'THE CHURCH IS BEST EQUIPPED TO SOLVE THE PROBLEMS OF AFRICA' SAYS RICK WARREN
In an interview backstage at the huge Live 8 concert in Philadelphia, he explained: 'We have the biggest army'
By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
PHILADELPHIA,
PA (ANS) -- Rick Warren, senior pastor of
Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, and author of best-selling book,
The Purpose Driven Life, believes that the Church is best equipped to solve the
terrible problems of Africa. (Pictured:
Rick Warren speaking
at Angel Stadium). In a phone interview with ANS while he was backstage at the massive Live 8 rock concert in Philadelphia, PA, on Saturday, July 2, Warren said, “I personally believe that these problems are not solvable by governments. I believe that only the church can solve them, because only the church has the most distribution channels in the world. There are churches in villages where you don’t have schools or clinics or hospitals.”
Warren went on to say, “We also have the biggest army. We’ve got a billion foot soldiers and we have the promise of the power of God. We have the Biblical mandate and the command of God and we have the moral authority to do it.”
He then explained why he was at Live 8. “I thought, ‘I’m going to be here.’ If Christians ought to be anywhere, they ought to be where people are talking about poverty. So I felt like Christians ought to show up big and strong, because if we don’t, the world’s looks up and says, ‘Where are the Christians when we talk about poverty.’”
RWANDA TO BECOME THE ‘FIRST PURPOSE-DRIVEN NATION’
Warren
said that the plight of Africa was very much on his heart at this time. “I’ve
been in three different countries in Africa already this year,” he said. I‘ve
been Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya and actually in ten days, we are going back to
Rwanda. The President, Paul Kagame, has invited us to help Rwanda become the
first ‘purpose-driven nation.’ (Pictured:
Rick and Kay Warren and Chuck Colson at 25th anniversary event).
“We are going to go there for ten days and I’m going to do a day of training for business leaders as well as training for the government leaders and the cabinet and also a day of training for the religious leaders. Then, on the last day, on July 16th, we are going to do National Reconciliation Rally in National Stadium of Rwanda to talk about reconciliation between the Tutsi and Hutu. It will be eleven years after the genocide.”
Warren believes that reconciliation is so needed in this country where the genocide in Rwanda took the lives of 800,000 people. Roughly 10% of the population was murdered and ninety percent of the victims were Tutsis. Over 100 days, on average, 8,000 Rwandans a day were butchered. It was the fastest rate of mass killings in the twentieth century. By the end of the killings in 1994, 95,000 children had also been orphaned.
TRAGEDY IN ZIMBABWE
I then asked Warren what they thought about what was going on in Zimbabwe where President Robert Mugabe had ordered a controversial slum clearing program which has left an estimated 275,000 people homeless.
“I think it is really sad,” he said. “When we talk about the five global giants that we are trying to tackle in our PEACE Plan, the second of them is the egocentric and often corrupt leadership. Often it is this corruption that has kept Africa in poverty. Africa has the resources; they are in the ground. It should be an incredibly wealthy continent, but what has happened is that corrupt leadership has kept the continent in bondage in many places.
“That’s why I support what President Bush when he said, ‘We don’t give to countries unless the leadership there proves that they have integrity.’”
BATTLING THE GIANTS
Previously Warren said that the PEACE Plan, his aggressive and progressive vision to mobilize the American church to help churches in the developing world take on problems that are so big that no government - not even the United Nations -- can tackle what he called “these giants” alone.
"Our goal will be to enlist 'one billion foot soldiers for the Kingdom of God,' who will permanently change the face of international missions to take on these five "global giants" for which the church can become the ultimate distribution and change agent to overcome Spiritual Emptiness, Self-serving Leadership, Poverty, Disease and ignorance (or illiteracy)," he said.
Warren further explained that through the PEACE plan, small groups from hundreds of thousands of churches will attack these giants, armed with "five smooth stones" of (P) - Planting Churches, (E) - Equipping Leaders, (A) - Assisting the Poor, (C) - Caring for the Sick and (E) - Educating the Next Generation.
“THROWING MONEY AT THE PROBLEM DOES NOT HELP”
When asked what he message was about poverty in Africa, he said, “My message is that all of these issues – poverty, disease, lack of education, corrupt leadership -- they all have a spiritual component, and simply throwing money at these problems will still not solve the problem.
“We have poured billions of dollars in the past into these problems and it is not more money that we need, but it is the spiritual component that needs to come into play. I believe they can only be solved at the local level and the key folk to do it are those in churches where they know the community and they know what can be done.
“I happen to agree with many of these liberal goals of reducing injustice and decreasing poverty and helping the sick and poor; I just happened to disagree with the solution. The solution is not bigger government, but the solution comes from the church.”
Warren said that on Saturday morning, in conjunction with Live 8, he was involved with a citywide leadership prayer breakfast where he spoke. “It was hosted by Pastor Herb Lusk, a wonderful pastor here in Philadelphia,” he added.
As
he stood back stage with his wife Kay as performers like Will Smith, Bon Jovi,
Dave Matthews Band, Stevie Wonder, Jay Z, Keith Urban, Il Divo, Kaiser Chiefs,
Rob Thomas, Maroon Five, Sarah McLachlan, and P. Diddy were performing before an
estimated one million people in Philadelphia, Warren said, “This all brings back
old memories because I grew up in northern California, in the Bay Area, during
the Hippy movement and all of those days in the mid sixties and the Summer of
Love.”
(Pictured:
Will Smith hosted
the Live 8 concert in Philadelphia (Picture by AFP).The Philadelphia show was one of five concerts aimed at raising awareness of poverty in developing countries. Dubbed Live 8, they all took place on Saturday, in London, Paris, Berlin, Philadelphia, and Rome, just days before G-8 leaders meet in Scotland.
The concert in Philadelphia was held on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The 100,000-seat site of the 1985 Live Aid concert, JFK Stadium, was torn down in the 1990s.
Live 8 was organized by Bob Geldof, the driving force behind the Band Aid and Live Aid campaigns for African famine relief. He spoke via satellite from London to Philadelphia’s City Hall, where a news conference confirming the concert was attended by city dignitaries, organizers, Matthews and Houston Rockets center Dikembe Mutombo. The musician and the basketball player both work for causes to fight poverty and disease in Africa.