PDL Now

Well, its easier to see a plan on paper and know the purposes behind them than to go throughout daily life b/c we dont always plan out everything we do ahead of time. I try to be involved in the 5 "purposes" in daily life, but life isnt always so cut nd dried as seeing plans on a paper. Does that make any sense?

 

LOL. Not small things like that - I mean, we plan things like family dates, dinner with friends, etc without ever thinking of a purpose behind them other than "we just want to".

 

Many of the churches here in town got together to do the 40 days thing last year. Our church got 3 new families because of it, and I know some other churches that benefitted from people leaving.

Personally, I only listened to the book on audio CD and read some chapters in the bound book, but I made some notes that I intend to transcribe at some point.

 

Tinytim--

First of all, I don't listen to Rick's sermons, so I don't know what he said in his sermon tonight.

Second, when I looked through the PDL book at my son's home 2 years ago (they live in California), I didn't even see the gospel in the book at all. I kept on reading and reading, and I could not find anywhere in that book where it said that all have sinned and need to repent and be saved. All this I discussed with my daughter in law. I also emailed my son with an article about the Purpose Driven Life, 40 Days of Purpose--my son said it sounded more like a "marketing plan" than an "outreach" to reach the lost.

 

According to the PDL, this verse, taken from Isaiah 46:3,4 of the New Century Version proves that God wanted to create mankind in order to express His love. Yet this is God's message to Israel, not to mankind in general nor to believers in today's modern churches. PDL is clearly misinterpreting and misrepresenting the true meaning of the written word as the Israelites—the original recipients of this verse—understood it.

 

Well, Linda hit some of the big ones. It's also very big into self-esteem and psycho-babble. The people that I know that personally left their churches because of it were turned off because they were informed that they were not welcome to bring their own Bibles with them.

If I ever get around to transcribing my notes, I have several pages of examples to post.

 

PDL uses this text (Jeremiah 29:11 from the New Century Version) many times throughout book, but this verse is not informing the believer that wonderful changes will happen in his or her life once he or she lives out his or her purpose, as the PDL would have one to believe. This text contains God's personal message to the Israelites who were enduring captivity in Babylon.

 

The PDL's statement that God holds believers responsible for the death of unbelieving friends, neighbors and acquaintances is contrary to the teaching of Scripture. The PDL attempts to find justification for this statement by quoting Ezekiel 3:18 in the New Century Version.

However, in this text, God is directly speaking to Ezekiel, whom God had given a task of communicating His Word. Using Ezekiel 3:18, the PDL gives the reader the picture that if the friend, neighbor or acquaintance of a believer dies in unbelief, the believer is at fault! Of course, personal evangelism is vitally important to the spiritual life of every Christian, but the believer is not held responsible for the unbeliever's condemnation. He that believeth not is condemned already. John 3:18

 

I won't say no more, cuz even if I read the whole book, you would not receive it seeing I have revealed fallacies in just a few paragraphs of the book and I am quite sure there are a whole lot more.

The fact is, people do not want to know that what God requires of them, they would rather require of God. The PDL plainly shows this. It uses several different translations of the Bible to glean out what the author wants one to beleive is gospel. Sadly, many buy it as so.

 

According to the PDL, this verse, taken from Isaiah 46:3,4 of the New Century Version proves that God wanted to create mankind in order to express His love. Yet this is God's message to Israel, not to mankind in general nor to believers in today's modern churches. PDL is clearly misinterpreting and misrepresenting the true meaning of the written word as the Israelites—the original recipients of this verse—understood it. </font>[/QUOTE]So what you're telling me is that this truth isn't for today. He hasn't carried us from birth? He won't be the same when we are old? He won't take care of us when our hair is grey?

 

PDL uses this text (Jeremiah 29:11 from the New Century Version) many times throughout book, but this verse is not informing the believer that wonderful changes will happen in his or her life once he or she lives out his or her purpose, as the PDL would have one to believe. This text contains God's personal message to the Israelites who were enduring captivity in Babylon. </font>[/QUOTE]Once again, he doesn't have good plans for us? He wants to hurt us?

 

It isn’t worth going on and on to discuss this subject. Tiny wants posts’ from people who have gone through the 40 days of purpose, not opinions from people who want to degrade other Christians. Worst part is, you have decided to degrade someone who is out there doing Gods work. His life is dedicated to the salvation of souls and the betterment of society, while yours seems to be to make sure no one has a glass of wine or reads the purpose driven life. Again, is your pastor 100% correct, for that matter are you? If you are not, then are you willing to tell everyone that they should not listen to you?

Debating this point-to-point is useless because neither side will relinquish their views, but why not use caution when urging people to stay away from something. If they stayed away from Warren, there would be a lot less souls in Heaven and that is our ultimate goal.

 

According to the PDL, this verse, taken from Isaiah 46:3,4 of the New Century Version proves that God wanted to create mankind in order to express His love. Yet this is God's message to Israel, not to mankind in general nor to believers in today's modern churches. PDL is clearly misinterpreting and misrepresenting the true meaning of the written word as the Israelites—the original recipients of this verse—understood it. </font>[/QUOTE]By the way, using your theory we should just read the Bible as a history book. Paul wrote this to the Church at Corinth, so it isn’t applicable to us. God said this to Job so it isn’t applicable to us etc. I could go on and on, but hopefully you get the point.

 

My church went through the book together several years ago. We did the entire program, churchwide. My pastor preached the sermons, all the S.S. classes used the lessons (from preschool through adult), and we ended with a huge "ministry fair" to find areas of opportunity to serve.

I loved it! And so did my entire church (about 1200 members). One of the neatest things was knowing everyone was studying the same thing at the same time. All those who were reading the book daily were reading the same thing. All the classes were teaching the same lesson on the same Sunday, and the sermon tied it all together.

People were really excited about it, and we had an unbelievable ministry fair at the end where lots of church members were made aware of (and signed up for) ministry opportunities they may not have previously realized were available.

About a year later, we did "40 Days of Community", and what an awesome experience! We all came together as a church to do "acts of kindness" in the community...and I was amazed at all the things people thought of to do to minister. Classes got together to do things, and what was especially neat was seeing the student group discover things they could do to serve others in our area. They came up with things they could do at school (and other places) just to show kindness to others.

I firmly believe that going through the study as a church body was what made it so successful for us. Everyone had the same focus, and it was outstanding!

The book is not a deep theological textbook, and I don't think it was written to be such. Personally, I read a chapter a day as a devotional, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Some of it was very basic for me and I enjoyed being reminded of the "basics" in a fresh way. But there were also things in the book that really made me "think deeper", and gave me a new perspective on some familiar passages and ideas.

I know there are many, many people who don't care for Rick Warren or his book, but I'm not one of them. I saw my church come together more in the 40 days than it had been in a long time. I saw people excited about serving. I saw new people coming to church and being saved as a result of what the study did for our members.

As Tater said, "Let God guide you and get out of this study what God will show you. Any time you are seeking, He will show you something." I know from experience, you will receive a blessing from churchwide participation, if it is bathed in prayer, and if it is approached "expecting" a renewal from the Lord.

CJ