Warren, millionaire minister and bestselling author: "To whom much is given, much is required."

It was before dawn in California, and the always restless Rick Warren was at work on his home computer, exchanging e-mails with some of the 250,000 pastors in his vast network around the world. Suddenly a message from a minister in Colombo, Sri Lanka, flashed across his screen. "Rick, please pray for us," he wrote on that December day in 2004. "We had a huge earthquake two minutes ago, and I'm sure a tidal wave is coming."

Warren, founder of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, did more than pray. He immediately had his staff contact church leaders in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and India with a directive: "Head for high ground. There is a disaster." The e-mails arrived before the tsunami hit.

The following Sunday, he stood up at Saddleback and said, "Folks, we need to help these people who have gone through this tidal wave. Please give a little extra." The donations that morning totaled $1.6 million, about a million dollars more than the usual Sunday offering. Warren sent it to the churches in the stricken region; it paid for everything from fishing nets to boat repairs. When Hurricane Katrina drowned New Orleans nine months later, Warren asked his congregation to give again-and this time raised $1.7 million.

Saddleback, a mega-church in the hills of affluent Orange County, California, is one of the few in the world with the members and the means to manage such generosity. But then, Warren is used to big numbers.

Some 83,000 people worship at Saddleback, choosing from 28 church services on four campuses each week. Warren's first book— The Purpose Driven Church, published in 1995 and aimed at pastors—has sold a million copies. In 2002 he released The Purpose Driven Life, which has sold 30 million, making it one of the bestselling books of all time. He and his wife give away 90 percent of their income to charity, much of it anonymously; in 2004, the last year the figures were made public, they donated $13 million.

The number Warren is focused on now, though, is five—the problems he calls the five global giants: spiritual emptiness, self-serving leadership, extreme poverty, pandemic diseases, and rampant illiteracy. His solution? A five-part PEACE Plan spearheaded by pastors like him and, he hopes, supported by politicians worldwide: Promote reconciliation. Equip servant leaders. Assist the poor. Care for the sick. Educate the next generation. "When I preach about this to pastors around the world, I tell them you're blessed to bless others," Warren says. "Whatever you've been given, God doesn't give it to you so you can be a fat cat but so you can help other people."

Helping the poor and the sick wasn't always Warren's focus. He spent the first decade of his ministry building an ever-bigger church. Then his wife, Kay, read an article about AIDS orphans in Africa and made her first two trips there to see how she might contribute. After that, she learned she had breast cancer. Her diagnosis only strengthened her resolve to help the impoverished. Rick Warren took his wife's illness—and her response to it—as a sign that he needed to refocus his ministry. "It was like the blinders came off," he says. "I've got three advanced degrees. I went to two different seminaries and a Bible school. How did I miss the 2,000 verses in the Bible where it talks about the poor?"

Through his global network of pastors, he's recruited hundreds of thousands of volunteers to battle adult illiteracy in North America and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, among other causes. Warren envisions a billion Christian foot soldiers mobilized around the world using local churches to dispense everything from medical care to agricultural tools.

Working with such big numbers on such an ambitious agenda has made Warren famous-and controversial. Anyone who didn't recognize his name before last August probably did after he invited Senators Barack Obama and John McCain to Saddleback for a highly publicized forum during the presidential campaign. He drew protests when he supported California's ban on gay marriage and again when Obama chose him to give the invocation at his inauguration. "The rage against Rick Warren has come from both liberals and conservatives," says Steven Waldman, cofounder of the religious website beliefnet.com. "But actually, he's playing a pretty significant role in changing the face of evangelical Christianity in America on issues from the environment to world poverty. And he's more open to engaging with opponents, which is how this friction started." Rick Warren Photographed by Michael O'Brien Star power: Warren with then-candidate Barack Obama at a Saddleback forum last August. Warren changed a great deal as he progressed from a preacher who wanted to "build a church for people who hate church" to worldwide religious leader. He spoke with Reader's Digest—whose parent company recently launched his new magazine, Purpose Driven Connection—twice in recent months. Here are excerpts from those two interviews:

Q. Were you surprised when you were selected to give the invocation?

A. I was humbled and honored to have a tiny part in a history-making day. The invitation was completely unexpected. I could name several dozen wonderful pastors who would have done a better job.

