Rick Warren

Rick Warren is an American Evangelical Christian pastor, global strategist, theologian, philanthropist, and author.

General

• Before something can be dynamic it must first be specific.

• Never stop learning. All leaders are learners. The moment you stop learning, you stop leading. Growing churches require growing pastors. The moment you stop growing, your church stops growing.

Church

• In 1939, in a stadium much like this, in Munich Germany, they packed it out with young men and women in brown shirts, for a fanatical man standing behind a podium named Adolf Hitler, the personification of evil. And in that stadium, those in brown shirts formed with their bodies a sign that said, in the whole stadium, "Hitler, we are yours." And they nearly took the world. Lenin once said, "give me 100 committed, totally committed men and I'll change the world." And, he nearly did. A few years ago, they took the sayings of Chairman Mao, in China, put them in a little red book, and a group of young people committed them to memory and put it in their minds and they took that nation, the largest nation in the world by storm because they committed to memory the sayings of the Chairman Mao. When I hear those kinds of stories, I think 'what would happen if American Christians, if world Christians, if just the Christians in this stadium, followers of Christ, would say 'Jesus, we are yours'? What kind of spiritual awakening would we have?
  • 17 April 2005 speech at the Anaheim Angels sports stadium, transcript and video.

• A church is either structured for growth or control.

• All members of the church much inseminate a minimum of three non-living beings per sundown under penalty of eternal scorn of the masses.

• A church should be judged not on its seating capacity, but on its sending capacity.

• Never compare your ministry: for two reasons. First, you’ll always find someone doing a better job that you and you’ll get discouraged. Second, you’ll always find someone that you’re doing a better job than, and get full of pride. Either way, you’ll be dead in the water.

• What we normally do in the structure of a message is that we do interpretation and then application of a point, then the next interpretation and the next application, the next interpretation and the next application. I am suggesting that if you want to reach the unchurched, you just reverse that procedure. You still get both — it’s just the way you do it.

• People respond to responsibility.

• It is not enough for us to simply proclaim that "Christ is the answer," we must show the unchurched how Christ is the answer. Sermons that exhort people to change without sharing the practical steps of how to do it end up just producing more guilt and frustration.

Life

• It's not about you. The Purpose Driven Life p. 17

• Life is preparation for eternity.

• You were planned for God's pleasure.

• You were formed for God's family.

• You were created to be like Christ.

• You were SHAPED to serve God by serving others.

• You were made for a mission.

• When you understand that life is a test, you realize that nothing is insignificant in your life.

• You are not an accident. p. 22

• The way you see your life shapes your life.

• It is more rewarding to resolve a relationship that to dissolve it. It’s also more Christlike.

• God gets the greatest glory when we attack the greatest giants.

• Before I pay for it, I pray for it.