Much has already been said at blogs JesusCreed .org and Out of Ur about the effectiveness of Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven formula to creating/growing churchs, but I’ll throw a little bit more out there:

Surveys and marketing as tools (and not as ends in of themselves) are valuable because they can help us be “all things to all people.” Paul’s letters are clearly targeted at different audiences in order to speak to each in a manner most befitting the local culture, background, and situation. Hence why we have Romans, Corinthians, etc.

This is by no means a call for relativism, because the Gospel remains the same and universal, but Jesus was very clear when he ordered his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations. The disciples often accomplished this by leaving their homes (as Jesus had modeled) and living with the communities in which they would establish a new branch of the Church.

Community is such an important part of the body of Christ, and, while the focus should always be on the people — even more than on the processes — a basic, systematic order to the life of the community is something that church leaders have seen fit to establish from the start. Jesus picked out twelve men to start the church. The disciples, when one of them was lost, recognized the importance of replacing that one in order to restore the original group’s number. They also recognized that their primary purpose in the life of the early Church consisted of preaching the word of God, so they encouraged and pushed for others to do other things such as caring for widows (see Acts 6). In the 16th century, Reformed leaders such as Calvin and Zwingli were very caught up in the idea of establishing an order. Today we often refer to an “order of worship” (and that phrase has been around for centuries).

Having a method is good and necessary. Worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and evangelism are all essential ingredients in the lives of churches. People and communities are different, so what works in San Clemente, CA may or may not work as well in Alpharetta, GA. Different people need to hear different things and in different ways — that’s why the Gospel is told four different times (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John)! I applaud the apparent effectiveness of the Purpose Driven Church formula in some churches, and I hope that individuals remember that the formula can work well in other places so long as you modify the formula to fit the new place. You never need to change the Gospel message, but you may need to speak a different language.