The Purpose–Driven© Life By Rick Warren Review by Jason Souza
Call me jaded. Call me cynical. Call me whatever you like (just don’t do it when my kids are around), but I really had pretty low expectations when I started this book. The first thing I thought was that this was a patch to fix a gaping hole in the Purpose–Driven© ship. “The Purpose–Driven© Church” came out and churches fell in love. They bought the books. They bought the training materials. They attended the conferences. They saw that it was all good. But then a problem was discovered. All these Purpose– Driven© churches had a bunch of Purpose–Driven© programs, but the same old groups of people. Solution? Crank out some Purpose–Driven© people to run the Purpose–Driven© programs at the Purpose–Driven© churches and everyone’s happy.
It smacked of being another opportunity to milk the Purpose–Driven© phenomena for every cent it was worth. It’s nothing personal against Rick Warren, but the church in America is being “Purpose–Driven©” to death. Out of curiosity, I entered “the purposedriven” in an amazon.com search and found an inconceivably large list. The following are a few examples:
♥ The Purpose–Driven© Church
♥ The Purpose–Driven© Youth Ministry
♥ The Purpose–Driven© Life
♥ Meditations on the Purpose–Driven© Life
♥ Songs for a Purpose–Driven© Life
♥ The Purpose–Driven© Life Scripture Keeper Plus with Cards
♥ The Purpose–Driven© Life Deluxe Journal
♥ Daily Inspirations for the Purpose–Driven© Life
♥ The Purpose–Driven© Life Tea Cozy
♥ The Purpose–Driven© Life Toilet Paper Cover
♥ The Purpose–Driven© Life Car Air Freshener
O.K., I joke about the last three, but given enough time, someone will come up with it. This whole thing seemed more like the “Chicken Soup for” and “Prayer of” merchandising than something that could actually transform one’s life. It was after all, the third in the Purpose–Driven© series (after Church and Youth Ministry) and everyone knows the third in a line of sequels is always horribly bad (“Star Trek III : The Search for Spock” anyone?). I expected religious cliches and pretty much every one known to mankind is in there. I expected the shallow wisdom typical of fortune cookies and bathroom stalls. Everything I knew would be in there was, but I also found something in the pages of this book I hadn’t expected.
I found God.
Or, perhaps I should say that this book allowed me to make myself available to God in a way I usually don’t. The book is formatted as a 40-day devotional book. One chapter per day with most of it focused on the five purposes espoused in all Purpose-Driven© materials (fellowship, worship, discipleship, ministry and evangelism). Each chapter ends with a small review. There’s a “Point to Ponder” (what is the one thing I should really get out of this reading today?). There’s a Memory Verse which supports the Point to Ponder. Finally, there is the Question to Consider. Lo and behold, this is where I found God.
Typically I would give a question such as this a monosyllabic grunt of contemplation unless I just skipped it altogether. I decided at the outset of the book, though, that I should really make an effort since I was reading it for review. I prayed over these questions, made myself available and quiet to be spoken to through them, I recorded my responses to the questions, and I reveled in the grace-filled rain of God’s voice. I learned things and answered questions I’ve been dealing with for some time. It was not necessarily an enjoyable book, but it was a very enjoyable experience.
So at this point, you are probably asking, “Should I read it or not?” I don’t know. I can’t say it definitely should be read, but I won’t say it definitely shouldn’t. Not much help, I know. The best advice I can give is to read the summary for this book and make your own decision about whether or not it looks interesting, intriguing or valuable. If you do decide to give it a shot, make sure you ask God to come along. I think He’d like that and I know you will too. I don’t know that you that you will come away any more purposedriven than before, but you will have definitely spent some quality time with God, and that’s always a good thing.
Reviewer’s Note:
I know the use excessive use of the copyright symbol gets annoying, but I thought it better to be safe than sorry. Should someone from Saddleback read the review, I’ll have to deal with the hatred of me for not loving the book, but at least they won’t be able to sue me for copyright infringement.
