Warren sets sights on life of ‘PEACE’

Rick Warren wants to take evangelical Christians back to the 19th century.

“That was a time of muscular Christianity that cared about every aspect of life,” the author of “The Purpose Driven Life,” told a reporter for a national news service last month.

American Christians strove for more than personal salvation, the charismatic pastor and best-selling author said. They were committed to social action from abolishing slavery to ending child labor to winning women the right to vote.

“The New Testament says the church is the body of Christ,” Warren, 51, said, “but for the past 100 years, the hands and feet have been amputated, and the church has just been a mouth. And mostly, it’s been known for what it’s against. I’m so tired of Christians being known for what they’re against.”

As sales of “The Purpose Driven Life” approach 30 million worldwide and mainline churches get onboard his 40-days program, Warren has set his sights on loftier goals – ending world hunger and the spread of AIDS.

The charismatic fourth-generation Southern Baptist preacher that some have called the heir to the Rev. Billy Graham as “America’s pastor” last year laid out his global PEACE plan.

PEACE is an acronym for:

. Plant a church.

. Equip leaders.

. Assist the poor.

. Care for the sick.

. Educate the next generation.

Warren has said that he sees religious institutions as more powerful forces than governments and that new technology allows local churches to bypass state bureaucracies and denominational hierarchy. Web-based computer systems, global cell-phone networks, and greater international air travel all enhance the ability of local church leaders to work horizontally.

“I would trust an imam or priest or rabbi to know what is going on in a community before I would any government agency,” he has said.

The numbers may be on his side. There are about 3.7 million congregations worldwide. By 2025, according to the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, another 1.2 million new churches may open. Warren said last year that those local churches should be distribution centers to feed, clothe, cure and educate the world’s poor.

Rwanda is where Warren is test-driving his PEACE plan. He would like to make the tiny mountainous land, which suffered a genocide in 1994, the world’s first “purpose-driven nation.” After reading “A Purpose Driven Life,” Rwandan President Paul Kageme wrote Warren to say, “I am a purpose-driven man.” His government has welcomed Warren and his team with open arms.

Warren also made a commitment to “walk the talk, not just talk the walk,” as the money from his book sales rolled in. He calls himself a “reverse tither” because he and his wife keep 10 percent of their income and give away the rest, including $13 million in 2004. The pastor stopped taking his $110,000 annual salary and returned to his Saddleback Church the 25 years of salary he was paid since its founding.

Warren and his wife, Kay, who have been married for 30 years, are children of small-town pastors. Rick’s father, the Rev. Jimmy Warren, was a church planter and carpenter who literally built dozens of small churches in California.

The younger Warren followed in his father’s, grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s footsteps when he started Saddleback Church in 1980 south of Los Angeles. For 15 years, the pastor and his flock moved like nomads, meeting in schools, homes and other rented building. The congregation has grown from seven to 80,000.

The church’s 120-acre hilltop campus, with palm trees, waterfall and meandering brook has been called “a kind of religious theme park.” Worshippers meet in different buildings to suit their musical preferences, while watching simultaneous video feeds of Warren preaching at the main worship center.

Saddleback has an annual budget of $30 million, 300 employees and about 22,000 worshippers each weekend. Warren also founded Purpose-Driven Ministries, a nonprofit network of more than 150,000 pastors. The ministry has its own staff of 180, a $39 million budget, and a Web site called pastors.com. Warren calls it open-source evangelism.

“We’re kind of the Linux of Christianity,” Warren told Fortune magazine last year.

The preacher is a charismatic speaker with a laid-back personal style. He wears colorful Hawaiian shirts, sports a goatee and hugs strangers. He’s referred to himself as a “startup guy” who leaves the maintenance to others.

As his fortune and fame grew, he turned to the Bible for guidance. Warren found a passage in Psalms in which King Solomon prayed for greater influence, then realized his role was to speak up for the marginalized. Warren has called that moment a turning point for him.

“I realized that the purpose of influence is to speak up for those who have no influence,” he said last year. “And in religious terms I had to say, ‘God, I repent, because I can’t think of the last time I thought of widows and orphans.'”

They are his purpose now.