Since the five purposes in the Purpose-Driven model come straight out of the Bible, I would hazard a guess that many times when churches resist moving to a Purpose-Driven model, it is becaue they resist change.

Much has already been said at www.JesusCreed.org, but I would note that surveys and marketing as tools (and not as ends in of themselves) are valuable because they can help us be "all things to all people." Paul's letters are clearly targeted at different audiences in order to speak to each in a manner most befitting the local culture, background, and situation. Hence why we have Romans, Corinthians, etc.

This is by no means a call for relativism, because the Gospel remains the same and universal, but Jesus was very clear when he ordered his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations. The disciples often accomplished this by leaving their homes (as Jesus had modeled) and living with the communities in which they would establish a new branch of the Church.

Community is such an important part of the body of Christ, and, while the focus should always be on the people -- even more than on the processes -- a basic, systematic order to the life of the community is something that church leaders have seen fit to establish from the start. Jesus picked out twelve men to start the church. The disciples, when one of them was lost, recognized the importance of replacing that one in order to restore the original group's number. They also recognized that their primary purpose in the life of the early Church consisted of preaching the word of God, so they encouraged and pushed for others to do other things such as caring for widows (see Acts 6). In the 16th century, Reformed leaders such as Calvin and Zwingli were very caught up in the idea of establishing an order. Today we often refer to an "order of worship" (and that phrase has been around for centuries).

Having a method is good and necessary. Worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and evangelism are all essential ingredients in the lives of churches. People and communities are different, so what works in San Clemente, CA may or may not work as well in Alpharetta, GA. Different people need to hear different things and in different ways -- that's why the Gospel is told four different times (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John)! I applaud the apparent effectiveness of the Purpose Driven Church formula in some churches, and I hope that individuals remember that the formula can work well in other places so long as you modify the formula to fit the new place. You never need to change the Gospel message, but you may need to speak a different language.

With regards to persuasion...

"...even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father." John 10:38

This is how Jesus seemed to understand persuading. he declared who he was and what he was about, but people did not believe him. Thus, he went about his mission and forced people to decide from where and from whom he derived his authority and power.

Too often, churches seek to "persuade" people through marketing to individual needs or by trying to prove their propositional truth claims through logic and reason, vying for peoples intellectual assent.

The call of the Church to proclaim and embody the message of Jesus and the Kingdom is different from persuading and marketing. The first two reveal our commitment to serve God (as Jesus did) and the latter two suppose that our primary calling is to the world. Of course, it is God who loves the world and thus sends His Son, His Spirit, and His Chruch into the world, but to whom we understand our primary allegiance to be (God/world) makes a huge difference.

How incredible it would be if churches were able to say with Jesus, if you don't believe what we are proclaiming to you, at least believe based on what you see - not worship styles that match your preferences, placating levels of discipleship, convenient meeting times and amenities like expensive coffee, big screens, an elaborate childcare system, dry cleaning, etc. - but "The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor." (Luke 7:22)

When the Church gives itself to these things it will truly have grounds on which to confront the world as Jesus did and ask them to believe.

first, i have a degree in communications/rhetoric. i was trained to do work in PR, advertising, marketing, political speech, and so on. maybe that makes me more sensitive to it. but i don't work in that field because the whole thing makes me sick to my stomach. it is inherently manipulative. speaking for myself but presuming to speak for folks in my generation, we cut our teeth on manipulative speech and so we have hair trigger crap detectors. when we encounter that stuff in contexts that presumably are about relationships and spirituality it turns us (me at least) off.

second, i think the five points of the purpose driven ministry miss the mark when measured against scriptural witness. or rather, they are a truncated version of the gospel. the first sermon jesus preached wasn't the four spiritual laws, or any of the five points listed above. he said something to the effect of "the kingdom is near."

yes, there is a place for "worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and evangelism." and moving "people from community, to crowds, to congregation, to committed, and then to the core. [and]...leads from knowing Christ to growing in Christ to serving Christ to sharing Christ."

