Painful Decline | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction
Like fads before it (i.e., Promise Keepers), could we be seeing the end of the Purpose Driven Church fad? According to the linked article, the Purpose Driven ministry is no longer its own entity, but is now overseen by the staff at Saddleback Church. Is the shift in oversight a result of a stronger local church theology? Apparently not. The PD ministry has lost its CEO and 1/3 of its staff and is now overseen by church staff. Those now overseeing the ministry admit that PD has reached a crest and is now settling down. Whether the PD approach is long-term or not remains to be seen. I realize that good ministries come and go over time for good reasons – and this one may simply have run its course. Yet I do have to wonder if there isn’t something more to the recent passing of the PD ministry.
I happen to think that PDC as a movement will continue to fade for a number of reasons. First, as mentioned in the article, Rick Warren is not as interested in the PDC movement as he is the new P.E.A.C.E program. This program is being spun as a long-term “missions” program. I’m not convinced this is missions. In my estimation, the gospel is not emphasized in the P.E.A.C.E. plan. Church planting may be a plank in the acronym but if the churches begun through the new movement match the theology of the fading fad in America, will these churches have any lasting impact and more importantly, are they, biblically speaking, really churches? I ask this question based upon the current emphasis in P.E.A.C.E. Poverty and AIDS relief appear to be the big pushes for Purpose Driven movements in other countries. Purpose Driven rallies and Saddleback replications tend to be the focus. In my opinion, God, Christ and gospel are not the emphasis. This is to be expected from a theology that in its American form wants to be more covert than overt in its definition and presentation of God, Christ and the gospel. According to PDC theology, the gospel is more effective if it looks more cultural than Scriptural. I can only imagine what this will look like in other countries.
A second reason I believe the PDC movement will fade (especially in America) is due to the way PDC promotes itself. Have you ever found a pod-cast to Rick’s sermons? Have you ever listened to a typical Saddleback testimony presented at church? Have you listened to how Saddleback and the PDC theology suggests people overcome their sin? If PD doesn’t exist – if Saddleback doesn’t exist, then the message cannot replicate or be effective. I don’t mean if the Church of Jesus Christ doesn’t exist – but if Saddleback as its own entity does not exist, the ministry is non-effective. Rick’s sermons are only available for sale, testimonies are almost exclusively about how lives changed because of Saddleback itself, sin is only overcome through the Celebrate Recovery program. Lives remain radically self-centered because an approach to Church has been designed to cater to the self-interests of the people around them. This is not spiritual awakening as much as self-accommodating – which has been wildly popular, but whose popularity is apparently beginning to fade.
The article linked above does not spell the end of the PD movement. It will be around for some time. But it could be the external hairline cracks that expose the faulty foundation. Christ, the Word and the Gospel must be central, and not hidden, redefined or covertly promoted. It is possible that the fad is indeed beginning to fade.
