What I Thought of Rick Warren's Message

I watched Rick Warren's message from the Desiring God National Conference on Sunday and thought it was really good. I was interested to watch it both because I wanted to learn from him and because I was curious what his message would be like in the light of the criticism John Piper took for inviting him to be a speaker. I thought the primary teaching content of the message was really good, especially his very first point which was "Don't believe everything you think" which he expanded on with some Scriptures about how we can deceive ourselves and some other points such as the fact that we all have blind spots.

I thought the sidebars to his message were interesting too when he sort of defended himself a little bit to some of the critical people watching him by pointing out Jesus talking about "felt needs" and mentioning how his church is not just about being huge but is about sending out lots of missionaries.

Rick and Kay Warren's Crazy Bad Marriage Start

This is a very interesting excerpt from Rick Warren's biography: Rick and Kay Warren's Painful, Gradual Love Story.

I think it's great when famous pastors like Rick Warren and John Piper are honest about their marital struggles and stuff because then the many people in their churches or who hear about them online can hopefully be freed to get help themselves in similar ways.

Rick Warren's New Year's Resolutions

1. I resolve to accept no other invitations to pray in Invocation anywhere in 2009.
2. I resolve to preach shorter messages in 2009.

The Purpose of Christmas

I'm pretty certain that the person I bought The Purpose of Christmas for does not read my blog or have Facebook so it should be safe to post this. The book arrived in the mail from Amazon.ca a couple days ago and when I looked at it, was I ever impressed! I still feel so dumb that I used to ignorantly criticize nearly everything about Rick Warren. This next book of his, as the others, is excellent. I wish I'd bought a dozen copies to give away and next Christmas I certainly will. It looks so attractive, with beautiful pictures of Christmas (maybe I'm just a sucker for picture books....lol) and the message is clear and straight forward with interesting other stories and stuff. Excellent book. I'm so glad Rick wrote it.

Simple Wisdom for Rick Warren

"...You must simply get more people to visit! No one becomes a church member without first being a visitor. If you only have a few visitors each year, you'll have even fewer members."



- Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church, page 252.

Back from Vacation

Averil and I were on holidays the last couple weeks and had a great time. The best part was getting to go to Camp and hang out with family - it's too bad they live so far away. Going to Canada's Wonderland was a lot of fun as well. Another highlight was the fact that I had lots of time to relax and read. I read a fantastic book that I'd heard about before but never knew was so awesome. The books is The Purpose Driven Church by Rick Warren. Wow! What an excellent book! I had heard about it before and used to criticize it even though I had never read it and had no idea what I was talking about...it's just hip to be critical when you are dumb I guess. But hopefully I'm growing up and will learn not to be so critical about things I've never even read. Another highlight was Andrew and Nadine staying over on Sunday Night - it is always great to see them, and again, it's too bad they live so far away.

So it is back to work for me today and I must say it is nice to enjoy your work and enjoy going back to the office! I love serving in our church and being a part of our church. On holidays it was nice to visit some other churches but both Averil and I always left them thinking about how we missed Lansing. Maybe we are biased but I don't know....:)