but isn't the heart of the message, and therefore the "purpose" of the body of christ and its local expressions to embody the kingdom of god as christ taught?

all of this is not to say that one could not use the model and modify it (one should always modify any program or model to fit the context) and find it a useful tool. but i personally could not do so in my context.

back to the issue of marketing. i think there is a subtle danger in using marketing techniques in the church. and that is two fold - in my experience. first, the technique becomes this infallible cannon by which all things are judged and ministry to individuals which when it is at its best is relational and therefore dynamic and organic devolves into a program or a system that is static and very cog/machine, input/output, results driven. we begin to think in terms of need - therefore program - insert person into fabricator/program = discipleship/christian growth. if we have learned anything from government bureaucracies it is that they are not dynamic/organic enough to accommodate the many varieties of people and needs. only good shepherding can do that. not a program.

second, and i will close with this, the first thing i learned in working towards my degree was that the "medium is the message." in other words, if we use the methods and the medium of marketing to "distribute" the gospel then the gospel becomes a commodity and a product of marketing. a hierarchy of needs becomes the driving force behind pastoral work and replaces what we are called to do as shepherds. and this applies not only to the old boomer models like the purpose driven model and seeker models et al, but also to some of the post-modern/emergent conversation that my own generation is in the middle of. there is good to be found there, but i pray for more discernment between wheat and chaff.

lest i come off as a complete jerk, i will say that most of the techniques that the boomers have come up with, including the purpose driven stuff, seems to come out of a sincere desire to further the gospel and help those who shepherd god's people. i just think that they are drawing from a poisoned well.

i hope this will not be read as mean as it sounds but i don't really know how to state it any other way. i don't intend to be unkind.

This post has alot of questions, there should be a good variety of answers. I am going to take up the marketing aspect for the moment.

The problem with marketing is that to be most successful you must become what others want you to become. Granted Paul wrote that he became all things to save some (1 Cor 9) but there were limits that he even implied. What I worry about most is what is being lost in the message. Our culture is not perfect and if Jesus was here he would be feared by those in power today as well as 2000 years ago. This is because he would be pushing for change, for the culture to become more godly. In a marketing approach that is not accepted. You cannot make people uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, that is what people need at times. Our message comes from the Bible, which as a rule measures our failure at life. This is sin in its many forms. Now there is good news within it, yet to understand what we need to repent of we need to see our failures. To know the need we have for a saviour we need to know our depravity. The difficulty is that when the message is subjected to market values that difficult part becomes lessened. The potential is great to slide into "cheap grace." To simply say I am where I want to be not where God wants me to go. It is a big difference.

Some might object that Warren has this accounted for in his paradigm. Yet I am not so sure. Many people are reached by his church. I do not doubt that God is working there. Yet is it the best, or is God working in spite of what is the ministry model?

Which leads me to the final point, this can only be decided on a church by church basis. Each church has its own place in society. The Purpose Driven model is built around a North American urban setting. Will it work in a rural setting of farmers? Are people really getting the meat of the Bible or just the sound bites they want?

I think the primary weakness of the Purpose Driven model is that it tends to underdefine doctrine, so that as well as being a useful tool in reaching the community for Christ, it could also be used to take a church away from the truth.

Another weakness seems to be a "batch process" approach, where people are treated more as a product and less as individuals.

Yet another one is the compartmentalisation that the implementation of the Purpose Driven model brings to church life - right worship is also fellowship, etc. and the underemphasis on worship - seeing it as something done primarily by the fringe (IIRC) rather than as the central object of our lives.

I can see that these (and other) weaknesses can stir up valid opposition. But that doesn't mean that all opposition is valid. We are human - the majority of everything is motivated by our pride.
Of course, those (and other) weaknesses could stir up valid opposition

You have posed many significant questions ... almost too many for me to answer! :)

I have planted and now serve as pastor in one of these "Purpose-Driven churches." This has been our ministry approach since day one. It has served us well.

