Ep. 15 / Finishing the Task: A Vision for Reaching the World ► Rick Warren

Join host Brian Stiller as he engages in a thought-provoking conversation with Pastor Rick Warren, the influential author of The Purpose-Driven Life and founder of Saddleback Church. Rick tackles the pressing issue of cultural and political polarization impacting the church today, and shares his insightful perspective on how Christians should focus on eternal values rather than getting entangled in temporal political battles. Reflecting on Jesus' teachings, Rick reminds us that God's kingdom is not of this world, and he urges believers to concentrate on spreading the gospel and investing in spiritual relationships that transcend earthly divides.

Amidst global shifts, Christianity is experiencing phenomenal growth, particularly in the Global South, even as numbers decline in Europe and North America. Rick shares about the ambitious Finishing the Task initiative, inspired by Billy Graham, aiming to reach unengaged, unreached people groups by 2033, coinciding with Christianity's 2000th anniversary. He tells about the strides made over the past 23 years in bringing the gospel to the world’s corners and the future goals of reaching major unreached groups with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Exploring new evangelism strategies, this episode explores innovative approaches that emphasize personal testimonies and hope over traditional methods. Inspired by the early church's model, Rick highlights the importance of small, home-based gatherings for organic growth and the concept of "rabbit churches" for rapid multiplication, and underscores the role of breakthrough prayer in completing the Great Commission. Join us for this episode of evangelical 360, as we envision a global network of believers working collaboratively to ensure universal access to the gospel by 2033.

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Finishing the Task

email: rick@finishingthetask.com

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Transcript

Brian Stiller

Hello and welcome to evangelical 360. My name is Brian Stiller, Global Ambassador for the World Evangelical Alliance and host of this new podcast series. On evangelical 360, I interview leaders, writers and influencers about contemporary issues which are impacting Christian life around the world. My hope is that it will not only be a global meeting place where faith is explored from different perspectives, but that each person listening will come away informed, encouraged, challenged and even inspired.

Today I'm delighted to welcome well-known pastor and author, Rick Warren, founder of Saddleback Church and author of the best-selling The Purpose-Driven Life. Time Magazine, named Rick Warren the most influential spiritual leader in America and one of the most influential people in the world. His books have sold tens of millions of copies in 200 languages, resonating with millions globally. Rick Warren has spoken in 165 nations, as well as at the United Nations, the US Congress and the World Economic Reform. He's lectured at universities from Oxford to Harvard and I'm looking forward to hearing about his latest endeavor Finishing the Task. I'm confident that you will find Part 3 of my conversation with Rick Warren inspiring. 

Welcome, Pastor, Rick, to evangelical 360.

Rick Warren

Thank you, Brian.

Brian Stiller

Rick, it's absolutely amazing to see how God has used your life and ministry over the years. Since the passing of Billy Graham, you've been dubbed America's pastor by Time magazine. You've had decades of experience leading one of America's largest evangelical churches, but most recently it's been during a very divisive time in the US. How would you speak to the cultural and political divide that appears to be tearing the church apart today?

Rick Warren

Well, it is probably the biggest thing that's tearing apart the church right now in America. The division and the polarization is politics is tearing the church apart and the reason why. The biggest thing. The first place I'd say to people who are just members of a church stop watching political talk shows, stop watching the news. You can get your news from other ways. The news is built on conflict, so they want to create conflict, and politics is built on having an enemy, so they want to create an enemy.

Jesus never preached a single sermon on politics and the Christians of that day were in a much worse culture anti-Christian culture in the Roman Empire ungodly, immoral, far worse culture than we're in today. Far, far worse. Jesus never preached a sermon on it. In fact, the only thing Jesus ever said about politics was standing before Pilate, right before he's crucified, and Pilate asks him a political question. He says are you a king? Are you a king? In other words, are you a political leader? And here's Jesus' answer is classic and every Christian needs to remember this. Jesus said Are you a king? Are you a king? In other words, are you a political leader? And here's Jesus' answer is classic and every Christian needs to remember this.

