Shifting our view of Church From Place to a People - Part 2

I would be remiss not to include the following from Warren as well (page 235):

We do not need to choose between "go" and "come"; both are valid forms of evangelism. Some people will be reached by attraction, while others will be reached by confrontation. A balanced, healthy church should provide opportunities and programs for both. At Saddleback, we use both approaches. We say "Come and see!" to ou rcommunity, but to our core we say, "God and tell!"

Agreed.

But I believe good ecclesiology (study of the church) must lead us to conclude the church is God's people in God's places for God's purposes. God's places and purposes are not limited to our buildings.

Shifting our view of Church From Place to a People

I've been reading Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Church in preparation for exams at Luther Seminary. The assignments is to identify strengths and weakness of not only the book but Warren's views of church and models, etc.

Overall, I'm a pretty big fan of Warren. In my opinion, he offers the best of what the mega-church, attractional model of ministry and evangelism can be. Warren and Saddleback do lots of great stuff, but that isn't really the point of this blog.

On page 220 (of my version), Warren writes,

The first line of Saddleback's vision statement says, 'It is the dream of a place where the hurting, the hopeless, the discouraged, the depressed, the frustrated, and the confused can find love, acceptance, guidance, and encouragement.'

This is a pretty good, evangelistic view of a church as a place where people can have the good news of Jesus Christ applied as a salve to their wounds from this world and, hopefully, place their faith in Christ. In my opinion, this view of the church is much more mature than many you will find in the USA these days, but I believe it is still limited in scope.

I want you to imagine for a second how we can make this statement of the church even more powerful and influential. Warren and Saddleback meet thousands of needs a year at their church campus, but this is a limited . How can we take this statement and make it hundreds of thousands, or even millions? It would be very difficult to have facilities for so many people and to attract so many people to one location (though if anyone could do it, Warren is probably your guy).

What if we changed a few words in their vision statement. Look at the old and new below:
OLD - "It is the dream of a place where the hurting, the hopeless, the discouraged, the depressed, the frustrated, and the confused can find love, acceptance, guidance, and encouragement."

NEW - It is the dream of a people who will seek out and go to the hurting, the hopeless, the discouraged, the depressed, the frustrated, and the confused in order to show them love, acceptance, guidance, and encouragement.

Rick Warren has done a lot for Christianity in this country. Imagine what more could be done if we build on his good work and change our view of church as a place to a view of church as a people.