Rick Warren, Reader's Digest team up to start magazine, website for missions-minded Christians.
Sometimes rumors (and dreams) come true.
For months, there has been talk among ministry leaders, Christian journalists, and others that Rick Warren and the Reader's Digest Association were going to launch a magazine.
The announcement came today via email. Here's the basic concept:
The Reader's Digest Association, Inc., and Dr. Rick Warren, Pastor of Saddleback Valley Community Church and the author of the worldwide best seller, "The Purpose Driven Life," today announced a partnership to produce an inspirational multimedia platform called The Purpose Driven Connection.
Together the organizations will pool their international resources to produce and publish this Purpose Driven platform to help people who are seeking their purpose in life and wish to interact with others on their spiritual journeys. The platform will provide a suite of bundled multimedia tools: "The Purpose Driven Connection," a quarterly magazine; Small Group study materials delivered in DVDs, workbooks and downloadable discussion guides; and a state-of-the-art Christian social networking website.
"We are excited about this new partnership and its unprecedented potential for international impact," said Warren, who will serve as Editor-in-Chief and be heavily involved in the conception of each element. "The Purpose Driven Connection represents more than simply integrated multimedia resources; it will become a platform for a movement of people to change the world."
"We are delighted to be working with Rick Warren and the Saddleback team," said Alyce Alston, President of RDA's Home & Garden and Health & Wellness affinities. "This is one of our company's most important and far-reaching ventures ever. Together we will create a category-busting multimedia suite that will help millions of people in their daily lives, including those who already follow the Purpose Driven principles as well as seekers everywhere looking for greater fulfillment."
The Purpose Driven Connection revolves around the theme, "Your Life Matters," and mirrors Warren's book, which has sold more than 30 million copies since being released in 2002 and has been read by 60 million people and translated into nearly 100 languages. It also relates to Saddleback Church's PEACE Plan, initiated by Warren, which mobilizes Christians to combat global problems affecting billions of people, including spiritual emptiness, corrupt leadership, extreme poverty, pandemic diseases and illiteracy. To date, the PEACE Coalition has advanced the program among the public, profit and faith sectors in 68 countries.
The magazine, to launch early in 2009, will include stories of everyday people who have found God's purpose for their lives. The framework for the platform will be designed to provide five practical tools to communicate five spiritual purposes -- Knowing, Relating, Growing, Serving and Sharing -- each through a combination of teaching and testimony."The magazine will be consistent with our highest editorial standards," said Frank Lalli, RDA's Vice President of International Editions and Magazine Development. "In the best traditions of RDA, we are commissioning extraordinary photographers, illustrators and writers to travel the world and capture real-life stories that will change how readers think and inspire them to take action to improve society."
Since I have been writing about Saddleback Church, Rick and Kay Warren, the PEACE Plan, and their HIV/AIDS outreach, it has been fascinating to see how the story has taken many ups and downs, twists and turns.
Some parties seem to be missing in action here: Zondervan publishing, Fox broadcasting, News Corp.; and, Rupert Murdoch. In fact, Warren's new seasonal title, "The Purpose of Christmas," is being published by Howard Books. Simon and Schuster, the big New York House, purchased Howard Books in 2006.
Surely, News Corp. would have the global resources to produce The Purpose Driven Connection, but apparently it was a no-go. Hard to sort out why.
But, bloggers and others have been critical of Warren's association with Murdoch at least since 2007. You might hate World Net Daily. But click here for their 2007 account of the criticism.
In mid-2008, I interviewed Rick on the phone for close to an hour, but only a small portion of the interview was published in CT. Keep reading for one on-the-record out-take from that interivew.
Changing the World is Fun:
I've spoken to dozens of Christian leaders who have had involvement with the PEACE Plan and Saddleback missions efforts. They seem to be having so much fun in doing Christian ministry.
So I asked Rick about the fun element:
One of the aspects of the PEACE Plan that I don’t think you and I have ever talked about is the fun quotient. The people who are engaged in this process are having fun. They’re having the time of their life. Is that right?
It’s fun. It’s fulfilling, and it’s life changing. It’s paradigm shaking. The old idea, as we talked about before, of paying, praying, stay out of the way and let the professionals do it, those days are over.
Because we are so connected globally now and you can see what’s going on around the world and you can literally practically go anywhere in the world in about 24 hours, that means these people are no longer contented just giving a check. They want to be involved. They want to be involved. And when they go, they experience things that change their lives.