Jesus said my kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight. This is not our battle to fight. We're wasting energy on political campaigns that should be used on winning the loss to Christ around the world. Our kingdom is not of this world, jesus said. If it were, my servants would fight. The problem today is we've got Christian servants, including pastors, who are fighting the wrong battle. God has not called me to save America. God has not called me to save America. He's called me to save Americans. Jesus didn't die for any country. He died for the whole world. He died for Mexicans and Canadians and Africans and Asians and Europeans. He died for the whole world. We are a borderless kingdom, powerless kingdom, and I have more in common with a I'm six foot two, white American male, but I have more in common with a five foot two female Korean woman who loves the Lord, because my bond she's my sister in Christ. That's a greater bond than my bond to people who look like me, men who look like me, who are white, american and vote a particular way. That's a temporary connection. My permanent connection is to the body of Christ, which is all around the world, which my kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight. If pastors would preach on that and say we need to stop fighting battles that aren't our battles.

Most Christians today are investing their time and energy in stuff that's not going to last for five years, much less 50, 500, or for eternity. If you want to make your life count, if you want to make your life count, you have to. You got three alternatives you can waste your life, you can spend your life or you can invest your life. The best use of your life is to invest it in that which outlasts it, and the Bible says there are only two things that are gonna last forever. Everything else on earth is gonna burn up. Even the world's gonna burn up one day. This is going to last. So why are we investing in it? There are only two things that are going to last. Number one is the word of God. So you invest your life in the word of God. Heaven and earth can pass away, but my word will never pass away. 

Second, there's one other thing that's going to last forever. Oh yeah, people. People are made by God to last forever. Every Christian and every non-Christian is going to last forever. The only difference is where you last forever. If you invite Christ into your life, if you know the Lord, if you've trusted him for salvation why Christ died on the cross, you're going to spend eternity with God. We call that heaven, but everybody who doesn't do that, they're going to still live for eternity. They're just going to live without God for eternity, and to me that would be hell. And so we need to invest in the things that matter people and the word of God. And if churches could get back to that and stop arguing over non-issues.

Well, I'm of Apollos, well, I'm of Paul, well, I'm of this and I'm of that. And the biggest thing is and this is not just an American problem there is a rising sense of nationalism. I see it everywhere. In almost every nation, the people are being more nationalistic as a response to increased immigration around the world. Well, I don't know about other countries, I know that in North America, in Canada and in the US particularly, we are nations of immigrants. Everybody except the Native Americans who were here in Canada and America, everybody else came on a boat. We just came on different boats. We are nations of immigrants, and so we have to preach the reconciliation message of God has given to us the ministry of reconciliation.

Brian Stiller

Rick, talk about the shift in the church that you're seeing around the world.

Rick Warren

A hundred years ago, Brian, 95% of all Christians in the world lived either in Europe or in North America. 95% of all Christians lived in the continents of Europe or North America. Today, 100 years later, it's the exact opposite. 95% of all the Christians in the world do not live in Europe or North America. They live in Africa, latin America and South Asia. There is a great shifting from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere. All of the growth is in the Southern Hemisphere. All of the largest churches are in the Southern Hemisphere. For instance, there are over 400 million Christians in Africa. 400 million, that means there are more Christians in Africa than there are people in the US and Canada combined. And so what we're going to have to do is we're going to have to have the South re-evangelize the North, and this is happening. The two greatest missionary nations right now are Nigeria and South Korea in sending out the most missionaries. And so there's a shifting of the church, not simply a shrinking, but a shifting.

In the last 24 years, since the year 2000, the world population has been growing 1% a year. 1% a year every year for 24 years, but the Christian church that's all the different brands and tribes of Christianity has grown in the same period of time 2% a year every year for 24 years. That means the Christian church is growing 100% faster than the population. That's good news 100% faster than the population. When we look around and we see our churches shrinking in our community, we think that's happening everywhere. No, it's not. The church is exploding everywhere else except Europe and North America. So we're growing at 2% a year 100%. Now there are two tribes in Christianity that in the last 24 years, have grown 4% a year every year for 24 years. That means they're growing four times as fast as the population, and those two groups are number one Pentecostals and number two Evangelicals. Nobody's talking about this. The church is exploding with growth in the southern hemisphere, in the global south, and so we should not be discouraged.

