PDL Critiqued

[Joseph_Botwinick]

Hi there. This thread is for those of us who have been through the PDL at our Church and had problems with it theologically or had problems with the methodology. If you are a person who liked it and wants to bash fundametnalists or Calvinists and call us morons, please do not post here. Instead, post on this thread. That is the perfect place to praise Warren and spew hatred for those of us who were not quite so mesmerized by him. Regardless of which side you are on, if your Church did not go all the way through the book and you are just posting from an anti-Warren website as Gospel truth, please do not post here. I wish to have this thread devoted to criticisms of the PDL (not Warren personally) based on first hand experience.

I will post my experiences later, perhaps, after Church.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Joseph Botwinick

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

Ok. Now it is time to move this thread along and give my first hand personal experience with my Church going all the way through the PDL. I actually read the PDC about 11 years ago when I was in Seminary, and used to be one who really liked the concepts that were espoused in it. I readily admit that as I have grown older and read more from the Bible, I have grown to have some problems with some of the theology that seems to be the reasons for some of the methodology which is espoused.

Theologically, as I have discussed on another thread in another forum, I have a problem with the whole idea that the lost world is seeking God, and therefore, we should make our services more seeker sensitive. For more information about the reason for my objection to this idea, please see my post in this thread here.

It seems to me that this theological framework seems to be the foundation for everything that is done in the PDL. If we make the Church more seeker sensitive, then we will attract them in and hook them long enough to preach the Gospel to them. The problem, as I see it, is that the methodology is based on non-Biblical theology: that totally depraved sinful lost humans will seek, or are seeking God. Therefore, we must appeal to them. The problem is, that the lost do not seek God. They seek their own sinful desires. Therefore, what are we appealing to?

Other things which bothered me during the PDL (which I also readily admit may or may not be the Church leadership's fault, and not necessarily the fault of Rick Warren nor the program; nonetheless, this is my experience with it in my Church) are as follows:

1. We were constantly told to bring our PDL books to Church. It was as if it had become the Bible. We did our Sunday School lessons out of it, to the exclusion of the Bible.

2. The Pastor prominently displayed the PDL on the pulpit during the sermon, but there was no Bible to be found in his hands or on the pulpit during his sermon.

3. Instead of hearing, "This is what the Bible says", all we heard was, "Rick Warren says..." this and "Rick Warren says..." that. It was the most surreal experience I had ever been through. I felt like everything RW said was taken as Gospel truth and any dissent was looked upon with scorn, much the same way it is on this board many times. It was beginning to feel like a cult.

This is my personal first hand experience with the PDL in my Church. I am sure there are some things that I have forgot and might have left out since it happened a year and a half ago. If so, I will post it later. Now, is there anyone else out there whose Church went through the PDL and had similar experiences?

Joseph Botwinick

 

[PastorSBC1303]

Our church did the PDL almost 2 years ago. I, nor any of our leadership, never told people to bring their books with them to church. We encouraged them to be reading the chapters during the week, but made a big deal that they should read the Word of God first and foremost!

And I intentionally did not mention Rick Warren during any of the messages. I took a passage of Scripture that had to do with the week's material and preached a message on that passage, not on the book PDL.

 

[guitarpreacher]

Originally posted by Joseph_Botwinick:
It seems to me that this theological framework seems to be the foundation for everything that is done in the PDL. If we make the Church more seeker sensitive, then we will attract them in and hook them long enough to preach the Gospel to them.
Joseph Botwinick

PDL has absolutely nothing to do with being seeker sensative. If you read PDL and went through the 40DOP and you got "we need to be seeker sensative" out of it, you seriously weren't paying attention.

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

Guitarpreacher,

This is not a debate thread. Please respect my wishes and don't debate on this thread as I have not on the other thread. This thread is only for those who wish to critique the PDL based on their first hand experiences of their churches going through it. I have offered a link to another thread where you can say good things about PDL and bash those of us who were not quite so mesmerized with it.

