The Purpose Driven Church

By Rick Warren © Note by Yia Z. Vang

1. Surfing Spiritual Waves

a. Only God can make the Church grow.

b. Our job as Church leaders is to recognize a wave of God, not make it, and ride it.

c. Our Churches have not been taught the skills to recognize the waves.

d. The task of the Church leadership is to discover and remove growth restricting diseases and barriers so that natural normal grow can occur.

e. I believe that the key issue for Churches in the 21^st century will be health, not Church growth.

f. When congregations are healthy, they grow the way God intend. Healthy Church grow naturally.

g. The Pastors have an awesome responsibility. If I did not believe Pastors have the best chance of making a different in the world, I’d be doing something else.

2. Seeing the Big Picture
a. Ministry is a marathon. It is not how you start out that matters but how you end. If you ministry out of love, you can never be considered a failure.

b. No Church becomes large without struggling through years of problems,

setbaks and failures.
c. In today’s changing world, vision is also the ability to accurately assess current changes and take advantage of them. Vision is being alert to opportunity.

d. McGavran said, “God wants his Church to grow; he wants his lost sheep found.”

e. Rick Warren’s study have confirmed that healthy and large Churches are led by pastors who have been there a long time.

f. Churches that rotate Pastors every few years will never experience consistent growth.
g. You measure the health and strength of a Church by its sending capacity rather than seating capacity. How many people in your congregation are being mobilized for the Great Commission?
h. Rick’s early evangelism strategy: I talked to anyone I could.

h. God always uses imperfect people in imperfect situation to accomplish his will.
j. Wherever God guides, he provides.

k. Who to bring to Church: Unchurches & irreligious.

l. Listen to people most pressing needs.

m. Intelligent, caring conversation opens door for evangelism with nonbelievers faster than anything else. But the fastest way to build with them is to express interest in them – show that you understand their needs.

3. What makes a Church grows?
a. You must offer people something they cannot get anywhere else.

b. Every Church needs to grow warmer through fellowship, deeper through discipleship, stronger through worship, broader through ministry, and larger through evangelism.

c. Church health can only occur when our message is Biblical and our mission is

balanced.

d. What kind of quality disciples your Church is producing and what quantity?

e. One reason many Churches remain small because there is little quality in the life of the ministry of those Churches.

f. Why Jesus’ ministry attracted enormous crowds? Because the Gospel is good news! It has power to change people. Christlike Church will have the same drawing on people.

g. People need to have commitment and they need to be challenged.

h. It takes more than dedication to lead a Church to grow. It takes skill. Work smarter not harder. Paul was effective in planting Churches because he was skilled at it.

i. A prayerless ministry is powerless ministry. But it takes far more than a prayer to grow a Church. It takes skilled action (Joshua 7).

j. There is more than one way to grow a Church. It takes all kinds of Churches to reach all kinds of people.

k. Never critizing what God is blessing.

l. God clearly indentifies numerical growth of the Church as fruit.

m. What is faithfulness? It is behavior, willingness to take risks in order to be fruitful (Mt 25).

n. Anytime I see a program working in another Church, I try to extract the principle behind it and apply it in our Church. God has not call us to be original, He called us to be effective.

o. God made you to be yourself. He wants to use your gifts, your passion, your natural abilities, your personality and your experiences to impact your part of the world.

p. What kind of methods you are using in your Church? Is it Biblical and effective?

4. What drives your Church?
a. Is it by tradtion? Personality? Finance? Programs? Building? Events? Seekers?

b. Church should be seeker sensitive, but not seeker driven.

c. Strong Churches are built on purpose!

Plans, programs, and personalities don’t last. God’s purposes will last.

d. The importance of being purpose driven asked the question, “Why do we exist?”

e. They understand their reason for being. They are precise in their purpose. They

know exactly what God has called them to do. They know their business is, and they

know what is none of their business.

f. Does your Church has a clear-cut identity?

g. Strong Churches are built on eternal purposes of God.

5. Foundation for Healthy Church:
a. You must have a solid foundation: Why the Church exists and what it is supposed to do?

b. Many Churches are barely surviving because they have no vision. They have no

purpose for being. Nothing discouraged a Church more than not knowing what to do-

why it exists?
c. Clear purpose allows you to concentrate your effort.
d. Most of the Churches try to do too much, and they wore out.

e. Those Churches that are effective concentrate on their purpose. By continually reviewing your purpose, you can keep your priorities straight and your Church focuses.

f. When a Church is clearly communicate its destination, people are eager to get on board. This is because everyone is looking for something that gives meaning, purpose and direction to life.

g. If you want your members to get excited and actively support the Church, you must vividly explain up front exactly where the Church is heading.

h. Four critical phases of a Church Driven Purpose: Define your purposes. Communication those purposes. Organize your Church around those purposes. Apply those purposes to every part of your Church.