Brian Stiller

That's the perfect segue into asking you about the project Finishing the Task. Do you want to start by giving us an understanding of how it started and what it's about?

Rick Warren

Billy Graham we've mentioned him a couple of times was actually my mentor. He heard about this long-haired teenager, skinny kid with wire-rimmed glasses preaching up a storm on the West Coast. As a teenager and I met him when I was 18 years old Billy took me under his arm and mentored me for the next 42 years. When Amsterdam 2000 came along, billy said, rick, I want you to do a conference within a conference and I want you to call it finishing the task and I want you to invite 650 mission experts from all around the world, authorities on world missions. Bring them together and while I'm doing the other Amsterdam conference, you do this breakout on why have we not completed the Great Commission. So we put at a table in the middle. They had 76 tables and at the middle table I put the leaders of the largest mission agencies Campus, crusade for Christ, southern Baptist International Mission Board, youth with a Mission, united Bible Societies, wycliffe, bible Translators on and on what I call the gorillas of global evangelism. At the end of that conference, that particular table said let's keep meeting, and so we just kept the name Table 71. And we met twice a year for the next 23 years.

That FTT 1.0, Finishing the Task 1.0, was focused on the unengaged, unreached, the UUPGs. These are people who have no Bible, no believer, no believer in their tribe and no body of Christ. Now, these are the last, the least, the lost. The reason why they have no scriptures in their language is they're all small tribes. There are about 3,600 of them and they all have less than 100,000 people. But we said we're going to get a Bible, a believer and a body of Christ at least a Bible portion, a believer and a body of Christ established in every one of these 3,600 tribes. Over the last 23 years, we've been taking about 50 to 75 of those tribes off the list every year where we would get a scripture portion translated, we'd get some converts and we'd get a church planted in that group. They all had, I said, less than 100,000 people.

In 2019, we were doing an annual meeting at Saddleback. I was elected and two months after that, covid hit and so really nothing pretty much got done for about a year and a half. But then I said we're going to go a different direction because we were getting down to zero on that list and everybody not everybody had been reached, but everybody had been adopted by somebody on that, on some organization or denomination or church. I said we're going to do FTT 2.0. And I said 2.0 is now to go, after all the big blocks, who don't know?

You know, there are 900 million Buddhists in the world who don't know Christ. There are a billion Hindus in the world. Now, let me explain this. They don't all use our terminology, they're not of our tribe. They wouldn't all say I'm born again, spirit-filled, Great Commission, Christian, sharing my faith. But if you were to say these 2.6 billion, do you believe Jesus is who he said? He is, yeah, the son of God. Yeah, yeah, I believe he's the son of God. Do you believe he died on the cross for our sins, shed his blood for us? Yeah, do you believe he rose again? Yeah, do you believe he gave us a great commission? I don't know what that is. You believe he gave us the Great Commission? I don't know what that is. Do you believe he ascended back to heaven and went back to heaven? Yes, he's coming back one day. Yeah, do you believe he sent the Holy Spirit to start the church? Yeah, then we're on the same team. So part of the Great Commission is re-evangelizing the church, just as there are cultural Muslims who don't know what they believe and there are nominal Buddhists who don't know what they believe. There are cultural and nominal Christians who don't know what they believe and are nominal Christians, but they're not anti like an atheist would be or whatever like that.

So we started. We said we're going to have four goals and we're going to have a 2033 deadline. Now, the 2033 deadline is an interesting thing the people who are listening to this podcast right now. We live in a very historic time. We're going to get to be, lord willing, alive on the 2000th birthday of Christianity. Now already Christians around the world are starting to say how are we going to celebrate the birthday of Christ's body on earth? What do you give Jesus for his 2000th birthday of his body on earth? What Jesus wants most is he wants his lost children found. What Jesus wants most is he wants everybody in the world to hear that he died for them. So we said why don't we choose that just as a date? There's no eschatological significance to that date, it's just a date. But we say we move faster when we set a date and we adopted in the Great Commission Allies four goals.