Thank You,

Joseph Botwinick

 

[guitarpreacher]

Originally posted by Joseph_Botwinick:

1. We were constantly told to bring our PDL books to Church. It was as if it had become the Bible. We did our Sunday School lessons out of it, to the exclusion of the Bible.

2. The Pastor prominently displayed the PDL on the pulpit during the sermon, but there was no Bible to be found in his hands or on the pulpit during his sermon.

3. Instead of hearing, "This is what the Bible says", all we heard was, "Rick Warren says..." this and "Rick Warren says..." that. It was the most surreal experience I had ever been through. I felt like everything RW said was taken as Gospel truth and any dissent was looked upon with scorn, much the same way it is on this board many times. It was beginning to feel like a cult.

Joseph Botwinick

I really doubt this is true. As for #1, the sermons do not come from the PDL book, so there is no reason for anyone to bring the book to church. There are 5 sermons, one each on Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Ministry and Evangelism, plus an intro sermon and a wrap up sermon. While they are covering the same subject as the coming week's PDL reading, they are not taken directly from the book. Maybe you're talking about the Sunday School/Small Group Bible study materials? Those study books are necessary because they are actually work books. You have questions to answer and blanks to fill in. And they have all the Scripture references printed out, so carrying a Bible wouldn't be required. But it's still hard to imagine a preacher telling people not to bring a Bible.

Regarding #2, if the pastor preached the sermons, they are filled with scripture. As to whether or not he read them directly from the Bible or he had them printed out ahead of time, who knows, but if the preached the 40 DoP sermons, the Scripture was there. I had a seminary class where in an hour long lecture there was probably 12-15 minutes of sitting listening to the teacher turn pages looking up Scripture references. I developed an appreciation for preachers/teachers who print out Scripture beforehand and spare the their sword drill.

Which leaves point #3. There are very few references to the book in the 40 DoP sermons, and Rick Warren does not quote himself. Maybe you pastor was lazy and didn't take the time to change the illustrations to make them personal. I have heard preachers do that, instead of telling their own story, they just say "So and so said, ......" and tell that preacher's story. But if the preacher invested the proper study time in preparing the sermons, there's no reason to be quoting RW.

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

Originally posted by guitarpreacher:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Joseph_Botwinick:

1. We were constantly told to bring our PDL books to Church. It was as if it had become the Bible. We did our Sunday School lessons out of it, to the exclusion of the Bible.

2. The Pastor prominently displayed the PDL on the pulpit during the sermon, but there was no Bible to be found in his hands or on the pulpit during his sermon.

3. Instead of hearing, "This is what the Bible says", all we heard was, "Rick Warren says..." this and "Rick Warren says..." that. It was the most surreal experience I had ever been through. I felt like everything RW said was taken as Gospel truth and any dissent was looked upon with scorn, much the same way it is on this board many times. It was beginning to feel like a cult.

Joseph Botwinick

I really doubt this is true. As for #1, the sermons do not come from the PDL book, so there is no reason for anyone to bring the book to church. There are 5 sermons, one each on Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Ministry and Evangelism, plus an intro sermon and a wrap up sermon. While they are covering the same subject as the coming week's PDL reading, they are not taken directly from the book. Maybe you're talking about the Sunday School/Small Group Bible study materials? Those study books are necessary because they are actually work books. You have questions to answer and blanks to fill in. And they have all the Scripture references printed out, so carrying a Bible wouldn't be required. But it's still hard to imagine a preacher telling people not to bring a Bible.

Regarding #2, if the pastor preached the sermons, they are filled with scripture. As to whether or not he read them directly from the Bible or he had them printed out ahead of time, who knows, but if the preached the 40 DoP sermons, the Scripture was there. I had a seminary class where in an hour long lecture there was probably 12-15 minutes of sitting listening to the teacher turn pages looking up Scripture references. I developed an appreciation for preachers/teachers who print out Scripture beforehand and spare the their sword drill.

