Catalyst Podcast Featuring Rick Warren

One my way home from work tonight I pulled out the ipod and listened to the Catalyst podcast with Rick Warren. I have listened to Rick a few times and I am always impressed because he seems so down to earth and in love with God. While I was putting my kids to bed I listened to the podcast again and took some notes…

• When I started Saddleback I had two main goals: pastor the same church for life and help other pastors
• I think bi-vocational pastors are the real heroes in life
• Saddleback used 79 locations in its first 13 years
  
• The church building is a tool not a monument
• I don’t consider myself a visionary I just have a lot of faith; I have ‘Polaroid vision’ and I lead primary from a set of values not from a vision
• Build your ministry on what will not change, not on the undefined future
• Einstein once said, “You can be brilliant but if you can’t say it in a simple way your brilliance isn’t worth much.”
• Spent 12 hrs./day, 7 days/wk. for 7 months writing The Purpose Driven Life, worked hard to make it simple, if a sentence was 20 words I looked for a way to say it in 9 or 10
• I believe in the stewardship or both affluence (1 Cor. 9) and influence (Psalm 72)
• God never gives you money or fame for your own ego
• My wife and I decided we would do 5 things based on the success of PD Life

1. Won’t change lifestyle
2. Stop taking a salary from Saddleback
3. Pay back previous 25 years of salary
4. Set up three foundations
5. Reverse tithe (live on 10% and give away 90%)

• The purpose of influence is to speak for those with no influence
• There are 5 Global Giants that hurt the lives of billions

1. Spiritual emptiness
2. Corrupt leadership
3. Poverty
4. Pandemic disease
5. Illiteracy

• Acts 16:36 is my life verse
• Saddleback Church is the largest Gen-X church in the country with 17,000 people under 30 yrs. Old (100+ staff members under 30)
• The greatest tool in a pastor’s life is his wife and the primary purpose of marriage is not to make you happy but to make you holy
• The husband/wife are to compliment each others strengths and compensate for one another’s weaknesses… too often we ignore strengths and criticize weaknesses
• A churches size is not important, what is important is its health, the church is a living organism not an organization, a living body and not a business, and when living things are healthy they grow
• I reject the business model of church/leadership, the pastors is the father of a family (1 Tim 3:4) and not a CEO
• I am praying for a 2^nd Reformation; the first was about creeds and the second will be about deeds, the first was about beliefs and the second will be about behaviors