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Dr. Warren is a global strategist, innovator, author, philanthropist, and pastor. Numerous polls have identified him as “America’s most influential spiritual leader”(1). He was listed in
15 People Who Make America Great Newsweek 2006
America’s 25 Best Leaders U.S. News & World Report 2006
The 100 Most Influential People in the World TIME 2005
One of World’s 100 Most Powerful Celebrities Forbes 2006
America’s Most Influential Pastor Christianity Today 2003
The Most Influential Evangelical in America TIME 2005
The successor to Billy Graham as America’s minister USA TODAY 2006
As a global strategist, Dr. Warren advises leaders in the public, private, and faith sectors on, poverty, health, education, corruption, leadership development, and faith and ethics in culture. He has lectured at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, the World Economic Forum in Davos, the United Nations, the Global Health Summit, the Aspen Ideas Institute, TED, and numerous world congresses. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
As a pastor, he founded Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA., with one family in 1980. Today it may be America’s most influential congregation with 83,000 names on the church roll, a 120 acre campus, and over 300 community ministries to groups as prisoners, CEOs, down syndrome children, addicts, single parents, and those with HIV/AIDS. The church recently fed every homeless person in Orange County, 3 meals a day, for 40 days. In Forbes’ Celebrity 100 list, he was the only person rated “trustworthy”
As an innovator he built the Purpose Driven Network, a global alliance of over 400,000 pastors from in 162 countries and hundreds of denominations who have been trained by Warren. He also founded www.pastors.com, that provides sermons, forums, and resources for hundreds of thousands of church leaders. Forbes magazine wrote, "If Saddleback ministry was a business its influence would be compared with Dell, Google or Starbucks"
Dr. Warren has introduced dozens of innovations that are now commonly used hundreds of thousands of churches around the world. Before he died, Peter Drucker noted, “Saddleback Church is the Bell Laboratories of Christianity – the R & D department of the Church. Warren has a genius for synthesizing complex ideas and simplifying them into practical models. He’s done it with organizing volunteers, preaching sermons, building multiple worship services, mobilizing small groups, creating systems for spiritual growth, and networking churches. He’s the John Wesley of the 21st Century and the inventor of perpetual revival. But he’s also a reformer in the tradition of Wilberforce.” In 1992, Saddleback became the first church on the Internet.
As an author, he wrote The Purpose Driven Life, the bestselling hardback in American history, according to Publisher’s Weekly. It has sold 30 million copies in English and was the best-selling book in the world for 3 years, in over 50 languages. His previous book, The Purpose Driven Church, won the ECPA Gold Medallion and is listed in 100 Books that Changed the 20th Century. Forbes called it “The best book on entrepreneurship, management, and leadership in print.” His six books have been translated into 56 languages.
As philanthropists, Rick and Kay Warren give away 90% of their income through three charities: Acts of Mercy, which serves people with AIDS, Equipping Leaders, which trains leaders in developing countries, and The Global PEACE Fund, which fights poverty, disease, corruption, and illiteracy using local congregations.
MEDIA QUOTES
Fortune “America’s superstar pastor has an ambitious plan to mobilize millions to fight poverty, illiteracy, and AIDS in Africa, and he’s got the management genius to do it.... Warren is secular America’s favorite Evangelical.”
The Times (London) “Business and political leaders across America are turning to Rick Warren for guidance.”
The Economist “Rick Warren is arguably the most influential pastor in America.”
Business Week “...the most celebrated of the nation's evangelical leaders. Warren is also an effective entrepreneur who has started three remarkably successful ventures.”
ABC News “The Purpose-Driven Life is the epicenter of a spiritual shockwave taking root across America in unlikely places like offices and university campuses. It has become a movement.”
The Weekly Standard -“… Warren is clearly among the two or three most influential Americans working from the West coast.”
Books and Culture “Rick Warren’s Saddleback is America’s most fascinating megachurch.”
TIME “Movie stars and political leaders aren't the only ones turning to Rick Warren for spiritual guidance. Millions of people — from NFL and LPGA players to corporate executives to high school students to prison inmates — meet regularly to discuss The Purpose Driven Life.”
The Register “...one of the 100 People who shaped Orange County in past 100 years.”
(1) USA Today, The Economist, Wall Street Journal, TIME, New Yorker, Boston Globe, Washington Post.
Warren was born in San Jose, California. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from California Baptist University, a Master of Divinity from Southwestern Theological Seminary, and a Doctor of Ministry degree from Fuller Theological Seminary. Rick and his wife, Kay, live in Trabuco Canyon, California and have three children.
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