Which leaves point #3. There are very few references to the book in the 40 DoP sermons, and Rick Warren does not quote himself. Maybe you pastor was lazy and didn't take the time to change the illustrations to make them personal. I have heard preachers do that, instead of telling their own story, they just say "So and so said, ......" and tell that preacher's story. But if the preacher invested the proper study time in preparing the sermons, there's no reason to be quoting RW. </font>[/QUOTE]GP,

Would you please show me some respect and allow this thread not to turn into a debate as has been requested by me, the original poster. If you do not, I will report you to the moderators and have them enforce this rule equally.

Thank You,

Joseph Botwinick

 

[guitarpreacher]

So let me get this straight - you posted a topic that you don't want debated in a debate forum??? Makes more sense now why you didn't get PDL

 

[chavah]

I have stsated before that our experience was bad all in all with the PDL...many churches go way too far with it, replacing the gospel with the book, and the R.W. teachings.

oh, yes, I am also confused as to why there is postings here that are against this thread when the original post stated this is NOT a debate thread...??????
I think someone protests too much ....that is very telling indeed.

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

Originally posted by guitarpreacher:
So let me get this straight - you posted a topic that you don't want debated in a debate forum??? Makes more sense now why you didn't get PDL

GP,

I think I was pretty clear about my intentions in the original post. But, you are right. It is in the debate forum. If you want to be a legalist about it, I will ask the moderators to move this thread to the All Other Discussion forum.

Joseph Botwinick

 

[bjonson]

This is a very interesting consideration on Warren's influence from paganism:

http://www.sacredsandwich.com/purposelie.htm

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

Please post first hand experiences only. Not websites.

Thanks,

Joseph Botwinick

 

[guitarpreacher]

[ January 16, 2006, 11:56 AM: Message edited by: guitarpreacher ]

 

[guitarpreacher]

Joseph,

TinyTim made basically the same request you made, but from the opposite direction and several folks couldn't resist jumping in to rip RW and PDL, and it eventually caused his thread to get moved to another forum. Honestly, I thought you were one of the ones who jumped in on that thread, and thought it rather hypocritical of you to make the same request here. I went back and checked (should have done that first) and you were not one of those that posted negatively on TT's thread.

I apologize for taking your thread in a direction you did not want it to go.

Peace Bro.

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

GP,

Apology accepted. Now back to the original purpose of this thread. Does anyone else have a first hand negative experience about their Church going through the PDL? Please share them here.

Joseph Botwinick

 

[webdog]

I had a negative experience...that there were not more people involved in the small group study of the PDL.

 

[Gina B]

I wasn't that thrilled with it. There were a number of members who were, but it seemed rather trite, and there were some things that didn't seem biblically accurate.
It's been long enough that I honestly can't recall the problems with it, but made a mental note not to bother with his books in the future.
We did have a good preacher where I was at the time, who pointed out the things that were shakey and had us focus on the good stuff.
I guess that's like a lot of Christian books. Good stuff, bad stuff. The only perfect book ever written was the Bible.

 

[AVL1984]

Our church has resisted the PDL material. We are trying to become a SBC congregation. The church we split off from didn't want the PDL either as while reviewing the materials, the leadership felt it to be more seeker sensitive. I've read excerpts, and for me, it would not be possible to attend while the PDL was being taught. I'm not saying that I might not change my mind after looking the material as a whole over, but, at present it would just be impossible. My mother's church has used it, and it didn't seem to hurt their church any. It is still doctrinally sound. That could have something to do with how it was implemented.

 

[Boanerges]

Love of $$$ is the root of all evil...

http://www.inplainsite.org/html/purpose_driven_pyromarketing.html

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

I think it is difficult to defend the idea that Warren is money hungry in light of the fact that he practices reverse tithing to his Church. Please, keep this thread free from website accounts and theories and let's just hear first hand accounts of those who went through the PDL in their Church and had negative experiences with it.

Joseph Botwinick