Even though he began to 'reverse tithe' - that is, to give away 90 percent of his income - he was still earning millions in royalties. Warren became a household name, and his book became the biggest blockbuster in American publishing history. Oprah Winfrey featured the story on her program, and as Smith cried 'No way!' Oprah welcomed Rick Warren onto the set. In the morning, Nichols surrendered to police peacefully. During the ordeal, Smith read to her captor from A Purpose Driven Life, and they discussed spiritual issues. That cultural moment was prompted by Ashley Smith, an Atlanta woman who was taken hostage by Brian Nichols, who had killed several people, including the judge overseeing his rape trial. Three years later, Warren and his book landed in the media spotlight. The book was a best-seller among churchgoers, but few others had heard of it. Then, in 2002, he published A Purpose Driven Life, a sort of manual for living out God's will. By the 1990s, Warren had become an icon within the Christian subculture. Today, 22,000 people attend Saddleback each week. Thus was born the 'seeker-sensitive church.' 'How to raise a child, how to deal with a divorce, how to deal with personal issues, alcoholism, workaholism - all the kinds of problems that are part of the human experience,' Domke says. Warren shied away from fire and brimstone, though that's part of his Southern Baptist theology.

'You go out, and you build a clientele, and you build a relationship, and then you invite these people to check out the product.' 'He sold it like people sold vacuum cleaners in the 1940s,' Domke says. Based on that survey, Warren shaped Saddleback Church to meet their needs.ĭavid Domke, author of The God Strategy and a professor at the University of Washington, says Warren targeted the young, upwardly mobile, busy baby boomer. They told him church was too formal, it was irrelevant or was always begging for money. And he also asked them, 'Why don't you go to church?'' 'And he asked them a lot of questions about what advice they'd give to a new pastor in the area. 'He knocked on doors of hundreds of people,' says his brother-in-law, Tom Holladay. But he did have a plan: to build a church for people who never went to church. Warren had no money, no building, no congregation. In 1980, fresh out of seminary, Rick Warren and his wife, Kay, moved to Mission Viejo, Calif., to start a church. Warren spoke at the Clinton Global Initiative on Sept. More than 22,000 people attend Rick Warren's Saddleback Church each week.

The purpose driven by rick warren