6. Defining your purposes:
a. Look at Christ’s ministry on earth.

b. Look at the images and names of the Church

c. Look at the examples of the New Testament Churches.

d. Look at the command of Christ.

e. While the programs must change every generation, the purposes never change.

f. Look for answers to the following questions: Why does the Church exist? What are we to be as a Church? What are we to do as a Church? How are we to do it?

g. Remember: We don’t decide the purposes of the Church, we discover them.

h. Christ established the purposes for His Church long time ago. Each generation

must reaffirm them.

i. Your purpose statement must be specific (what can we do?); measurable (evaluation); transferable (short enough to be remembered).

j. ** A Great Commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission will grow a Great Church.

k. The Five Purposes of the Church: Love the Lord with all your heart. Love your neighbors as yourself. Go and make disciples. Baptizing them. Teaching them to obey.

l. Saddle Back’s Purpose Statement: To bring people to Jesus and membership in His family; develop them to Christlike maturity, and equip them for their ministry in the Church and life mission in the world, in order to magnify God’s name.

m. Rick said, “We bring people in, build them up, train them, and send them out.”

n. Communicate your Church’s purposes: Scripture (Teach Bible truth); Symbols (Visual presentations); Slogans (use phrases); Stories (Real life examples); Specific (Be concrete & clear).

o. Personalize the purposes: Every member has responsibility, be a model of his character, be a minister of his grace, be messenger of his love, be a magnifying of his name.

p. Your Church Family should give you: God’s purpose to live for, God’s people to live with, God’s principles to live by, God’s profession to live out, and God’s power to live on.

7. Applying your purposes:
a. Assimilate new members on purpose.

b. Program around your purposes

c. Educate your people on purpose

d. Start small groups on purpose

e. Add staff on purpose

f. Structure on purpose

g. Preach on purpose

h. Budget on purpose

i. Calendar on purpose

j. Evaluate on purpse

k. ** Church with purpose will grow stronger and healthier.

8. Reaching out to your community:
a. Who is your target? (Mt 15; 10).

c. Define your target geographically (map of the area you want to reach); define your target demographically (know about the people you want to reach); define your target culturally (what is the life style of the people you want to reach); define your target spiritually (religious background of the people you want to reach).
c. The most effective evangelistic strategy is to find those whom you have something in common.
d. The pastor does not attract first time visitor, but he is a major reason visitors come back.

e. You’ll best reach those you relate to.
f. As a leader, you’ll attract who you are, not who you want.
g. ***Explosive growth occurs when the type of people in the community match the type of people that are already in the Church, and they both match the type of person the pastor is.

h. If your Church does not match the community: Build on your strength, reinvent your congregation, start new congregation (add new worship or mission).

i. Your need to recognize the spiritual receptivity in your community: People in transition (major changes), people under tension (firt time visitor, divorce, illness,

etc.),

j. Once you know who your target is, who you are more likely to reach, and who the

most receptive people in your target group are, you are ready for the next step:

establishing an evangelism strategy for your Church.

9. Developing Strategy:
a. Know what you are fishing for (know the kind of fish you want to catch).

b. Go where the fish are biting.

c. Wise fishermen move on, if there is no bite.

d. Learn to think like fish (understanding their culture, habits, etc.)

e. Four basic complaints: The Church is boring/Sermon is boring; Members are

unfriendly to visitors; interested in my money than me; worry about the quality of Church’s child care.

f. Use more than one hook: Offer multiple programs, services, events, etc. to reach all

kind of people.

g. Fishing is a serious business, must not be a hobby.

10. How Jesus attracting crowds?
a. Jesus loved people.

b. ** We need to love people the way Jesus did.

c. Growing Churches love, loving Churches grow.

d. For your Church to grow you must be nice to people when they show up.

e. To make impact on a visitor, love must be expressed in practical way. Love is not a feeling, it is a behavior.

f. The pastor sets the tone and atmostphere of the congregation.

f. Memorize names, personally greet people before and after service, touch people, use warm and personal style in writing to visitors, .

g. Do not expect unbelievers to behave like believers until they have become believers. Jesus attracted crowds by meeting the people’s needs.
i. Saddleback, “We do not limit our ministry to only so called, “spiritial needs. We believe God cares about every part of a person’s life.” j. A Church will never grow beyond its capacity to meet needs.
k. Jesus attracted crowd by teaching in a practical, interesting way (catching attention of the people).
l. We do not have to make the Bible relevant – it already is. But we have to show the Bible’s relevance by applying its message personally to people’s lives. Crowds always flock to hear good news!
m. Jesus wants to transform people, not to inform people.
n. The deepest kind of teaching is that which makes a difference in people’s day to day lives.
o. Christlike preaching is life-related and produces a changed in lifestyle. It does not just inform, it transforms.

q. Jesus used simple language.

11. Building up the Church:
a. Communicate the value of membership

b. Establish a require membership class

c. *** Develop membership commitment and challenges

d. Make your member feel special

e. Create opportunities to build relationship

f. Encourage every member to join the activities

g. Keep communication lines open

h. We’re in this together

i. Spiritual growth is intentional. It requires commitment.

j. Spiritual growth is practical – habits.

k. Spiritual growth is a process that takes time.

l. Spiritual is demonstrated more by behavior than by beliefs.

m. Christian needs relationship to grow (Hebrews 10).

n. Spiritual maturity takes experiences with God.

o. Ask people for commitment. Be specific and explained to them.

12. Turning members into ministers:
a. The Churches today’s greatest neet is releasing of members for ministry.

b. Never stop teaching the importance of every Christian having a ministry.

c. We are dependent on each other.

d. Establish a ministry placement process.

e. Provide on the job training

f. Establish minimum standards and guidelines.

g. Allow people to quit or change ministries gracefully.

h. Trust people: Delegate authority with responsibility

i. Provide the neccesary support

j. Renew the vision regularly

k. Don’t worry about the growth of your Church, focus on the purposes of your Church.

** Successful ministry is building the Church on the purposes of God in the power of the Holy Spirit and expecting the results from God **