Pastor Rick Warren Corrects Me About His Ministries to the Poor, and I Have Questions
Pastor Warren took exception to my December 14, 2005 blog post about five leading US Christian denominations jointly issuing a statement protesting Bush 2006 budget priorities. In my post, I lumped Pastor Warren in with conservatives Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and lobbyist James Dobson as "notably absent from the national religious conversation of concern for the poor, hungry, homeless and the 45 million Americans with no health insurance ."
---------------
I promised Pastor Rick Warren that I would blog his correction to my understanding, so here are his eloquent email words....
"At Saddleback Church, we don't waste time protesting how others are not taking care of the poor; we just take care of the poor. We do it ourselves.
For instance, our 3,000 small groups recently took on the task of feeding every homeless person in our county (Orange County) 42,000 of them- three meals a day for 40 days. That meant preparing and delivering 126,000 meals a day for 40 days. It took 9,300 volunteers and over 2 million pounds of food. It had never been done before.
Also, we're paying the salaries of over 400 African American pastors who lost their churches due to Katrina, so those community leaders can continue to minister to the poor of their communities. Also our church alone has given in cash over $3 million to hurricane relief to the poor this year alone.
Many of us, who are not protestors, are deeply concerned about the sick, the poor, the illiterate, the jobless, the elderly, those with HIIV/AIDS and the immigrants- not just here, but all around the world too. 90% of all the profits from The Purpose Driven Life goes to our Acts of Mercy foundation that focuses on these issues.
We just happen to believe it is the direct responsibility of the CHURCH to care for these folks, not government bureaucracies which waste a lot before it gets to the end user.
The best example is Katrina relief. Tens of thousands of
local churches were helping the survivors long before FEMA or the Red
Cross got there, and they will still be helping the poor, long after
FEMA and Red Cross pulls out."
---------------
I have a new (and duly corrected) admiration for Pastor Warren's and Saddleback Church's ministries of compassion and outreach to the poor, and I deeply thank the pastor for his response. In fact, I look forward to visting his church sometime in 2006, since I live nearby.
His response, though raises many questions for me. Here are a couple....
1. Your "40 Days of Community" program is obviously a wonderful campaign for churches to reach a helping hand out to the hungry and homeless in their local communities. But what happens to them when the 40 days are up?
As the five religious leaders observed in their 2005 letter to President Bush, "Some contend that with the proper support faith-based charities will step forward to fill the gap created by the government's retreat. But this flies in the face of the lessons that we, as religious leaders, have learned first hand. Our churches operate thousands of charities from the parochial to the international.
Believe us when we tell you that neither we, nor our Evangelical brothers and sisters, nor our friends of other faiths have anywhere near the resources to turn back the rising tide of poverty in this country.
We know that programs, whether governmental or non-profit, can change people's lives for the better. New situations challenge us to respond to new conditions and to support those who are in transition out of poverty. Sadly, the 2006 budget will send more people searching for food in cupboards that, quite frequently, are bare."
2. Protest is not a waste of time. Protest is a time-honored vehicle of democracy that enabled the founding of our own United States of America. If protest is a waste of time, why do conservative Christians protest at abortion clinics?
3. The five Christian denominations that jointly issued the letter....Presbyterian Church (USA), United Methodist Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ....all have substantial and ongoing, long-term ministries of compassionate outreach to the hungry, homeless, ill and poverty-stricken.
Each of those churches spends tens of millions of dollars, and more, each year helping the less fortunate among us. You are incorrect to imply that all they is do is "waste time protesting.".
4. Why are your ministries paying the salaries of 400 African-American pastors stricken by Hurricane Katrina? Why not 400 pastors of all races, ethnicities and skin colors? Or am I misinterpreting your statement?
Again, my sincere gratitude to Pastor Rick Warren for responding to my post about Christian ministries to the hungry, homeless, ill, uninsured and poverty-stricken among us. I stand humbly corrected.
-----------------------------
Related Articles
-- Five Christian Denominations issue Joint Statement Slamming Bush 2006 Budget Priorities
-- Major Christian Denominations Protest Bush Budget, Tax Cuts; 115 Religious Protestors Arrested
------------------------------
Technorati Profile
Comments
a-yuh
This is a great response to see. There is a lot of false information in blogs lately about Rick Warren. Thanks for posting this.
