In examining error this Lent, let us not forget the daddy of them all: Rick Warren.  I submit to you, whether you are Catholic or Protestant, your church or diocese is using his methods for a Purpose-Driven Church.

When you read analyses of Pastor Rick Warren’s Purpose-Driven Church, they sound much like management treatises.  Words like ‘growth’, ‘capital’, ‘knowledge’, and ‘assessment’ pop up time and time again.  Low on the scale are words such as ‘Bible’, ‘God’, ‘Jesus’, ‘faith’, ‘sin’ and ‘redemption’.

Two strands dovetail in the Purpose-Driven Church: one from the US Government and the other from management guru Peter Drucker (1909-2005). 

First, the 1997 Welfare Reform Act from the US Government, which explains why there is such a commingling of state, philanthropic and church resources — common purpose, one might say.  A Crossroads Ministries essay, ‘The Pied Pipers of Purpose’, states:

Faith-based organizations, since the Welfare Reform Act of 1997 and subsequent legislation, are nonprofit organizations that have gone to the feeding trough of the State. This includes nonprofits that perform medical care, emergency relief, housing, care of the elderly, training, shelters, homeless, hospices, food pantries, welfare-to-work, job training, refuge services, child care, preschools, etc. Keep in mind that some nonprofits which perform medical care, also perform abortions or refer for abortions.[69] In order to get the faith-based agenda jump-started, philanthropy leaders working in collaboration, offer training to equip private charities with the new result-oriented mode of conducting business. These activities successfully prepare the nonprofits to receive faith-based monies from the State. Faith-based organizations are more complex than simple storefront charities. They “have program competence, but they need core competencies…. Capacity, planning capacity, supervisory capacity, multi-site management, logistics, human resources,” says Dr. Christine Letts of Harvard University.[70] If a faith-based organization restructures to meet the new demands of its donors, it is said to be “value-added.”

Combine this with Rick Warren’s heavy borrowing from Peter Drucker and his acolytes for Saddleback Church and you eventually arrive at the Purpose-Driven Church. 

First, who is Peter Drucker?  If you have worked in quality management or management consulting, as I have, you will have run across his name and probably employed his methods for consistent, demonstrable, successful, results-driven projects which bring in more money to your business.  Drucker was born in Austria to intellectual parents.  They were part of the Vienna Circle, a group of thinkers and government officials who sought to implement new ideas about human and economic potential.  The young Drucker emigrated to England in 1933 then, at the outbreak of the Second World War, went to the United States, where he worked as a management consultant for General Motors.  The author of 39 books and countless essays, he has been called a ‘social ecologist’ and ‘social philosopher’.  He had no interest in religion but was concerned about man’s happiness as a ‘social being’, which he believed could only be realised through communitarianism.   

He devised the concept of ‘management by objectives’: the continuous improvement and evaluation of knowledge and processes which would effect them.  This is a gross oversimplification, but this post is about Rick Warren, not Peter Drucker.  Peter Drucker’s theories work really well for corporations and consulting practices.  However, churches are a different matter altogether.  Yet, although Drucker was not a religious man, he stuck his oar into what he thought churches should be.  He said:

… social sector institutions have a particular kind of purpose [emphasis ours]…. The ‘product’ of a church is a churchgoer whose life is being changed. The task of social-sector organizations is to create human health and well being.

Really?  No, that is not the purpose of church, but it seems to be the purpose of our churches today.

In Drucker’s estimation, a church is no different from a hospital, a food bank or a museum.  It’s part of the identity of a social system and works with the public sector.  And together, in his view, these work to transform our society and change us as individuals for the common good.  The corporate sector (business) can enhance this by passing on its theories and methods for success.  These transform — change — not only the institution involved but those who volunteer for it.  Kinda scary when you take that to its furthest extent.  And human potential is all about change — someone else’s (not God’s) idea of change.  This is why I’m most wary of people being forced to volunteer for their church because ‘it’s what we are called to do’.  Better to perform a quiet act of individual charity independently than to get caught up in this.

Which leads us to Rick Warren’s Purpose-Driven Church.  Warren and Drucker knew each other.  Warren was a guest in his home.  Warren’s website quotes Drucker:

Peter Drucker calls Rick ‘the inventor of perpetual revival’

Rather like Drucker’s theory of Total Quality Management, or TQM. Great for the business world, but let’s not mix it up with God.  So, what are Drucker’s theories about church which Warren finds so attractive?

– Instituting quantifiable — measurable — spiritual standards: beliefs, behaviours, attitudes.  By whose standards?  Man’s!

– Undergoing continuous church restructure every time growth increases by 45%.  Whose standards are these?  Man’s!

– Implementing ‘accountability’ — working like a business in attempting to exceed growth and giving targets, withdrawing central funds if these are unmet.  Whose standards? Man’s!

– State-mandated targets for church schools, e.g. exam results or enrolment growth.  By whose standards?  Man’s!

But, Drucker’s influence goes further.  One of his acolytes, Bob Buford, started the Leadership Network in 1984.  This sounds very churchy, indeed:

a resource broker that supplies information to and connects leaders of innovative churches.

Jesus and St Paul would have approved.  Not.  Its aims are to train and equip pastors for the 21st century church so that we end up with ’emerging young leaders’ with ‘new tools and resources’ via an ‘ongoing peer-coaching network’.  In his network are a number of prominent NewAgers, all of whom seek to transform mankind’s future. Buford was also responsible for FaithWorks (1998), later renamed Halftime. 

Drucker devised the General Systems Theory and the ‘feedback mechanism’ (anyone employed today knows what that is). For churches, Buford has developed a Christian Life Profile.  Warren has created a Purpose-Driven Life Health Assessment for a believer’s spiritual condition.  Criteria in church-based assessments are likely to measure:

– Extent of congregation’s growth in numbers or increase in funds — lack of growth is failure.

– How many church members volunteered time to church or charity? 

– How much time did each spend and how often?    

So, what about those who might not have the intelligence or perceived talent to help transform their local church?  I’m talking about the believing high-school dropout who is a responsible and loving parent or an aged, lifelong church member who is house-bound. And what about those who are unable to volunteer at church because they care for an aging parent and work during the day?  Will there be a place for them in this man-made construct?

Furthermore, why should all of this be quantified and tabulated in a database, which it surely must be? 

But when thou doest thine alms, let not thy left hand know what the right hand doeth. (Matt. 6:3)

Crossroads asks the question (emphases mine):

… did the Purpose-Driven “covenant” idea actually originate in “organizational capital” theories? Has a psycho-social concept been dressed up in biblical language to make it palatable?Interestingly, these church covenants are so vaguely worded and undefined that new meanings could be assigned to the terminology as time goes on. As one critic noted, “The bottom line is this: Once you’ve signed a church membership covenant and boarded the CGM [church growth movement, ed.] train – you’re committed to its destination, even if it changes direction somewhere along the way. This is why Jesus commands us in Matthew 5:33-34 to not make oaths with men because when it’s all said and done we might find ourselves following the wrong god.”

Nowhere in the Bible is there a mandated assessment for belief, quantified acts of charity, attained targets or linking up with government programmes. This is quite insidious and dangerous for any church.  Before you know it, the government will start dictating the church’s terms.  We saw this played out in Europe in the last century.  Let’s not make a return trip.

For more information, see:

‘The Pied Pipers of Purpose’ (Crossroads Ministries)

Tomorrow: The biblical case against the Purpose-Driven Church