The Purpose of Church

I finished Buying In this morning and was surprised to see some material concerning Rick Warren towards the latter part of the book. Walker is struck by Warren's contetion that "it's not about you" when in fact Walker has been arguing throughout the book that at least from a business perspective, it is in fact very much about you. No surprise that a marketing expert and a church leader (though himself also a marketing expert) are on different sides here. What is interesting is Walker's positive handling of Warren and his perspective. Walker is well aware of businesses that raid the Christian market looking for ideas to sell to this large market and yet is impressed that what Warren offers is something distinctively different. Walker writes "you can take or leave the belief system that Rick Warren is pushing, but you have to concede it really is a belief system. In fact, it's a beleif system that calls on people- and gets people- to tithe and volunteer, to sacrifice money and time, for the benefit of others who aren't participants in it. While he has advanced a critique of contemproary culture as overly individualistic, part of the key to his success has been an ability to offer an alternative" (251). That alternative is what separates churches and faith communities from other entities- the idea that you can belong to something where the primary purpose and benefit falls onto those outside of the community.

Warren's track record backs up the claim that he (and many other churches) do seek to provide an aleternative. Check out this post concerning a great overview of where the church is headed; click here for probably the most interesting engagement between a church and a political campaign in recent memory. And lest we think that Warren just happens to be another person seeking to make a (exubirant) profit off of the faith community, it's helpful to remember that Warren is a reverse tither (lives off of 10% of his income and gives 90% away) and does not take a salary from Saddleback.