LAKE FOREST, Calif. (BP)–This October Rick Warren and Jerry Falwell, two of the most influential pastors in the country, will team to train more than 10,000 church leaders as part of the first Purpose-Driven Church Conference offered east of the Mississippi River. Touted as a “SuperConference,” it will combine 11 different Purpose-Driven seminars on the campus of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.
“This is truly going to be a SuperConference, like none we have ever done before,” said Warren, senior pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. and author of “The Purpose-Driven Life” and “The Purpose-Driven Church.”
On the first day of the conference, Warren’s Purpose-Driven Life Simulcast will kick off the latest 40 Days of Purpose campaign in more than 3,000 churches across the country, including Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg. The entire student body of Liberty University also will participate in 40 Days of Purpose.
The 11 different tracks included in the SuperConference will be: Purpose-Driven Life, Purpose-Driven Church, Purpose-Driven Preaching, Purpose-Driven Worship, Purpose-Driven Small Groups, Purpose-Driven Youth, Purpose-Driven Children’s Ministry, Pastor’s Wives, Celebrate Recovery, Purpose-Driven Stewardship and Purpose-Driven Church Planting.
With both Warren and Falwell working together on the SuperConference, the Purpose-Driven Church Conference costs less than ever before – only $150.
Warren and Falwell both hope the SuperConference will spark national revival.
“I’m praying that God will use this conference to set fires of revival burning across America,” Falwell said. “We are expecting thousands of pastors and local church workers to register for this conference.”
In a recent letter, Falwell ranked the Purpose-Driven SuperConference as one of the five most important moments in the history of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, times when the congregation stepped “outside of the box” in ministry. Other major moments include launching what became Liberty University, the “Old-Time Gospel Hour” and the Moral Majority.
40 Days of Purpose, a national campaign piloted at Saddleback Church, uses the Bible to answer one of the most profound questions in human history, “What on earth am I here for?” The campaign focuses on the five purposes described in Warren’s best-selling book The Purpose Driven Life: worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry and evangelism.
During the six-week pilot campaign at Saddleback, more than 500 new believers were baptized, nearly 1,200 people joined the church, 2, 200 people signed up for a ministry at the church and 2,400 people hosted small-group Bible studies in their homes. Similar stories were reported in the 3,000 churches across the country that helped pilot the campaign.
The Christian Bookseller’s Association recently named Warren’s Purpose Driven Life book, which is used as the devotional guide during the 40-day campaign, as book of the year. It has sold almost 4.5 million copies in just nine months and stayed consistently on The New York Times best-seller list.
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For more information, go to the SuperConference website at www.superconference.com. To register for this fall’s 40 Days of Purpose campaign, which will be kicked off at the SuperConference, visit the Purpose-Driven website at www.purposedriven.com.