The Church Answers Podcast

The Six Purposes of the Church: How They Really Play Out in a Local Congregation. Part 1 of 9: Why We Talk about the Purposes of the Church

The purposes of the church originate with the early churches in the New Testament. When Rick Warren wrote "The Purpose Driven Church" in 1995, the purposes became commonplace in conversations in churches around the world. Thom takes a detailed journey about the purposes of the church through nine episodes. Keep all of them together to share with your church leaders and members.

Duration:: 12m
Broadcast on:: 17 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Welcome to the Church Answers podcast presented by Chaney & Associates. Chaney & Associates are the accounting firm for the church. Now get ready for fast-paced insights on key issues affecting the local church today. We release three episodes each week, so make sure you've seen or heard them all. And now, here's the CEO of Church Answers, Tom Rayner. I normally would say buckle your seat belts, get ready for a great ride. I don't want to overstate what I'm going to go through for nine consecutive episodes. Fortunately, they're pretty brief, and so you're not going to have to sit through a long amount of time. But simply to say, I'm going to do something that if it has been done, I don't know about it. I'm going to trace the origins of the purpose-driven church written by Rick Warren, and it's impact upon the church. You've got a lot more to say about that, and I'll have plenty of time to say a lot more. My name is Tom Rayner. I am in my studio, which just happens to be my home office in Franklin, Tennessee. And I am here because we are sponsored by Chaney & Associates. I just want to give you this word. You hear the sponsorship again and again and again. But I just simply want you to hear this word that we don't accept sponsors unless we are on the same page. And unless we feel like that we have a similar purpose. Chaney is one of those that we really wanted to come alongside of us. They're the counting firm for the church. They do it. And listen, folks, you don't need to be doing your accounting. You don't need to be doing your bookkeeping payroll, et cetera. Let Chaney do it. You say, well, I don't want to pay for it. Well, believe me, it pays for itself again and again and again. Call our folks at Chaney & Associates or email them. Just go to the website, chaneyassociates.com, visit that, find out about them, set up an appointment. You will be glad that you did. Now, I am going to talk about a book. It's unbelievable. This book was written 30 years ago. Actually, it was written 29 years ago, but I'm going to say 30 because there's a purpose behind it. Oh, purpose. No plan intended. This book, the Purpose Driven Church. It was written 30 years ago. It was actually published 29 years ago. But from my perspective, we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of this book. More, more people, I would say, are for me with the book, the purpose driven life. Oh, that's so 40 million copies. I mean, it was crazy. One of the best selling books ever, much less one of the best selling Christian books ever. But I think in terms of influence, despite the fact that one sold 40 million and one sold million, I actually think the purpose driven church was more influential in what is happening in the church today and what is happening in Christianity. And it's for that reason that I'm going to take nine different episodes. Now, why am I taking nine different episodes? Well, I want to give an introduction to it, it being the purpose driven church book. I want to talk about why we talk about six purposes when Rick, when he wrote purpose driven church talked about five. I want to start talking about the practical benefits of understanding these purposes for your church. That's the first three episodes and then in subsequent episodes I'm going to go through each of the six purposes five that Rick mentioned noted wrote about extensively in his book and one that we later added. So let me take you on a trip. Let's go back to the past. We're not going to go back to the future. We're going to go back to the past. And we're going to go to the year 1994. Now I know some of you youngsters will say 1994, I want even a live in okay. I want only a live, but I was an adult at that age so you can tell I'm older now. But in 1994, I received a call from Rick Warren. Rick said, Tom, I'm writing a book. He said I'm tentatively titling it the purpose driven church. And I wanted a few questions I had to have a few questions for Rick and, and I said Rick I thought to next book would be cameo CA MO because he had been doing a series of conferences on the cameo church contemporary approaches to ministry evangelism and organization. And I thought that his next book would be cameo so when he said, it's called the purpose driven church. It's not that objected to the title. Obviously it has done extremely well, but I was surprised that that was the direction that he was going to go so. I'm talking to Rick on the phone in 1994 he wants to know if I'll provide an endorsement absolutely love Rick Warren and love what he was doing even then back then it settled back and said sure so eventually he sent me the, the manuscript. He sent it by mail. e email was alive back then but sending downloads was not as common, even then. You might send a disc or a discount but you didn't send that many downloads so he sent me the manuscript. I arrived in a minute envelope from subtle back church in California, and I read it, and I want to tell you I consumed it eagerly with anticipation and excitement. So when this book came out, the purpose