I believe that the five-fold purpose scheme does adequately reflect the central concerns of the New Testament church. It is by no means exhaustive. We have added prayer and missions to our list of purposes, and I am sure that other churches have acted similarly. But I don't think the list of purposes was ever intended to be exhaustive. These purposes merely serve to help the church remain focused upon biblical principles and practices. As such, it is an excellent tool.

I am not sure what you mean with regard to surveys ... we have never used them ... so I cannot comment.

There are, indeed, principles that resemble marketing practices within the Purpose-Driven model. However, they are better described as missiological principles rather than marketing principles. Churches should, like any good missionary, look at the culture around them, determine the people of their "target group," discover their real and felt needs, and design ministries to effectively reach that target group. These are simple missiological principles taught at every good seminary and Bible college. What is truly sad is that so many of our churches no loger look at their communities through eyes of missions. Instead of adapting ministries to the culture around them, our churches arrogantly expect the culture to adapt to the church. Thus the resistance to change. Thus we have the rapidly increasing death of thousands of churches in North America each year.

Yes, the simple truth is that most of the folk in these churches do not want their churches to change. They do not only resist change. They engage in combat against it! How do we deal with the people and churches which refuse to change? Plant new churches! It is infinitely easier and more sensible to "give birth" (often!) rather than trying to "raise the dead!"

Church Planting ... Raising Up the Next Generation of Church Planters ... is my passion! I am convinced that we have to impart a passion dof Churc Planting within this next generation ... a generation that does not resist change ... indeed, a generation that expects change. http://www.missionmpossible.net
http://www.missionmpossible.blogspot.com

These are such valuable questions to ponder. It reminds me of what one of my professors used to say - "We are all a bunch of sinners trying to do the Lord's work."

Another question comes to mind: "What does it mean to abide in Jesus?"

I think Rick Warren is an awesome pastor and gift to the Body of Christ. I have no criticsm of him or his ministry. He's done an unbelievable and commendable job of communicating and putting New Testament priciples on "the bottom shelf" making them accessable to all. (See my "tongue in cheek" post of Rick's detractors on my blog.)

Why do churches split over his model/program?

Many "old school/old guard" church leaders feel like they can get the job done without programs. Criticize the church all you want, but people were becoming committed, evangelizing, mobilizing, etc., long before Rick Warren arrived on the scene. So people resist change, especially when they think, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

If pastors teach their congregations the "whole counsel of God" and resist the temptation to "tickle the ears" of their flock just to keep the congregation happy, overhauling a church's methodology would not be necessary.

Also, I think that if people were to take a deeper look at the root of why congregations split over the Purpose Driven Model, one may discover that some pastors have a history of always trying the "next big thing." Instead of treating one's ministry like a garden that is tended with care and grows in a healthy and natural way, pastors are looking for a way to become an instant mega church. They want to grow in a freakish, genetically altered kind of way.

Many pastors don't want to implement Rick Warren's model, they want to be Rick Warren.

People resist change to a "purpose-driven" model for countless reasons, some utterly selfish, some legitimate. Some people resist any change that disrupts the delicate equilibrium of a congregation. Others resist the trendiness of hopping on a bandwagon launched by a bestseller. Others see shallowness in bullet-point preaching. Others simply don't want to think about the issues.

The conflict isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The key question for me is: In what way is the Purpose Driven Life actually change? I have no problem with it, having been involved in a campaign during my time as an associate pastor, but will it usher in the change that is needed? It failed to address, in fact it probably added to, the busyness of the average attendee that is grinding the joy out of lay ministry.
In our church no one who is not a Christian joined the congregation on the basis of it, but I suspect those under forty would have been loathe anyway to invite their non-Xn friends to what is essentially a very boomer style of church.
Rick's honesty was certainly refreshing, as was his commitment to the Bible, however his use of the Bible completely subsumed the narrative under the five points of the course. Most people I suspect are "over" the five purposes of this, or four laws of that approach to the Bible. We need a big story that makes sense of the little stories and quite frankly the five purposes weren't quite up to it - especially in the all important area of eschatology.

