking what drives your church? I liked that he talked about churches driven by tradition, it is one of my pet pees, I grew up in a traditional church, they really don't want change, they sing the same songs as they did sixty years ago, and they are living out the old hymn "I shall not be, I shall not be moved." They do not meet many needs of the community, and are sometimes very cold to new comers. They sit is the same pew till they die, The only change is when the youth grow up and see other churches and then come back and try to make some changes. Then he talkes about the perssonality driven church, this is a real danger too because people are following the pastor and not focusing on God, if the pastor leaves or dies, then the people are hurt. Then there are churches driven by finances, I can see keeping money in the bank for the future, but there should be most of the money going to the ministry. Then he talked about churches driven by programs, programs can take on a life of there own and I like what he said about evaluating the programs and if they are not working to think of other ways to do things. Next he talked about churches driven by the building, either to small or too big, One church I went to lost their building. And I think it was the best thing to happen cause we had to meet in a picture framing factory and the focus was off the nice building and on the church and growing from that. Then there is the church driven by events, I liked what he said about faithfulness', "in the event driven church, attendance becomes the sole measurement of faithfulness and maturity …we must be wary of meetings replacing ministry." Neither should the church be only seeker sensitive, but he went on to explain that the church should be purpose driven. I think of the verse of scripture that talks about "without a vision the people perish," Its like building a house without blueprints, everyone has there own way the church should be built instead of finding out what God wants to do they are driven by all kinds of motives.

Chapter 4 talked about the foundation of a healthy church, He said" Your church's foundation will determine both its size and strength. You can never build larger than your foundation can handle." He said that the foundation is "having a clearly defined purpose statement" I would also add that church's that have a prayer foundation, I believe that a church is only as strong as there prayer team and those who pray. Because Jesus said that He would build on the foundation of the revelation of Him, and the gates of hell would not prevail. Warren went on to talk about the five benefits of a purpose statement. He said " a clear purpose not only defines what we do, it defines what we don't do. It allows concentration, it attracts cooperation, it also assists evaluation. In the next chapter he talked about letting the church discover its purpose which I think is good instead of the pastor just getting up and saying here is our purpose, he talked about it as a process. Then he talked about communicating the purpose. I think he over emphasizes the purpose just a little I think that if a church lifts and Glorifies Jesus then He will draw all men to Himself. We are to preach the word not only our purpose. In the next chapter he talks about organizing around that purpose, I think this is good cause so many church's have programs just to have them. When I took a class my freshmen year Christian education I was surprised to find out that Sunday school started out as an evangelism tool, I went to one church once and the Sunday school was just a person standing up there talking all these big words and concepts that if I were unsaved would of thought he was crazy it was totally useless to every day life, it had seemed as if that Sunday school had just become a debate time instead of a time of evangelism and teaching.

In the next section he talked about applying the purposes he said something I liked he said" Grow the church from the outside in rather from the inside out. What he said was the opposite of what I knew when I grew up, most of the time pastor would say we first need to be mature before we reach the lost. We are not ready to go out to the community… When I first became a Christian one time after Sunday service I went out by my self and was witnessing to these little children they were Afro-American and our church was mostly white. When I showed up with about 10 kids the pastor didn't seem to really want to welcome them. I thank God that the church finally adapted and now they even have a ministry that Goes out and reaches people. I think the church has to meet the needs of the community if they don't then what they do is useless, as Jesus said it is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick.

In part three he talks about reaching out to your community, He talked about who is your target, one thing I did not totally agree with was the statement that he said" No single church can possibly reach everyone. It takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people." I think that it is possible to reach everyone, I think that we as a church universal need a vision to reach the whole world, our sites are too low, we need to preach to every person. We need to go out and preach. If every Christian would witness to one person a day, I think we would see mighty things. I once heard a preacher talk about desire, if we desire to play the piano like Deno does or like one of the great piano players then we need to put in the time, hours and hours of practice. If we want to see the lost won to Jesus then we must, go and do it, not have a million meetings and seminars, we need to just go out and tell people. Then he talked about knowing whom you can best reach, I think one needs to cautious in this area cause The Holy Spirit is the one who draws people. Next he talked about developing your strategy he gave some good advice. I liked what he said about the sermons not having to be boring, and that the church should be more interested in people rather than there money, and how the members need to be friendly to visitors and how quality child care is necessary. Then he went on to talk about, How Jesus attracted crowds and how we need to meet people at there greatest need. I think this is where a praying church will grow. There need to be miracles in the church, if we say we are Pentecostals then we need to get things right with God and expect miracles in the church. I once saw a tape of Katharine Kulman she talked about how each church should be experiencing what was happening in the miracle services she was conducting. I believe that if we pray the price God will do signs and wonders to confirm the Word. Then he wrote about Worship. I think that a lot of church's need to look at their worship. Not to be rude but maybe it is time pastor tells the old lady on the piano who plays the same song over and over for the past 50 years it is time to let someone else play every other Sunday? My grandma was telling me when she was in youth group the church paid for 15 youth to learn to play the violins. I think that was so neat. We need good quality music for people to worship with. We need to have people who write new songs but with the same message the good old hymns have. J A lot of church's don't even have worship practice, as a musician I know that if you don't play together outside of the time that you minister then the musicians will not all be in unity. There is nothing worse than hearing music in the wrong key or that is just thrown together that morning.

In the last section he talked about building up the church and turning attenders into members, then he talked about developing mature members and members into ministers. Overall I think that he is right in having a purpose and from there do what the church is supposed to do.