As I have said before, the old paradigm of missions was you pray about it, you pray, pray, pray, pray, pray. Then you study, study, study, study, study. And then you give, give, give, give, give. Maybe someday you go.
But PEACE turns that thing on its head. PEACE says just go. Don’t even pray about it. Just go, because the Bible says go. And it doesn’t say get a whole bunch of training before you go; it just says go.
And then, once you go, when you get out there, it grabs your heart.
And that is truly when the fun begins.
Posted by Tim Morgan on November 24, 2008 8:56AM
Comments
How wonderful to know that Warren is "changing the world" with his money. For Christians who follow the Liturgical Year, yesterday was Christ the King, and according to Scripture, it is God who rules the world in Jesus Christ. It is always interesting to read how Warren presumes to be Christian but talks about this in as generic a manner as is possible, such as connecting with others on the "spiritual journeys." When will he realize that the God of Israel and Jesus Christ is the center of the world?
Posted by: MP at November 24, 2008
It's interesting to see a whole article on this without any talk of the spiritual usefulness or impact of the "facts" discussed. Tell me how this affects me as a Christian. Tell me what this means for my church, people who day in and day out seek to love and worship God.
Posted by: Jon Wymer at November 25, 2008
Why would we hate WorldnetDaily? Because it's conservative and CT readers are notoriously liberal? What a slam. We just might hate CT actually.
Posted by: Val at November 25, 2008
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Say what -- Huh? How can there be ANYTHING exempt from the Lordship of Christ? God has very SPECIFIC and INDIVIDUAL plans for each of us. He needs people here, too. Warren's mandate to 'go wherever by the seat of your pants' is the recycled-and-now-discredited-for-good-reason Keith Green school that says you're out of God's will if you're not on the mission field abroad. One of my close loved ones was a new believer in 1981 when that fad/false doctrine swept evangelicalism. He got sucked into it bc that's what he was told to do and no one around him in the church questioned whether he was the right temperament, could handle the language, could reasonably get along alone abroad on the mission field, etc etc. When he wiped out of the church's missions program 5 years later, he never quite got over it. Today he's where God wanted him all along -- ministering to troubled kids as a public schoolteacher. Fortunately, Rick Warren is not the Holy Spirit he must obey or he'd be ripped from his true calling -- in his case, right here in America.
Posted by: Very anonymous wife at November 25, 2008
I am always amazed by how harsh and misleading criticisms can often be. Rick Warren does not discredit God and his plans in any way in fact he honors God by actually going out in the world and doing what God has commanded of all of to go out and preach the good news and he does not just say go somewhere else it is more of a call to get up and do something about the state of the world and not just sit around worrying about ourselves and as a side note about the individuality mentioned here this is what plagues evangelicalism we are all looking for a way this applies to ourselves or how our lives are affected by it when really God calls us to join in on his plan for the world outlined in the sermon on the mount and many other of Jesus teachings we are called to become followers of Christ and help heal a broken world. We are called to glorify God in whatever we do this is our true calling instead of concentrating on putting God in a box and what works for me.
Posted by: Justin LaPeare at November 26, 2008
It never ceases to amaze me that Christians will criticize people like Rick Warren, who against all odds, has written at least two wonderful bestsellers, who has founded a mega church in So.California, who defends the Word of God publicly against anyone who attacks it, etc, etc. It's unbelievable and shameful. This is why, after 2000 years, we still have not won the world over to Jesus Christ. (I'll bet these snipers haven't even read Warren's books.)
Posted by: Marcia Yiapan at November 27, 2008
When will we sit down and look at the cost of all of our mission trips and put that alongside the cost of local believers being supported to serve in their own country? I know it's not simple, but we're in danger of turning missions into tourism. I was on a plane in Eastern Europe this summer which seemed to be full of people on mission trips. The cost of that in relation to what they were accomplishing on a week or two must have been huge.
And all of this is before we start asking questions about the impact of all this air travel on the environment...
Posted by: Benny at December 2, 2008
Isn't it worth Millions to save one life? Who cares about the dollars it costs, look at what it's going to cost if they don't reach others. You don't have to go to other countries to be on a mission for Christ, but look at all the lives that have been saved because of missionaries. People need to stop worrying about what others are doing, and start worrying about themselves. If thousands of missionaries went out tomorrow and it cost billions to send them and one life was saved, Hallelujah. Don't we have an Awesome God.
Posted by: Michelle at December 9, 2008
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