I wonder how much our complete devotion to the doctrine of the Purpose Driven Church is in essence a manifestation of that same spirit that drives some pastors to plagiarize other's sermons. There appears to be a real dearth of wisdom, discernment and understanding when it comes to many in ministry today. We grasp out at anything new that comes along that may resuscitate our dying congregations. The question I have is, are we truly hearing from God, or are we in a last ditch effort trying to justify our own existence as pastors?

You may think that I view this Purpose Driven approach to be from the depths from Sheol. The truth is, as a secondary resource it may serve a 'purpose'. The problem, it seems to me, is that it has become 'the primary resource' in many of our ministries. In its extreme we see this in those who wear armbands that read WWRD? (What Would Rick Do?).

A derivative of this is that the Purpose Driven model has taken on a whole life of its own. 'It' has become the catalyst and means of change in the local church, not the Person and work of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I wonder if we have attempted to fill the God shaped vacuum in our lives with mere tools like the Purpose Driven model.

The means we use to communicate the gospel should always be, at the most, secondary to the moving of God. It is God who draws us to Himself. The problem is that we often end up worshipping the means by which He does so, leaving Him out in the cold. Remember the bronze serpent that Moses made for the people's healing that later had to be destroyed because they started to worship it (Numbers 21:6-9 cf. II Kings 18:4)? Or how about the letter to the Ephesians in Revelation 2:1-7?

That said, the leadership in our church recently led the congregation through the "40 Days of Purpose" and are just gearing up for the "40 Days of Community". As a home group leader I will happily comply. My primary focus, however, will not be on what Rick says etc. but on trying to discern what the Holy Spirit is saying to the church. My hope is that the two will line up.

I see two sources of resistance to purposes driven ministry.

First, what is often resisted is intentionality. There is a romantic notion that everything from the Spirit will "just happen." Such things as organizing, planning, and training are un-natural and therefore unspiritual and unbiblical. I see this as a disease of naiveté that can affect young and old.

Second, pastors (myself included) try/tried to replicate Warrens success without his gifting or calling. As implied above, the gifts of Rick Warren are a huge part of his success. Pastors of lesser gifts cannot expect to see that impact. Trying to so is another type of naiveté, frequently infecting pastors.

What is really explosive is a church in which the pastor thinks he can be another Rick Warren and the congregation resists any leadership that seeks to be intentional. Pity the pastor. Pity the people.

If we look at the five "pillars" of the Purpose Driven church we see "worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and evangelism."

Each by itself stands as definitions of what we should be doing...worshipping G-d, fellowshipping with each other, discipleship means training new believers so that they know what their faith is all about. And being involved in a ministry is a good thing too. And of course, evangelism comes in all forms.
So by themselves there is little wrong with the 5 "pillars" of Purpose Driven Church.

But there is always the subtext for formulaic establishment of behavior in the church which, given the mental state of mankind and his desire to "bring order to the chaos" makes me think that perhaps all of us should be a bit more general in our applications of this process.

For our Church, the goal is very simple, but no chiseled in stone: Worship G-d by fellowshipping with like minded believers. Get involved with a bible study, or small group which, oddly enough, is even more fellowship. Ministry can be many things, and it doesn't have to be formulaic to be G-d honoring. And of course, if someone asks you if you're a Christian, say yes. Who knows what will come after that.

I think the problems arise when the pastors want to do something for somethings sake without giving it some serious thought as to how to implement this process into their church without steam-rolling everyone to get on board or feel left out.

My church went through the Purpose Driven series and I assisted another pastor in taking her church through it. The assistant pastor at my church resigned over the program and many of the old guard resisted it. It wasn't so severe at the other church, but there was no measurable visible benefit of the program at either.

That's not to say that it isn't good material. It's just that both of these churches are already so saturated with teaching without having put faith into action that it all seems to have inoculated the congregations from any conviction that they should become the hands and feet of Jesus to their communities or beyond. In fact, many pride themselves in their Bible knowledge while making virtually no impact for the Kingdom whatsoever.

