Geoff Surratt: My Prayer for Rick and Kay Warren – Re-Blog

Geoff Surratt: My Prayer for Rick and Kay Warren
By Geoff Surratt

My heart as a parent breaks for Rick and Kay Warren in the tragic loss of their son Matthew. While the pain of losing a child is almost incomprehensible to me, I can’t imagine having that loss splashed across the home page of every leading news website. And piled on top are the idiots who have never met Rick or Kay, but feel now is an appropriate time to spew their special brand of evil hatred. While I can’t alleviate their pain, protect them from the prying eyes of the insatiable media or throttle the fools who attack a family while they are down, I can at least share what I know of the character of this family.

During my time working for Rick at Saddleback I saw the heart of a gentle and loving father and grandfather. Between services almost every weekend most of Rick’s grandkids come busting into the greenroom with their parents in tow looking for Papa Rick. In doesn’t matter if George Bush, Tony Blair or CNN is there, Rick has time for a game of Tubby Tubby. (For the uninitiated, Tubby Tubby is when Rick lays on the floor and stacks the grandkids on his stomach. He then wraps his enormous arms around them and rolls from side to side calling out “Tubby Tubby” while the children collapse in squeals of laughter.) After a round of Tubby Tubby everyone grabs a juice box out of Papa’s refrigerator and Rick heads to the stage to preach another sermon to the Saddleback family.

Kay has amazing mother’s heart which has been broken again and again as she has seen her children struggle with enormous challenges. She walked with her son Josh and his wife as Jamie went through a terrifying battle with brain cancer. She comforts and supports her daughter Amy through years of struggle with a difficult to diagnose immune disease. In the midst of all of the challenges her children faced Kay waged her own war with breast cancer. And she did all of this with beauty and grace in the harsh spotlight of public scrutiny that she never asked for.

Woven through all of the challenges of leading a world famous church, answering the demands of thousands of church members and hundreds of thousands of admirers, fueling a worldwide movement to stamp out AIDS and to care for orphans, Rick and Kay have dealt as quietly as possible with the mental illness that finally led their youngest son Matthew to take his own life this past week. Very few people outside of family, close friends and Saddleback staff members realized the daily anguish Rick and Kay dealt with as they desperately tried to help Matthew. Many times Rick or Kay had to cancel public appearances at the last minute to try to help Matthew through another crisis. When I got the email on Saturday morning saying that Matthew had died I knew all that I needed to know. Matthew had ended his long and tortured battle the only way he saw possible. And a family who have known more pain than most could endure now have to face the worst and face it while the world looks on.

My prayer, and I hope your prayer, for Rick and Kay and Josh and Jamie and Tommy and Amy and all of the Warren family is that they will experience the peace that Paul speaks of in Philippians, a peace that passes all human understanding. Rick and Kay are wonderful parents and grandparents. They are remarkable leaders. They are kind and caring people. But today they are hurting and brokenhearted humans, just like you and me. Will you join me in praying for healing that can only come from God?

A Biblical Worldview Requires Uncommon Courage – Rick Warren

A Biblical Worldview Requires Uncommon Courage
by Rick Warren

“Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent.” (Acts 18:9b NIV)

If ever there was a message you need in today’s culture, it’s this: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent” (Acts 18:9b NIV). In a world full of ideas and beliefs that go against God’s Word, God wants you to have an uncommon courage and stand up for what you know is true and right. Everyone else is speaking up and telling you their worldview every day. Why shouldn’t you stand up for what you believe?

To stand courageously, you have to know what the world believes and what God says is the truth. This is called a worldview — what you base your beliefs on. Everyone has a worldview. It is the lens through which you view life. Instagram is an online photo-sharing program that has these cool filters that make even a lousy picture look like something that belongs in a gallery. But it’s still the same lousy picture! Similarly, every person uses a different filter through which they see and understand the world. We may all be looking at the same event, but we will see it differently because of our conflicting worldviews.

