{"id":4122,"date":"2011-08-14T17:15:39","date_gmt":"2011-08-14T23:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=4122"},"modified":"2011-08-14T17:15:40","modified_gmt":"2011-08-14T23:15:40","slug":"mass-appeal-rick-warren-takes-his-evangelism-to-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=4122","title":{"rendered":"Mass Appeal: Rick Warren Takes his Evangelism to Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/intl\/cms\/s\/2\/3da2d8d2-c29d-11e0-8cc7-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1V2oAIIUe\">Rob Blackhurst:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>It\u2019s a cloudless summer Sunday and the vast parking lots are filling early at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, 50 miles south of Los Angeles. New SUVs, guided by marshals, queue for the best spots before their occupants spill out happily into the sunshine, heading for a huge auditorium.<br \/>\n<Br><Br><br \/>\nThey make their way up imposing steps, past palm trees and crystal-clear waterfalls tumbling down artificial rocks. The children\u2019s play area has a stream that parts like the Red Sea, courtesy of two invisible plastic sheets. On a nearby hillock, a replica of Jesus\u2019s tomb has a hydraulic stone that can be rolled away.<\/p>\n<p><Br><Br><br \/>\nThe Saddleback campus, opened in 1992, has the eighth-largest congregation of any church in the United States \u2013 expanding from its first gathering of 200 in a high school gym in Easter 1980 to a current average weekly attendance of 17,500.<\/p>\n<p><Br><Br><br \/>\nInside, the only religious symbol is a wooden cross and, during the service, there is no communion and none of the familiar liturgy. Instead, there\u2019s slickly executed Christian rock from a live band.<\/p>\n<p><Br><Br><br \/>\nSaddleback\u2019s founder is Rick Warren, 57, the US\u2019s most famous pastor. He bounds across the stage wearing his trademark goatee, a black T-shirt, Converse trainers and jeans. He is preaching about self-examination: \u201cIf you\u2019re doing something that\u2019s messing up your marriage or destroying your finances, it\u2019s because there is some kind of emotional pay-off. I don\u2019t know what it is \u2013 maybe it\u2019s to mask your pain, maybe it\u2019s to cover up a fear, maybe it\u2019s an excuse to fail, maybe it\u2019s to compensate for guilt.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rob Blackhurst: It\u2019s a cloudless summer Sunday and the vast parking lots are filling early at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, 50 miles south of Los Angeles. New SUVs, guided by marshals, queue for the best spots before their occupants spill out happily into the sunshine, heading for a huge auditorium. They make their way [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4122"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4123,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4122\/revisions\/4123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}