Q. Why did you invite the two candidates to Saddleback last August?

A. I'd known both senators before they decided to run for the presidency, and I happened to like them both. They are both patriots, they both love America, they're both good leaders.

Q. What did you hope to accomplish with the event?

A. I wanted to try to tone down the rhetoric—one of my goals is to restore civility to our society.

Q. That goes beyond preaching the Gospel.

A. As a pastor, I'm for the good news and the common good. The good news is about Jesus Christ. The common good—whether you believe in Jesus Christ or not—is that we're all on this planet. We're all a part of humanity.

Q. How did you choose Southern California to start spreading your message?

A. It was a total move on faith. I had graduated from the seminary, and Kay and I were living in Fort Worth, Texas. I remember telling her, "I think we're supposed to go to Southern California and start a new church. What do you think?" She said, "Well, it scares me to death, but I believe in God and I believe in you, so let's do it." So we got in the car and dragged a U-Haul behind us. We arrived here on January 1, 1980, in the middle of rush-hour traffic—I grew up in a village of about 500 people—and I said, "God, you got the wrong guy. What am I doing here?"

Q. How did you find your answer?

A. I pulled off the highway, and we walked into this real estate office and met an agent named Don Dale. I said, "My name is Rick Warren. I am 25 years old. I'm here to start a church. I don't have any members. I don't have a building. I don't know anybody here. I don't have any money, and I need a place to live." Within two hours, that guy found us a condo. He convinced the owner to give us a free month of rent and nothing down.

Q. Did Don join your church?

A. We were driving to the condo with him and I said, "Hey, Don, do you go to church anywhere?" He said, "No, no. I hate church." I said, "Great. You're my first member." We started with my family and his family. Our first service was on Easter Sunday in 1980, with 200 people. For Easter in 2008, we had 14 services back-to-back, with 45,000 people. Don is still a member here.

Q. When did you decide to expand beyond Lake Forest?

A. In our second decade, we said, "Okay, now we're going to go national, and we're going to help others." I cared about the little churches with 50 or 75 members. Maybe they couldn't afford to pay someone full-time to be their pastor, and I said, "Let's help these guys." So I started training pastors, and in the '90s, I trained about 250,000 people all over America. After that, we reached out globally.

Q. What have your travels around the world taught you?

A. I have seen the quick jump from political division to hatred in too many countries. All of a sudden, the guy you disagree with is evil, and you demonize him. In Rwanda you call him a cockroach and you create this mentality that can lead to genocide. It's one step from dehumanizing people who have a different view on a value that you hold dear to depersonalizing them so they are no longer human—and then you have a right to just get rid of them. Hitler did it. I don't think we want to go down that path.

Q. How do we ensure that we don't?

A. The idea of tolerance has to come back into style. Tolerance means I treat you with respect even when we totally disagree on a particular issue. You're a child of God. You're worthy of dignity. We may disagree, but we're going to tolerate each other, and even more than that, we can be friends.

Q. You've said it's important for evangelicals to be more about what they're for than what they're against. When you came out against gay marriage, Saddleback was picketed. One woman, a lesbian who attends Saddleback, said how disappointed she was in you.

A. You're never going to please everybody. I don't need to agree with somebody in order to love them. I don't need to agree with somebody in order to help them either. I hope they feel the same way about me.

Q. What's your advice for someone who wants to live a more meaningful life?

A. Love God and other people with all you've got! Living a purpose-driven life means making an intentional shift from self-centered thinking to other-centered thinking. Ask yourself, "What should be the contribution of my life?" By knowing your combination of gifts, abilities, and experiences, you'll see where you can make a difference.

From Reader's Digest - March 2009

http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/rick-warren- man-on-a-mission/article118935-1.html