Your worldview includes how you see God, yourself, others, the past, present, and future, money, time, good and evil. It influences everything in your life. Every time you make a decision, you access the worldview database in your mind and decide that, because I believe this, this is what I’m going to do. Your worldview influences every choice you make.

Here’s the problem: You are profoundly influenced by the worldviews of others. Every time you have a conversation, a worldview is being communicated. You are influenced by the worldviews of your parents, friends, an advertisement, or a newspaper article. Nothing is fair and balanced, because everyone has a worldview. Continue reading “A Biblical Worldview Requires Uncommon Courage – Rick Warren” →

Resolve Conflict by Confessing Your Part – Rick Warren

Peanut Gallery: Conflict resolution begins with you.

When you’re wrong, admit it. And when you’re right, shut up!

Resolve Conflict by Confessing Your Part by Rick Warren

Why do you notice the little piece of dust in your friend’s eye, but you don’t notice the big piece of wood in your own eye? First, take the wood out of your own eye. Then you will see clearly to take the dust out of your friend’s eye. (Matthew 7:3-5 NCV)

When you are faced with a conflict, instead of accusing, attacking, or blaming the other person, begin with humility. This is true even if the conflict is 90% their fault.

Everyone has blindspots. No one is perfect and there are things we do that contribute toward a conflict that we have difficulty seeing.

So, before I start attacking and blaming, I need to do a frank evaluation and ask, “How much of this conflict is my fault?” I need to do an honest checkup and admit my part. Continue reading “Resolve Conflict by Confessing Your Part – Rick Warren” →

Rick Warren: On Responding to False Accusations

Let me be clear: This entire misunderstanding is neither the fault of Saddleback members nor our Muslim friends who accepted the invitation to study the Bible together. It’s the result of poor reporting and the willingness of irresponsible bloggers who hate us to automatically believe anything negative about our church. They shoot first, publish a report, then ask for clarification after they’ve done the damage, and finally, they never retract anything when proven wrong. When a national news agency contacted us this week, their conclusion was “There’s no real story here.” Duh!

This incident also highlights the gullibility of people who believe everything negative on the Internet without fact-checking and the willingness of Christians to pass on bad reports about others that they can’t confirm. When people WANT to believe the worst about you, they always pass on negative reports without validating them first. It’s a motivation issue.

“Only a fool believes everything he’s told! A prudent man understands the need for proof.” (Proverbs 14:15)

For full story – click here –

On Responding to False Accusations.

EXCLUSIVE Rick Warren: ‘Flat Out Wrong’ That Muslims, Christians View God the Same, Christian News

LAKE FOREST, Calif. – Influential evangelist Pastor Rick Warren has labeled as “flat out wrong” a local newspaper’s assertion that he believes Muslims and Christians worship the same God, has partnered with Southern California mosques and has agreed not to evangelize Muslims….

“Building a bridge has nothing to do with compromising your beliefs,” Warren says in an interview done in collaboration with Pastors.com Editor Brandon Cox and The Christian Post. “Because Jesus commanded us to take the Gospel to everyone, I spend much of my time with groups of people who completely disagree with what I believe. I’m constantly trying to build a bridge of love to nonbelievers, to atheists, to gays, to those I disagree with politically, and to those of other faiths….”

When asked by CP about the Register’s lead paragraph that states he “has embarked on an effort to heal divisions between evangelical Christians and Muslims by partnering with Southern California mosques and proposing a set of theological principles that includes acknowledging that Christians and Muslims worship the same God,” Warren stated:  ”First, as I’ve already said, Christians have a fundamentally different view of God than Muslims. We worship Jesus as God. Muslims don’t. Second, while we urge members to build friendships with Muslims and everyone in our community (“Love your neighbor as yourself”), our church has no partnership with any mosque. For example, I know that some of our members have led Bible study with Muslim friends, which I applaud. But I’ve never been to it, and it certainly isn’t any kind of partnership or merger. It’s crazy how a simple Bible study can be interpreted by some people as a plan for a new religion!”

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EXCLUSIVE Rick Warren: 'Flat Out Wrong' That Muslims, Christians View God the Same, Christian News.