I dont understand why the church lets itself be put on the spot for helping the poor? For some thats all they would have them do is help the poor. What do you think of the rest of the bibles message? Does the rest of the book meet with your approval?
Yo, Debbie!
Here we are two years past this post and it came up on the same page as one of mine…Google “rick warren statistics.”
I didn’t catch this item when you published. Interesting.
I was indifferent to Rick Warren until a few weeks ago when he and his wife were guests of Krista Tippett on Speaking of Faith.
I was so impressed I blogged about it. You might want to take a listen.
http://hootsbuddy.blogspot.com/2007/12/krista-tippett-speakd-with-rick-and-kay.html
I cam across your blog accidently when I was looking for information on Rick Warren. I was happy to see your correction but also your concerns. I have the same concerns. I see the “church” doing acts of kindness at times, especially where there will be publicity involved. However I do not see the people of the “church” in general being willing to take on the poor for the long haul. I have been watching the church for 35 years in a variety of denominations and no denomination. Many churches are willing to give to some distant land in a mission fund as if that somehow lets them off the hook that they are helping all these “heathens” get saved. This is arrogance. We have people in our own neighborhoods who are in need all the time, some of them go to our churches and the richest members of the church would not dare to have them over for dinner, would not set up a college fund for their kids or help a family fallen on hard times to get a business going or rebuilt their lives. I have wealthy friends and have watched them squander so much money on themselves and other foolishness it is incredible and actually makes me want to vomit.
The church is sick, very sick, that is why we must look to the government to tax us and get the money to take care of the poor because the church is NOT doing its job.
The church was NEVER designed to operate as the Rick Warren model, we see NO Place in scripture for this. What we see are simple humble men with jobs, occupations, their own businesses making a living, preaching the gospel and raising money for the poor,never themselves. All the money that was raised in Asia Minor and other places was to give to the poor people in Jerusalem because of the hard times they were in.
The church is also suppose to be the creative force, or the salt of the earth. The church should be the ones to start new businesses so that people can go to work and make a living for themselves. Cooperative efforts in gardening, food sources, and even schooling and training is all part of what the church was called to do, to come together to share, holding all things in common to help others. The church today is so afraid of communism and giving up its wealth, because in that lies its power that they don’t help the poor, they are storing up riches for themselves. What good does it do to pay the pastors all that money, what they should be doing is teaching those pastors how to rebuild their lives, by helping rebuild businesses and not just giving a man a fish but teaching him how to fish.
It was never intended for pastors to receive wages in the sense that they do today. In the book of Acts men were travelling around and working as they could as they preached the gospel, Peter was a fisherman, Paul was a tentmaker. Yes I am sure that they were cared for by others, given lodging and food to sustain and shelter them, but not a salary by the churches or the people. Pastors today often become pastors to make a living, a career and some get paid astronomically, others have to work a full time job,and or pastor two churches, often this is true in the black community.
If Rick Warren can teach the multitudes how to lay down their riches and share with the poor in their own churches and or neighborhoods, helping families that are struggling, or single mothers or elderly people on fixed incomes barely making it, and people begin to really live it out then that is good, but I don’t see that happening.
I am thinking of one pastor who claims to think alot of Saddleback and Rick Warren, but he resented having to help a mentally challenged woman get a car to keep her job, he himself has everything paid for including his Mercedes by the church. So he read Purpose Driven Life, and in fact the church a few years ago went through the book on Purpose Living Church or Life, but they have NO game plan to help the poor, not one of them came to our door with food or offering to pay a bill when my husband got cancer and had been out of work and only after stating we were leaving the church did the pastor raise a donation after five weeks of us asking for help. His wife gave us some groceries and one weeks worth of groceries, and one friend of mine came with groceries but all this was done after I poured my heart out to a couple of friends where is the church? My husband has been out of work for months and the church has gone on, and so have my rich friends, never once helping us.
I work but it is a new business and erratic. The church could have even helped me get business as there were things that I could have done for some of the church members or people they knew, if they cared.
The church is in deep trouble, and I am sorry to say because of that, the government is going to take more of the peoples money and much of it will be wasted as usual on bureaucracy.