Word: warrens
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Such experiences are enlivening congregations and enriching coffers. At Bethlehem Lutheran, attendance was languishing at around 650 a decade ago but is now more than 1,200; similarly, the church budget has more than doubled, from $800,000 to well over $2 million. Warren says Sunday attendance at Purpose-Driven churches grows about 20%, on average: "The Purpose-Driven principles are like Intel chips, and they can be inserted into any congregation, whether it's a megachurch or a tiny one, Lutheran, AME, Pentecostal or Baptist...
...person, Warren, an affable, bespectacled bear of a man, is as unadorned and low-key as the plainspoken prose of his books. He receives visitors to his office in the same casual attire he wears at the pulpit--khaki pants, floral cotton shirt and rubber-soled shoes. That suits his members just fine. "From the beginning, I was impressed by his humility," says Patricia Miller, who has attended Saddleback since 1998. "When I joined, he asked all the new members to form a circle and lay our hands on one another's shoulders. Then he stood in the middle...
...Baptist minister and a high school librarian, Warren was drawn to political activism and, growing up in Northern California, thought about one day running for public office. But he ultimately decided it would be more effective to follow in his father's footsteps "and change one heart at a time." After graduating from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, Warren moved back to California with his wife Kay and started Saddleback in their rented apartment...
Mindful of the checkered history of high-profile evangelists, Warren and his wife seem determined to be the anti--Jim and Tammy Faye. "I want to live above reproach," says the man whose role model is Billy Graham, explaining why he avoids being alone with women other than his wife. The Warrens, who have three grown children, live comfortably but relatively modestly in a $360,000 tract home they bought two years ago, and the reverend drives a Ford SUV. In 2003, with royalties from the Purpose-Driven product line pouring in, Warren stopped taking his $110,000 annual salary...
Progress on his international initiatives has been slowed, first by his wife's struggle with breast cancer late last year and then by his own surgery in January to remove a benign abdominal cyst. Warren had not preached since his wife began treatment last November, turning his duties over to his staff of ministers. When her chemo-therapy was completed, he returned to the pulpit late last month and moved forward on his global mission with renewed purpose. He wants each of Saddleback's 2,000 small groups to adopt a village in a developing country, make mission trips there...