On the same day as Pastor Rick Warren is set to deliver the invocation during Barack Obama’s inauguration as the nation’s 44th president, his church issued a news release about the Feb. 1 launch of a nationwide “40 Days of Love” campaign.
Click to visit 40 Days web site.
Following in the footsteps of the popular “40 Days of Purpose” campaign that thousands of churches participated in worldwide, Saddleback Church is launching “40 Days of Love,” a campaign based on the book, The Relationship Principles of Jesus (Zondervan, 2008) by Tom Holladay, teaching pastor at Saddleback.
Focused on relational renewal, the book begins where Rick Warren’s best-selling The Purpose Driven Life (Zondervan 2002), which focuses on personal renewal, ended. More than 1,000 churches across the country are signed up to participate.
This 40-day journey is designed to bring new health and richness to participants’ marriages, families, friendships, and all the relationships in their lives, producing deeper connections and renewing rocky relationships.
The six relationship principles explored in the book include:
- Place the highest value on relationships
- Love as Jesus Loves you
- Communicate from the heart
- As you judge, you will be judged
- The greatest are the servants
- Treat others as you want them to treat you
Holladay writes, “God wants us to depend on him for the power to love. So he challenges us to love in a way we can only accomplish through dependence on his power.” Holladay bases these principles on an extensive study of what Jesus lived and taught about relationships and actions towards others, a study which was filled with challenging and surprising truths for life.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Jeff // Feb 20, 2009 at 12:31 am
Thus far, in our forty day “adventure”….I have found myself pulling back from what feels to be a “programmed” love fest. The focus seems to be on the “human” aspects, such as “you can do this”, “you need to practice your skills in this area”, “life’s highest goal is about relationships”, etc….and far less than focusing on our relationship with God Himself.
As usual, Warren’s written pieces use many different translations or paraphrased versions of God’s Word…and most use only very small snippets, missing the before and after contextual Scripture pieces.
In I Corinthians 13…..the section focuses on whether or not the Christian “has not love”…..yet Warren uses words like, “does not show love”. Sounds no different to some, at least at first or second read, but there is a difference, and it is a big one.
God wants us to become like Him….to love Him…to fellowship with Him…..etc….and then, as and because we do these things and mature and deepen THIS RELATIONSHIP…..we have love for Him and one another.
Love is to be the natural outporing / reflection of a love relationship with our Heavenly Father. Our life focus is to be on THE RELATIONSHIP, not “relationships”. It’s not about us! It’s about Him….
It’s not about a list of things we need to write out and focus on this week, as we “do assignment one”…..but it is about encouraging one another in our faith walks, such that we become more like the Master….and in so doing….LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
2 hotoffthepress2 // Feb 20, 2009 at 6:56 am
Thanks for the inside look, Jeff.
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