The second day of the Baptist World Centenary Congress proceeded with focus groups following the Bible studies and worships in the morning. Out of the eight focus groups held in the various different venues, many Baptists pastors and ministers were attracted to the focus group under the theme "The Basic Purpose Driven Church".
Gerald Sharon, a pastor from the Saddleback Church in California, introduced Rick Warren’s healthy church model that has proved to be the amazing story of success that is Saddleback Church. The key concept of Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church model is that a church is to be built based on purposes instead of personalities.
Gerald Sharon asked the delegates ‘how can we define the purpose of a church?’ To this he shared the wisdom, "It’s not our job to discover the purpose of the church, but our job is to find out God’s purpose for the church."
Through Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church model, he has defined five major purposes of a church based on the great commandment and the great commission Jesus gave to his people - Worship, Ministry, Evangelism, Fellowship and Discipleship.
Quoted from Matthew 22: 37-40 the teaching of the great commandment, "love God with all your heart", represents the purpose of the church in Worship- a way to express our love to God. "Love your neighbour as yourself", corresponds to the purpose of the church in Ministry, which is to serve people and to share with people the love of Christ.
The great commission Jesus spoke of in Matthew 28:19-20 said, "Go and make disciples of all nations", and so the great challenge to the church is Evangelism; helping those who are lost and are waiting to be found.
In addition a church is to serve the purpose of Discipleship to train the people of God to live a Christ-like life, as Jesus said "teaching them to do everything I have commanded you".
After the detailed explanation of the theory behind the Purpose Driven Church Model, Gerald Sharon moved to the more practical side in ministering. After all these great visions and purposes, the first priority of leadership is to continually clarify and communicate these messages to every level of the congregation.
