IF HE HAD NOT WRITTEN THE best-selling ?The Purpose Driven Life,? Rick Warren would still have a certain claim to fame as pastor and head of Saddleback, one of the biggest churches in the United States with 100,000 registrants.

But as luck?or, as he believes, God?would have it, Warren wrote ?Purpose Driven? in 2002, and the inspirational book has sold 25-million copies, so far the biggest-selling book in hardcover in American publishing history.

Worldwide, ?Purpose Driven? is a big seller, providing Warren a global status only slightly lower than the Pope?s. It?s quite a stretch of the imagination that one with such an ordinary-sounding name as ?Rick Warren? could be an effective Christian preacher, much less that he?s a superstar like Christ whose message he professes to spread. But that?s the case; the world is simply Rick Warren-driven.

The driven Pastor Warren was here this rainy week for the ?National Purpose-Driven Congress? at the Ultra and other speaking engagements, the last stop in an over-a-month-long Asia-wide tour that should confirm his global status.

When he met the media, it was easy to see why Rick Warren has become the Ricky Martin of motivational Christianity. He was a huge man who could give you a bear hug, very friendly and giving off warmth and comfort on a wet, stormy day.

He spoke without pretension. Although his message tended to be preachy, he delivered it with a certain touch of self-effacement. And although heartened by the terrific Asian response to his lectures, he said he missed home and his Saddleback church. ?I?m really a pastor,? he said.

To what do you attribute the success of your book?
Nobody?s more surprised than I am. People ask, what was the biggest surprise? I got to write it. (Laughter) That?s the big surprise. [The book] has been the best-selling book in the world for three years and it?s in 56 languages now and it is the best-selling hard-back in American history. I think the book has been so successful for three reasons.

The first reason is, it deals with a universal subject. Everybody?s interested in ?What I am here for?? No matter what culture, what age group, what economic group, everybody wants to know the purpose for his/her life. It?s a universal question; it?s not a religious question.

The second reason is, I intentionally made it extremely simple to read. I spent seven months, 12 hours a day, writing. I would get up at 4:30 a.m. and not eat breakfast or even shower (before going) straight to this little office I have to start writing from 5 a.m. until 5 p.m., 12 hours a day. It was very disciplined.

As you know as journalists, good copies are never written. They?re rewritten and rewritten and rewritten. I learned that, when you?re writing, you write the first draft from the heart and the second draft from your head. When I learned that, then I just started thinking how to reduce a sentence from 25 words to 10 words trying to make it compact, like distilled wisdom. Get right to the point.

You look at the books (of a lot of people) and they?d underlined each sentence. Well, it?s because I try not to waste a lot of words. Many are even one-liners like ?It?s not about you.? That?s very short.

The other thing is the book, unlike most bestsellers, has almost no stories in it, which is very interesting because everybody knows that people read stories. They want to hear stories. They want to hear human stories.

I thought, if I want to tell stories?American stories?they won?t relate to the rest of the world. I left the stories out so it?s not an American book. It?s an international book, and it translates quite well around the world. People from different kinds of background can read it.

These three things [led to its] success. Another thing is, people just don?t read it. They buy 10 copies and give them to their friends. Because when a book changes your life, you want to pass it on.

I?ve read a lot of biographies and you put them on the shelf, you don?t give them to anybody else. But when a book changes your life...People buy it for Christmas present or gifts. [There were] parents, when their teenager died, they bought the book for everybody in the funeral.

The book was originally written for churches. I?m a pastor, so I originally wrote it for people in my church to [help them] discover their purpose. But it quickly went beyond churches. Sports teams in America use it?basketball teams, football teams, baseball teams?they have ?40 Days of Purpose? together. And the book went to businesses, like Wal-Mart, Disney and Ford Motors. Businesses have their employees read the book and discuss it. It is a book meant to be read in groups. It?s not a book to be read by yourself. You?d get more out of it if you talk about it, if you read it and discuss it.

The discussions started in business then went to schools, governments, all kinds of governments, prisons... An article in New York Times said one prison never had two weeks without what they called a ?lockdown? because of violence. But since they had ?40 Days of Purpose,? they?ve never had a lockdown in 2? years. It just completely changed the attitude of the inmates.

So your book has been a crossover success. It?s been used in management and business. Did you purposely write it as a manual for leadership?
Of course, there are management principles in it, even in the ?Purpose Driven Church,? the first book. That book I wrote for pastors and priest on how to manage their church. The Federal Reserve Bank of America, years ago, handed out the ?Purpose Driven Church? to all its branch managers not as a religious book but as a book on classic management.

Forbes Magazine said, if Saddleback church, where I?m a pastor, was a business it would be compared to Starbucks or Google (laughter), because we now have around 400,000 churches in our network, spread all around the world. I have trained around 400,000 pastors in 162 countries. But now, my staff and I are not just training church leaders but business and government leaders and helping them, too.

