“Purpose-Driven
Catechism”
Is The Purpose
Driven Life the Evangelical Catechism?
By
David Drury &
When everyday people today hear the word
“Catechism” far too many grow confused looks on their faces as they recall
musty mainline ministers droning about theology. Some may think of Catholic school nuns
rapping their knuckles with rulers for getting out of line. Some parents feel it is the right thing to do
to put their kids through a catechism class, but know that it will not be a
significant experience because it certainly wasn’t for them. Nearly all people think of something that is
very, very old, and written by dead men who never played videogames or talked
on cell phones, so how relevant would it be for today?
Compare that reputation with that of the book The Purpose Driven Life. The overwhelming popularity of Rick Warren’s
book and its Church Campaign-in-a-box counterpart “40 Days of Purpose” have
caught like wildfire across the church.
As of
So why put these two reputations
side-by-side? What does the Purpose Driven Life have to do with Catechism? We suggest that The Purpose Driven Life is a functional attempt to catechize the
ADVANCING
THE EVANGELICAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE BIBLE
For years people have bemoaned the fact that
evangelicals seem to be less and less educated about the Bible.
BUT
CERTAINLY NOT A BIBLE STUDY
Rather,
A
UNIFYING DOCTRINE AMONG EVANGELICALS
Few evangelicals have found much to argue with
in the Purpose Driven Life. Most people
praise how basic it all is. He’s just
laid out the stuff most every evangelical pastor has been trying to get the
people to get for years. Now they’re
getting it. Rather than a controversial
edgy epistle that pushes our buttons, Warren’s work gives us a slow spiritual
back rub – working out the kinks that so many church people are knotted up
over. So just like the great catechisms of the
past, it is not one person’s
idiosyncratic take on the Christian faith, but rather an expression of a larger
Christian community’s basic belief system.
INTER-GENERATIONAL IN APPLICATION
It’s intergenerational – and thus catches up
the adults on things they didn’t learn for all these years without an
evangelical catechism. Since most adult
evangelicals can’t tell you very clearly what they believe, this alone has been
the revolutionary effect of the movement.
Once 80% or more of your church reads the same book and discusses it in
small groups that becomes what they all believe by default in the lack of other
basic belief teaching (read: catechism).
It’s hard to find a church where the lasting effect of the campaign hasn’t
been a laity who speaks in “purpose driven language.” So, akin to other
significant catechisms, the Purpose Driven Life results in a particular lingo
which becomes the identity marker for a particular Christian community.
A
STRUCTURE FOR LIFE AND BELIEF
It’s structured around 5 core principles
called purposes. They don’t add up to a flower acronym, but
the five purposes of Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Ministry, Mission have
a definite structure and systematized flow to them. It’s hard to find any Saddleback message,
material or ministry without the 5 purposes somehow intertwined in the
ideas. These principles have truly
become purposes to them and the
churches they influence. With any
Catechism, this should happen – people are truly indoctrinated. Indoctrinization is
simply the process of instilling doctrine in people—getting doctrine “in” them,
literally. Perhaps The Purpose Driven Life is doctrine now: irrefutable beliefs of
most Evangelical Christians. So
following the pattern of previous catechisms, Saddleback’s five purposes
provide an easy-to-learn doctrinal short hand.
40 DAYS
OF CATECHISM?
We’re pretty sure that had Rick Warren,
Saddleback and Zondervan promoted “The 40 Days of Catechism”
that it would have tanked with an evangelical mainstream whose prevailing value
is cultural relevance. But in effect
that’s what it has become for many evangelicals. And it’s a good thing. It’s about time a wave of focus on the things
that matter most swept across our churches.
So often our evangelical currents flow to the fringe. Although the Purpose Driven Life as a
catechism does functionally draw a line between evangelicals and
non-evangelicals, within the evangelical community it primarily unifies rather
than divides. At the least it gives
evangelicals a starting point from which to continue clarifying our communal
identity and purpose. Perhaps the
purpose God had in mind with this tidal wave is even greater than the five
we’ve memorized.
But before you consider
David Drury is a pastor &
writer living in
©2004 David Drury &
John Drury
Back to David’s Writer’s Attic or John Drury’s Writings
*This
is a pre-publication edition of this article-in-process. If you have suggestions or comments on this
article please e-mail the writers at daviddrury@pastors.com
or johnldrury@yahoo.com