Purpose Driven Church- Assign. #1

Chapter 1: Seeing the Big Picture
In this chapter, Rick gives a background of his personal development and the development of Saddleback Church. Rick knew as a child that he wanted to be a pastor. For a while he was unsure as to what God wanted him to be. It wasn’t until he heard Dr. Criswell speak that this was confirmed. After the service, he went to meet Dr. Criswell. When their eyes met, God spoke and Dr. Criswell prayed over him, blessing his future congregation and him as a pastor. This was the moment he knew God’s plan for his life. He had served as a student missionary in Japan and knew that God wanted to use him. God directed him and his wife’s path to be pastors. They were to start a church in the United States. Rick began doing research on different un-churched communities when God directed him again to Saddleback, California. His family picked up and moved. They had no money, no house, no church, yet God provided. God taught them that they didn’t have to be perfect, just willing. Their services started with a bible study in their house. When his bible study attendance reached 15, they decided to do a community survey to get to know the locals better. They went door to door and embraced conversations with many. Rick knew he wanted to start holding services and wanted to use Easter Sunday as the first service. They composed a letter just briefly stating what the new church would be about and gave the date of the first service. They sent out 15,000 of these. The first service they had two hundred five people! God is incredible! From their, their attendance grew. They bounced from location to location as they grew to 10,000. The church’s mission was to reach the un-churched. They did not want it to be a place for Christians to merely come and attend weekly. They wanted to reach those who had never heard the gospel before.

Chapter 2: Myths about Growing Churches
When you think about mega churches there are many different myths that come into your mind. Sometimes we think the church has copied their program from another church, or are only large because their service airs on television. In this chapter, Rick addresses several different myths and helps bring understanding to the truth behind the myth. The first myth is: the only thing large churches care about is attendance. We must realize it is only healthy for a church to grow. If it isn’t growing then something is not right! There are five dimensions of church growth that are listed: churches grow warmer through fellowship; churches grow deeper through discipleship; churches grow stronger through worship; churches grow broader through ministry and churches grow larger through evangelism. Growth is healthy! Myth #2 states: All large churches grow at the expense of smaller churches. Yes sometimes people leave a church to transfer to another church. Saddleback however focuses on converts rather than transfers. In order for a church to be growing in the proper way, it must be growing from converts rather than Christians switching churches. Myth #3: You must choose between quality and quantity at your church. Rick explains that quality is the kind of disciples you have at your church while quantity refers to the number of disciples a church is producing. As you can tell, that clearly makes the myth false. We must have these two together! In fact “quality produces quantity (51).” And it’s also true vice versa. When you have more people, fellowship gets better, the worship is better, and a lot of things are affected in a positive way. We must care about both of these. Myth #4: You must compromise the message and mission of the church in order to grow. People think this way because there are many examples of large churches that have grown large while practicing false theology. When Jesus preached multitudes of people came to listen. Why? Because the message brings good news! Don’t be afraid to ask for commitment at your church just be aware in how you’re asking. “Jesus never lowered his standards but he always started where people were (56).” Myth #5: If you are dedicated enough, your church will grow. This is completely false. The church growth does not merely rely on the dedication of the pastor alone. It takes skill to lead a church. It’s important that pastors take the time to learn the skills needed in ministry. God grows churches but giving people the skills to enable growth. Myth #6: There is one secret key to church growth. How can a large church be affected by one thing? It takes many different keys to work a church. There are many ways to run a church and because we’re all different there are many different churches. “Never confuse methods with the message. The message must never change, but the methods must change with each new generation (61).” Myth #7: All God expects of us is faithfulness. God expects both faithfulness and fruitfulness from us. He wants us to have a result! One will reach success when they have been as fruitful as possible with the gifts and talents God has given them. Myth #8: You can’t learn from large churches. We learn from examples! Certain areas you will not be able to directly copy, but you can take a model and adapt it to your church. That is fine! Personalize ideas you get from other churches and see if it works with your congregation; maybe it will, maybe it won’t. “We must never become so enamored with methods that we lose sight of our mission and forget our message (71).”