Why did you choose 40 days?
Studies have shown that something doesn?t become a habit until you have done it for at least six weeks, till you?ve done it every day for six weeks. This is why many people don?t stay on a diet (laughter) and exercise program because they don?t pass the six-week barrier.

You don?t feel comfortable in something till you?ve done it for six weeks. In ?40 Days of Purpose,? I was trying to get people to feel comfortable with daily reading, a weekly small group. Some things like these become habits. And, in the Bible, 40 days is used over and over and over in many examples.

I thought you used 40 days because Christ stayed in the desert for 40 days.
Noah was on the ark for 40 days, Jesus was in the dessert for 40 days. When Jesus resurrected, he spent 40 days with His disciples. There are lots of 40 days in the Bible. Today, it?s interesting, a lot of Catholic churches count 40 days during Lent and a lot of Pentecostal churches count 40 days of Pentecost, after Easter.

You recently gave three square meals to 42,000 people in 40 days. Tell us how you did that, because it?s something amazing.
One of the keys in any organization, like the church, is it must grow larger and smaller at the same time. A church grows larger, like during services on weekends, [then transforms] into small groups [and through] these small groups... we can care for each other, we can encourage one another. When someone gets sick or needs a babysitter, we help each other. When someone?s loved one dies, we create this small unit.

We started with small groups and we now have 3,000 small groups in our church.

We had the campaign 40 Days of Community, a program to get the community involved in supporting the neighborhood and reaching out to them. So we decided to feed every homeless person in Orange County three square meals a day.

We didn?t know how many homeless there were. When we added it up, there were 42,000 homeless people. The county has [a population] of three million and 42,000 live on the streets.

So we fed these people three meals a day for 40 days to show it could be done by just one. We did it through small groups that spread out all over the city. We learned that, if we could get business and government to help, then we would have three groups working together.

There are five giant problems in the world... Spiritual emptiness is the No. 1 problem, egocentric or corrupt leadership is the second biggest problem. No. 3 is poverty. Half the world lives on less than US$2 a day, one billion people live on less than a dollar a day. Fourth is disease?all kinds of diseases. Five hundred million people will get malaria this year. And fifth is illiteracy?half the world cannot read or write! Even if we have the Internet and we have the world wired, if you cannot read or write, you?re left out. There is just no hope for you in the 21st century.

These problems are so big, everybody has failed [to solve them]. The United States has failed, the United Nations has failed. Nobody has solved these five problems because [the solution needs] a three-legged stool. For the stability of a nation, you must have strong healthy government, strong healthy businesses, and strong healthy churches.

A three-legged stool will have stability. So I?m going from country to country teaching business its role, teaching church its role, and teaching government leaders their role?you?ve got to work together! We cannot solve the problem in your country or in the world if we won?t work together.

You?ve met our cardinal [Gaudencio Rosales]. Did he say anything about what our biggest problem is?
Well, I love the cardinal? Cardinal Rosales showed me his purpose statement for the Archdiocese of Manila?

?They have a purpose statement?
Yeah, they have a purpose statement. He?s a purpose-driven cardinal! (Laughter)
I love this man. Wonderful cardinal.

Actually, we?re working on the Catholic workbook for the ?Purpose Driven Life? that has been written by some priests in America. I asked Cardinal Rosales if somebody could review it and tell us what needed to be changed before it went to print and he could give the blessing that it was okay, that it was for all Catholic congregations and cathedrals, churches, chapels.

When I met with Cardinal Rosales the other day, he gave me the idea to do 40 Days of Vision. It was a very good meeting. When we come to countries like the Philippines, I don?t come just to teach; I come to learn. I?ve already learned a lot.

You said you fed 42,000 homeless in 40 days. Do you have a corollary program where you sort of teach them to fish, so to speak?
I don?t have time to go into all of the PEACE plan here. The PEACE plan is a plan to mobilize millions and millions of Christian believers in all of the churches to do volunteer work, to partner with congregations, equip servant leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick and educate the next generation. This spells PEACE, and we have been testing a program in our church for 2? years and we send small groups out, first in our own city and then to areas around the city, and eventually to the whole world. And we?ve had 6,700 of our members go overseas to do a PEACE project.

We?ve asked everyone of our small groups to adopt a village somewhere in the world to assist the poor, care for the sick, educate the next generation? but you work through the local priest or pastor in that church camp. And when it comes to poverty, the answer to poverty is not money, the answer to poverty is opportunity. The only way you get rid of poverty is jobs; it?s not even money because it runs out. So charity is not the solution. In the last 50 years, the West has given around US$1.5 trillion to Africa and today Africa is worse than it was 50 years ago. It is poorer! So just pouring out money is not really good because a lot of that money, if you don?t care about the result, goes into the hands of corrupt leadership and not the people anyway.

