Pastor Rick Warren is the Senior Pastor Megachurch Saddleback in California and the author of the best selling book, The Purpose Driven Life. Last Wednesday Rick Warren posted a blog on the church’s website appealing to his congregants for $900,000 as there was a shortfall in the offering. The blog was as follows:
“Dear Saddleback Family,
THIS IS AN URGENT LETTER unlike any I’ve written in 30 years. Please read all of it and get back to me in the next 48 hours. I have thrilling news to share with you below but first some seriously bad news:
With 10% of our church family out of work due to the recession, our expenses in caring for our community in 2009 rose dramatically while our income stagnated. Still, with wise management, we’ve stayed close to our budget all year. Then… this last weekend the bottom dropped out. On the last weekend of 2009, our total offerings were less than half of what we normally receive – leaving us $900,000 in the red for the year, unless you help make up the difference today and tomorrow.
The response to the blog was and continues to be overwhelming with more than $2.4 million received. During this current climate a lot of churches are suffering financially as many of their members out of work so the response was somewhat surprising.
In a response to the giving he wrote in a second blog:
“BACKGROUND: The cause of our financial shortfall was NOT a management issue but simply by the way Christmas occurred in this year’s calendar. After 10 packed Christmas services, and with Christmas Day on Friday, many people were out of town or too tired to come back for weekend services, so the unusually low attendance created an unusually low offering. That is understandable.”
Pastor Warren stated that the amount of money received meant that the church would start the year with a surplus and that the 30th anniversary message at the beginning of the year would be titled The Miracle.
In his third blog about the appeal Pasotr Warren wrote
“In spite of a media culture that thrives on bad news and is typically clueless about how churches actually work, and in spite of hatefulness and insults by some who immediately jumped to wrong conclusion – the church of God marches on, and once again God surprises all of us!”