I am becoming more convinced every day that most churches are drawing people to good marketing ploys rather than to the Lord himself. Great preaching, great music, great programs and great sanctuaries eventually become old hat and we will ultimately take it all for granted. It's human nature. To lure people with such temptations is to welcome them into our churches for the wrong reasons. Like all relationships, if we seek a church relationship for self-satisfication rather than choosing a church because we feel we can find fulfillment in serving its community and the Lord with our gifts and talents we will eventually tire of it. It is really no different than mistaking lust for true love. Since our culture has persuaded so many that it's all about lust and self-gratification, thus the reason for so many divorces, why would we expect church relationships to be any different?

Until leadership begins to trust and believe in the potential of the congregants and decided to help them fulfill their vision for serving, rather than trying to manipulate them into ministries and programs that they have no passion for, even good material such as Warrens will produce little fruit.

I wonder if it wasn't this it would have been something else that split the churches. Process is often more important that content.

"That's not to say that it isn't good material. It's just that both of these churches are already so saturated with teaching without having put faith into action that it all seems to have inoculated the congregations from any conviction that they should become the hands and feet of Jesus to their communities or beyond."
J.W., I don't understand the above statement. The very focus of the Purpose-Driven Life is to move believers into doing ministry and going on mission in their communities and beyond. That's the last two purposes. So why would you describe the Purpose-Driven material as inoculating congregations from doing the very thing that the Purpose-Driven material encourages believers to be doing?

Let me say up front that I'm not particularly an advocate for (or against) the Purpose Driven Church. I haven't read it, actually-- so I have nothing to offer to analyze it.

Still, a conversation about the value, validity, or importance of any given model for missional and ministry development at the local church is generally a good one to have-- and it looks like it's been a good conversation here on a variety of issues.

This conversation, however, appears to include a conclusion or perhaps even a premise or two that may not be warranted-- namely, that the Purpose Driven Life may be splitting a good number of churches, or that large numbers of folks in congregations are resistant to the kinds of changes following that model would require.

As I recall, the WSJ article covered a total of 4 congregations that had difficulty in connection with working with The Purpose Driven Church. It also did not address or seriously investigate the relational or missional dynamics of those congregations to identify with any certainty any causes or contributing factors to the difficulty these 4 congregations experienced. Was it the model itself? If so, what parts of the model were most problematic for the congregations, and why? Was it existing internal tensions in leadership? Was it overbearing leadership-- whether lay or clergy? Was it stubbornness? Was it fear? If so, fear of what, exactly? Was it defensiveness? If so, what did some feel needed defending enough to respond in ways that led to conflict or splits? We don't know. The WSJ article doesn't tell us that. So really all that is learned from the article is that these 4 particular congregations had difficulties WHILE using the PDC materials.

Again, I'm not trying to defend the Purpose Driven Church at all here. Many of the posts above have indicated a good number of reasons to find it more than a little assailable on some fronts. I suppose I'm just asking that we think critically before leaping to or even suggesting conclusions that may not be warranted by the actual data we have been asked to consider.

Peace in Christ,

worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and evangelism

If those are in an intended order, they are in the wrong order and also confession and repentence are missing.

"Does the use of surveys to discern need and audience and strategy trouble you?"

We have found it helpful to use surveys. It is important to get a read on what folks are thinking, how they are experiencing the programs and ministries of the church, what they might like to see different or what they want left as is. And it is our experience that people like to offer such opinions and thoughts.

However, the survey data is not a substitute for prayer and relationship and community building. For example, if the data is reported in a reasonable time frame, used as a prayer guide, and to help the congregation understand how fellow congregants see the bigger picture of the ministry, then people see themselves as important in the broader scheme of things, ownership develops, vision is fed.

On the other hand, if the information gathered from a survey is used improperly, or folks never see any good outcome from the survey, then the exercise damages credibility of leaders.

In a nutshell; surveys are a tool; used wisely they can help build ministry; used improperly they could tear it down.