Now, in the PEACE plan, you heard them say don?t give a man a fish, teach him to fish. We say that?s good, but it?s not good enough. Even beyond teaching them how to fish, we must teach him how to sell the fish. What I mean by that is how to develop a business... We need to create a diversified economy where someone says, ?I will catch the fish,? one guy says, ?I will clean the fish,? another says, ?I will can the fish,? another says, ?I will cook the fish in a restaurant,? next guy says, ?I will do the accounting,? and another says, ?I will fix baits and fishing poles.? Then you create diversity, then the entire economy grows.

In my belief, the church has three things that business and government don?t have.

The role of government is three things. No. 1 is to provide safety and security for the population, so we don?t have to worry about war or terrorism. It?s their responsibility to protect us.

The second role of government is to provide freedom for prosperity, so that anyone can go out and start a business; provide opportunities so you could have a living instead of having all these rules and regulations that keep you from starting a business, that keep you from owning lands, that keep you from developing prosperity.

The third is for the government to enforce the law.

Businesses have three roles, too. First, they bring jobs. The second is they bring capital, and the third is they bring management skills.

But the church has things that business and government will never have. No. 1, we have universal distribution, which means there?s a church in every village. There are millions and millions of villages that don?t have a school, a clinic, a post office, a business or even a grocery store, but they?ve got a church.
Why can?t we use that as a distribution point not just for spiritual care, but also for health care, business development, teaching literacy, things like that.
Second thing the church has that business and government don?t have is they have the largest volunteer force. The church has millions of volunteers around the world who give because they love.

And the third thing that the church has is local credibility, because in a village the priest is marrying, burying, baptizing, seeing the birth, caring for the sick and helping people with their problems, and they trust that pastor or that priest more than government or business, and he usually knows more about that village than anybody else because he?s living there.

So I say, could we not take the benefits of the church and match them with the three benefits of business and the three responsibilities of government, so that we can figure out a plan to reduce poverty in the Philippines? Because, obviously, single plans aren?t working so we need a coalition to work together.

So, to quote the question on the cover of your book, ?What on earth are you here for??
(Laughs) My purpose is to help other people find their purpose.

Your wife Kay is very supportive.
She?s very active. We started Saddleback church. When I finished seminary, I went to college, then I did my master?s and my doctorate, and we moved to California to start a church in a town that had no churches, so it was a brand- new city just being built. And I had no money, no members, no buildings. I was raised in a little village with less than a hundred people. When I got to Los Angeles, it was like Manila! (Laughter) Traffic was everywhere! (Laughter) And I saw all these traffic and I said, ?God, you?ve got the wrong guy. (Laughter) What am I doing here??

We pulled off the freeway and we found a real-estate office. And we walked in and found a real-estate agent, and I said, ?My name is Rick Warren, I am 25 years old??that was in 1980? ?and I?m here to start a new church and I have no money, no buildings, no members and I need a place to live.? He started laughing! (Laughter)

When we got there, we literally had to sleep in the truck. We had no money to spend the night anywhere and my wife was 25, I was 25, and we had a 4-month-old baby, a little girl.

Don, the agent, took us to this little apartment and we said we?d take it. He gave us the first month rent-free and no deposit. It was a miracle.

As we were driving, I said, ?Don, do you go to church?? He said ?Nah, I don?t like church.? I said, ?Great, you are my first member.? (Laughter) And that man became the first member of my church. (Laughter)

So we started with seven people?my wife and my little daughter, and Don and his wife and his little daughter, and one other person. Now over the last 26 years, Saddleback grew to be one of the largest churches in America. We have over 100,000 names on our computer roll of members ?it?s like a city. On a typical week, we have 20,000 people in attendance, maybe 22,000. People come to services on a day like Easter or Christmas and we?ll have 40,000 and I?ll preach 13 services in a row. Every week we do six services. I speak six times in a row.

Why did you call it Saddleback?
Saddleback is a very well-known mountain in California, south of Los Angeles, and you can see it all over?

Nothing to do with ?Brokeback,? right? (Laughter)
(Laughs) No, nothing! In Phoenix, there?s a Camelback Mountain, it looks like a camel. And our mountain is like a saddle on a horse, it?s a ?saddle in the mountain.? So we just named the church Saddleback because we?re at the base of the mountain.

What makes your church different from other churches and why has it grown so?
Well, I love people, and people usually go where they are loved. And I genuinely love people. All I had wanted to do was to become a pastor for my entire life. So I started this church when I was 25! In ?Future Shock,? Alvin Toffler said we need islands of stability in our lives. We need something that never changes when everything else in society has changed. There has to be something we can hold on to, like an anchor. I want this church to be an anchor for the community. I?ve now watched an entire generation grow up. When I started this church, my daughter was 4 months old. Today, she?s married and has two children of her own. I watched a whole generation of children grow up, come to faith and church, go to school, go to junior high school, become teenagers, get their hearts broken, you know, go out on dates, go away to college, come back and get married, have babies. I like this stability, and I?ve known these people their entire lives.

Continuation?