driven church course already knew about it. I was one of many endorsers in here. I mean the endorsers are kind of like a who's who and exception would be myself of course. Some of them are like in memory of, I mean Jerry Falwell Robert Schuler Adrian Rogers, Jack Heyford. Oh my goodness I'm just a little Louis drum and many of those who've already gone on to be with the Lord and then many others. This well wrote the forward bill bright. Oh my goodness all these people Leonard sweet. And I'm a little loud shower. I just go down the list or just so many here. And I've just kind of honored to be a part of this big crowd of people who are providing an endorsement even our molar is in there so I'm seeing him right toward the back and looking at others as well James marriage or sudden. I'm going to go on and own Larry Osborne. I'm not going to keep on there but my point was a lot of people read this book. Before it was released before it was published. And before John different put the first copy on the market. And I think all of a sense there was something about this book. That was significant beyond most other books. I know I did. I anticipated the book coming out I started using it primarily in my doctoral seminars because I wanted people to begin to. I want our students begin to look at this from not just merely an academic or intellectual point of view, but to look at it closely and tell us what they see. And I just got to say, this book is paradigmatic. The purpose driven church book is paradigmatic at the time. It was the best selling book on the local church ever. Now, Tom is going to say this with a bit of lack of modesty. The only book that is sold on the local church more than this is my book. I'm a church member. Rick's book is sold a little over a million. My book is sold almost to me and not that I'm competitive, but just simply to say it is rare to see a book written on the local church with the type of sales or purpose driven church or either my book. I am a church member. So when this book came out when this book came out, I knew that it was going to make changes in churches and if it didn't leaders in churches or not listening. What what is the primary thesis of the book and why are we still talking about it today. Quite frankly, if you go back 30 years, and you were in my shoes, I was at a new dean at Southern seminary dean of a Billy Graham school of missions and evangelism at at Southern seminary. When I choose you would have seen the paradigmatic significance of the book. Here's what was going on at the time. Most churches were doing their work, the work of the local church by program or by some type of routine. Now the program is wrong, but I'm talking about a routine. More churches were in a rut. More churches were just doing things the way that they have always done them. Long comes the purpose driven church book by Rick Warren. All of a sudden, many church leaders are beginning to ask the question, why do we do what we do. And Rick said it very clearly in his book, what we do. It needs to be according to the biblical purpose of the church in his case, the five biblical purposes and we'll have a six that I'll talk about later. So churches began to do things differently. Was it an overnight change yet in some places it was and others it was more gradual. But the purpose driven church became a book that began to change how churches did their work in their ministry, because they were no longer asking the question, what have we done, how have we always done it instead they were saying, why do we do what we're doing. So quite frankly, that is the reason that this church hit a nerve in a positive way, this book I should say not this church, that this book hit a nerve in a positive way. It's because it forces church leaders and those of us who love and talk about the church and write about church, it forces us to ask the question, are we doing the church work and ministry, according to the biblical purposes of the church. So what this podcast is over. We've already gone through one and all we're doing is talking about why we talk about the purpose of the church today I'm grateful that I'm going to take three weeks three podcasts every week, and this is the first of those three. And we're going to talk about this purpose driven church book, and why it is so significant in the life in the history of the church today. So like I just got started, I did, I got a lot more to talk about. We'll come back in the next episode episode two or three and we're going to talk about the purposes themselves we're going to tell how we landed on six remember Rick wrote five, and how we landed on six and we'll be talking about that as well. Always remember we are so appreciative for the accounting firm for the church chain and associates. Just go to chaney associates.com set up an appointment with them, find out how they can do your work that you really don't need to be messing with. And come back. For those of you who are viewing on YouTube I've gotten to where I'm looking at more and more my YouTube cast YouTube podcast and I am listening so thank you would you give me a thumbs up and give us, give us a subscription. And if you're still listening on the audio podcast, give us a rating and review. We think that this material that we're going through over these next nine episode is going to be important for the church. Well, I'm out of time pass out of time. Come back next for the next episode. It's already downloaded this week episode two or three. We're going to answer the question. How did we land on six purposes. All right, see you in the next episode. Thank you. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)