They all start with B Bibles, believers, bodies of Christ and breakthrough prayer Bibles. We want everybody to have access to the scripture in their heart language by 2033. Now we didn't think, people didn't think that was possible, but now it is possible because of technology, brian. Every time the scripture or God's word is put in a new technology, we have revival. For instance, god did not give us the printing press for pornography. God gave Gutenberg the printing press to print the Bible and within about 30 years we had the reformation because of that new technology. Christians were the first to use telephone for evangelism, first to use radio for evangelism, were first to use television for evangelism, first to use the internet for evangelism, and now we're using social media. And now we even have new tools AI. So Bibles, the second B is believer. We want to train every believer in the world on how to share their testimony in a non-threatening, normal way, natural way. We want to go back to the way they did it in the New Testament.

For the last 100 years we've been taught the wrong form of evangelism that witnessing is a memorized sales pitch. You can't find that anywhere in scripture. Nobody had a memorized sales pitch in the Bible. I once looked for Jesus' standard approach to evangelism. He didn't have one when he's with the woman at the well, he talks about living water. When he's with fishermen, he talks about catching fish. When he's with farmers, he talks about sowing seed. He didn't have a four spiritual laws, a standard memorized pitch. What we have to remember? That in that first 350 years of the church, the fastest period of growth, where everybody was gossiping the gospel and people were being saved right and left, nobody had a Bible. There were no church buildings until 340 AD. There were no pulpits till 900 AD. Nobody in Christianity owned a Bible till the 15th century.

And yet Christianity spread by simply people testifying. You will be my witness. And another thing is that we don't not one place in scriptures that say share your faith. What it does say in Peter is be ready to give an answer, to share the hope that you have in you. Hope is your testimony, faith is the doctrinal statements. God wants you to share your hope. What's the benefit? How has Christ made a difference in your life? So we're going to teach people a whole new way of evangelism, because right now, the one thing that non-believers and believers have in common they both hate evangelism, they're both scared of it. Because who wants to give a memorized sales pitch to their best friend? Nobody. Jesus has not called us to be salesmen. He's called us to just share our hope. Well, how has God helped you? And everybody can do that. So we're going to get that. Bibles, believers.

Third is bodies of Christ. We want everybody in the world to have access to a local church by the year 2033. Now that requires starting tens of millions of new churches, but most of them won't ever have a building. We talked about three kinds of churches Rabbit churches, tiger churches and elephant churches. And what's going to win the world are rabbit churches. Rabbit churches are the way the church grew. The first 350 years there were no church buildings. For 350 years fastest period of growth it was all in homes. The answer to the 21st century is the first century. The church at its birth was the church at its best. And so this third B, bodies of Christ, we're going to start many, many millions of house churches and home churches and small group churches.

Now the Tiger Church is the typical church. Typical church has between 50 and maybe 125, 150 people. I call that a Tiger Church because they're almost indestructible. A church of 75 people, you can't kill it. The pastor's bad preaching, the deacon runs off with the secretary. Somebody steals the money. You can't kill that church because they're not there for the program or the preaching. They're there for the relationship. We need lots of. That's where most churches are. Lots of tiger churches, but a tiger church.

She has a nine-month pregnancy a tiger, and she'll only give birth to one or two cubs and then she can't get pregnant again for another year. So it's much stronger than a rabbit church, but it doesn't reproduce. Now the elephant church, of course, is the mega church. The mega church is a church of 2,000 people or more. We don't need a lot of mega churches. We only need mega churches in mega cities. We don't need them everywhere else. And an elephant she goes through a two-year pregnancy. She carries a baby for two years. When that baby's born, it weighs about 800 pounds. That's a big baby, but she won't have another baby for at least two years. So it's big baby. It's big, but it doesn't reproduce. Now our goal is to start tens of millions of rabbit churches. If some of them become tigers, fantastic. Great. If one out of every 10,000 or 100,000 becomes an elephant, fine. But we're focused on the rabbits Bibles, believers, bodies of Christ, and the fourth one is breakthrough prayer, and this is a real big one.

We won't complete the Great Commission without prayer. So when I became the leader, finishing the task, the first thing I did is I held an online conference with the leaders of all the prayer ministries around the world, all the networks. There were nearly 100,000 people on that call, leading prayer networks in every country, and I said, guys, we'll never do it unless we pray for everybody by name. Jesus knows everybody on earth by name. Why can't we pray for everybody on earth by name? And now, with new technologies and all these things that we have, you can actually get the names of everybody in the world. Well, if there are 2.6 billion Christians in the world and there are 8 billion total if every Christian prayed for three people at least once in the next 10 years, we'd cover the planet. And so our fourth goal is that everybody gets prayed for by name at least one time between now and 2033.

