Orange County Churches Review & Guide

Saddleback

November 29th, 2004

www.saddleback.com

Church Review
Scriptural View: 3/5
Beliefs: 3/5
Community: 3/5
Preaching: Topical
Worship: Choruses
Service times: Sat. 4:30 & 6:30pm, Sun. 9:00 & 11:00 am, 4:30 & 6:30 pm

Website Review
Site Usability: 4/5
Site Design: 3/5
Site Content: 3/5

Review: I attended a service on Father’s Day of June 2004. Going to Saddleback church is an experience not unlike going to a resort on a vacation. As you turn onto “saddleback parkway” you drive up a winding road through a luscious landscape complete with rolling hills of green grass, palm trees, big red rocks and a waterfall. As you follow the signs and the parking attendants, they kindly help you find a place to park among the sea of cars that fill the lot. Sorry, no valet though.

As you walk onto the campus there are a number of large buildings. I wasn’t quite sure where to go so I walked over to a tent covered information booth. The person there explained to me that there were seven different “venues” to choose from. A “venue” is a “worship center” that conducts the service in a varying styles and settings. The “main worship center” is where the pastor of Saddleback Church, Rick Warren, speaks in person. His presentation is delivered on a live video feed to a large screen in each of the other six venues. Essentially what is different with each of the venues is the music and the decoration. There is a “rock-n-roll” venue, a “gospel choir” venue, an “island style” venue, a “saddleback with an edge” venue, “intimate younger” venue, a “Spanish” venue, and the “main worship center” venue. I decided to go to the “main worship center” venue because I wanted to see the famous Rick Warren in person.

The building is state of the art. There is a wall of glass that makes up the entrance. It is a good 50-75 yards long, has words and phrases frost-etched all across it and is inset with several glass doors. As you walk into the building there are at least a couple thousand seats to choose from. There is a main level of seating on the ground floor and then huge stadium like section of seating directed behind the ground-level seating. At the front is a huge platform with three large screens, one in the middle, two on each side. The two sides of the building are all windows. I sat down in the ground-level seating area and looked out the windows to see the sun reflecting off the mountains and the clouds hovering in the distance.

The service began with the musicians playing and the worship leader welcoming everyone and we all clapped for some reason. The music was top notch. Superb sound quality just as good if not better than a concert at the Verizon amphitheatre. There were all kinds of musicians, guitar, drums, a trumpet, a trombone, a violin, a keyboard, a group of backup singers and more. It was quite exciting. I kept turning my head to look at the screens and then at the stage and then back to the screens. I finally decided to just watch the screens because here were two guys on stage with these huge video cameras that kept running around filming everyone. But you didn’t see them on the screens. Instead, somehow they compile the live videography in real-time and project it on the screens into what looks a lot like a music video with different shots constantly changing back and forth.

After the music time everyone was quite pumped up! There was this intense sense of excitement in the air as Rick Warren walked out on the stage. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and khakis and as he began to speak it got real quiet in the building. While he was walking up to the microphone a row of men also walked in and sat at a line of seats behind him on the platform.

Pastor Rick began his talk by welcoming all the fathers and then proceeded with his sermon. His sermon consisted of reading a verse or two, usually from the paraphrase of the Bible, The Message and then he would immediately go on to explain how to apply that particular idea to our lives. This would take about three or four minutes for each verse. After each time he did this he had one of the men who were seated behind him come up and share about how they had applied what Rick had just talked to their lives about and how much better they were because of it. All this took about forty-five minutes. After the last guy shared, Rick said a few more words then the worship leader returned to lead everyone in another song and then we were all dismissed.

I cannot recommend this church as a good place for a Christian to grow the goal of becoming God-centered, Christ-saturated and Bible-intoxicated. From beginning to end the philosophy of ministry Rick Warren has written about in His book The Purpose Driven Church and expressed at Saddleback church is extremely man-centered. So much is done according to what people like and what is comfortable rather than focusing on careful exposition of Scripture and following it wherever it leads. I am not convinced that the strong focus on “purpose” from Rick Warren and Saddleback is healthy for Christians. What we need is to find value in making much of God, not Him making much of us.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 29th, 2004 at 5:12 pm and is filed under Churches, 3 Star Churches. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Saddleback

2456 Responses to “Saddleback”