Rick Warren, Twitter, and the Testimony of Misfits

The Twitter-verse runs on speed and the rush to judgement. So when Rick Warren tweeted

I challenge any church in America to match the spiritual maturity, godliness & commitment of any 500 members of Saddleback.

Christian social media jockeys rushed to their chairs and pecked out their assessments. “Rick’s lost it.” “What pride!” and ”I defy any church in America to find 500 people who need Jesus more than the people in my congregation.” (I kind of like that one.)

The reality is that we’re all familiar enough with Pastor Rick to know that he wasn’t being arrogant. We know his body of work. Let’s write it off to the dangers of communicating with 140 characters while being observed by a cloud of twittering witnesses.

I suspect that Rick was trying to affirm his congregation. Nothing more, nothing less. For decades Rick has endured criticism that he’s dumbed down Christianity to get butts in the chairs. The logical conclusion of that assessment is that the folk in his church aren’t spiritually discerning or deep. I’m sure some of Saddleback’s congregation understand this is how a segment of their peers view them. I believe and hope that Rick spoke with a pastor’s heart. He was attempting to validate the faith of his flock and the ministry of his leaders. He was saying “I see spiritual maturity. Our work here was not in vain.” His offered up his people as a witness that the power of the Gospel is active at Saddleback.

I’m wondering if we all could get off his back, or at least offer the benefit of the doubt. He’s been pastoring too long and too well to assume anything less.

I’ve been thinking and writing about that evidence that the writers of the Gospels offered about the power of the Incarnation.They offered a different quality of witnesses to the Gospel than Rick did. Rick offered 500 spiritually formed people. Matthew and Luke offered up the morally suspect as evidence that “God was with us.” The so-called “Wise Men” were Magi– pagan astrologers, mediums, and priest from a foreign country that didn’t acknowledge the God of Israel. The shepherds were famous for having the morals of gypsies. The occupations was filled with petty thieves and brawlers to the point that their testimony was refused in court. Zechariah was pious but cynical; his faith was crushed by a long, violent Roman oppression. The women in the story were unexpected prophets and yet their testimony was also not admissible in court.

For Rick, the evidence of Gospel power at Saddleback is transformed lives.

For the Gospel writers, evidence that the power of the Gospel had landed on this planet, was God collecting the most unlikely and most spiritually disqualified people he could gather to the manger. The medium is the message; and the misfits of Christmas were evidence of God’s ministry of reconciliation.

So the question is “Is Rick or Jesus right?”

I think the answer is “yes.”

This post originally appeared at larryshallenberger.com.