Brian Stiller

Rick, is Finishing the Task an organization?

Rick Warren

Finishing the Task is not an organization, it's just a theme. It's a theme that's being adopted by dozens of denominations and thousands of agencies and hundreds of thousands of churches. We've had almost a half a million churches join this year to accept the finishing the task theme between now and the year 2033. Now and the year 2033. But the organization is very loose. It's just a confederation. It's called Great Commission Allies and we call it allies because everybody flies on their own flag.

World War II was not won by any single country. America didn't win World War II. It was won by the allies and everybody fought under their own flag. The Canadians fought under the Canadian flag, the Australians fought under the Australian flag, the French fought under the French flag and the Nigerians fought under the Nigerian flag. But somehow together we coordinated and collaborated on a big event, while everybody kept their own identity. We're not trying to build a big denomination, we're not trying to build a big organization. We're saying everybody fly under your flag, your logo, but we're committed to the same goals and that's called the Great Commission Allies.

Now, the thing that I'm doing right now in our contribution to the Great Commission Allies is what's called the Healthy Church Teaching Network and I'm training pastors. I have an online course that anybody can take. It's free, it's free online and anybody can take it. There's only one requirement you have to promise to teach it to somebody else. That's 2 Timothy 2.2. What you've heard, pass on to others, who will be able to teach others also. And so then, we're using a model of the five things Jesus did, and I know I'm covering a lot of material here. But P-E-A-C-E is the peace plan. P is proclaim the gospel, that's evangelism. E is equip believers. A is alleviate suffering. Those are the first three things in P-E-A preaching, teaching and healing. And then C is contend in prayer. Jesus said my house will be called a house of prayer. That's where the battle's won. And the E is established churches, new churches. I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it.

Brian Stiller

That's a remarkable, remarkable strategy and vision. Rick, your life and ministry is an amazing model of generosity. Can you share? One final thought about the power of generosity 

Rick Warren

Well, generosity does a number of things. Every time I give it breaks the grip of materialism in my life. The Bible says God so loved the world that he gave. You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving. You spell love. G-i-v-e. Every time I give, my heart grows bigger. Every time I give I become more like Christ.

There's two ways you can give. You can give by reason or you can give by revelation. When you give by reason, you simply look at your checkbook, see what you can afford to give and write a reasonable amount. Anybody can do that. You don't have to be a Christian. It takes no faith to give by reason. Philanthropists around the world say I can afford to give that and they write out a check and they give something reasonable. But to take giving into the realm of faith, growing your faith, you give by revelation and you pray and you say God, what do you wanna give through me, what do you want to give through me? And it's gonna be probably more than you have to give. So it becomes a test of your faith. And so I always say do your giving while you're living, then you'll be knowing where it's going. And so I'm leaving a legacy. There's not gonna be much left to give away when I die, because I've been given it all away now.

Brian Stiller

Oh, Rick, it's so wonderful to have you with us today on evangelical 360. Tell our viewers how they can get involved in Finishing the Task.

Rick Warren

If somebody's interested, they can go to the finishingthetask.com and find the information there, or you can email me. Just email me, rick@finishingthetask.com. Say, Rick, I'm in. I want to be a part of the Great Commission Alliance. I want to be an ally.

Brian Stiller

Rick, it's been wonderful to have you here and I encourage everyone to go to finishingthetask.com to find out more. 

If you've missed part one or two of my conversation with Pastor Rick Warren, just go to evangelical360.com. And, if you found this valuable, please take a moment to subscribe and give it a like. We would appreciate it if you would share it with your friends and colleagues as well. You'll find links in the show notes of this episode for anything we discussed today, and if you haven't signed up to receive my free Dispatches from the Global Village, it's an opportunity to join me and meet leaders in many different countries around the world. It's also a wonderful way to stay in touch with upcoming episodes and guests. Just go to evangelical360.com. Thank you for listening. Until next time. 

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