PDF Summary:The Purpose Driven Life, by Rick Warren

Like many people, you might feel that you’re simply existing in life, going through the motions without understanding what it all means. In The Purpose Driven Life, Pastor Rick Warren reveals the meaning of life from a Christian perspective—five purposes that you were created by God to fulfill: worship, unselfish fellowship, spiritual maturity, your ministry, and your mission.

In living for your purposes, you’ll start to find meaning in every moment of your life. You’ll learn to see the glory of God everywhere, deepen your love for others, find the unique service you were made for, and prepare your character for the promise of eternal life.

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1. Authenticity: In an authentic fellowship, you’re free to be fully honest about your failures, confess your weaknesses, ask for help, and discuss your doubts. The more you open up about your life, the more other group members are willing to open up about theirs. This creates a fellowship of holistic support, where all struggles are addressed.
2. Sympathy: A sympathetic fellowship responds to members’ suffering by entering into their pain with them to help carry the burden and validate their emotions. This fellowship of suffering is the deepest level of fellowship you can offer someone, because turning toward someone’s pain, not away, is a profound act of unselfish love.
3. Forgiveness: Genuine fellowship forgives and moves on quickly. Sometimes you’ll hurt the people in your fellowship or you’ll be hurt by them, but a genuine fellowship will never use your mistakes against you.

Build and Maintain a Healthy Fellowship Community

It takes a lot of work to build a healthy, loving fellowship, but God reveals how to do so through his Word—there are five elements that every healthy fellowship community needs:

1. Honesty: Members tell hard truths and speak to one another directly but lovingly, as they would a member of their family. This type of honesty allows group members to work through issues instead of hiding them or diminishing them—actions that can create underlying frustration or hurt in the group, eventually causing it to crumble.
2. Humility: Humility is essential in a fellowship group because it opens you up to asking for help, and helps you relate to others’ experiences instead of looking down on them.
3. Courtesy: Being courteous of others means being considerate of their feelings, respectful of their differences, and exercising patience. This is especially important with members you find “difficult.” When you try to better understand these people with patience, you may find there’s a reason for their “difficulty” like insecurity or trauma. It’s easier to show unselfish love toward people once you really get to know them.
4. Trust: Your group not only has a duty to deal with any issues that a member brings up but also to understand that these issues are shared in confidence—no one outside your group should find out about them.
5. Regularity: Deep, meaningful relationships happen between people who meet frequently. Your meetings shouldn’t be organized around convenience—this makes it all too easy for urgent, unimportant matters to get in the way.

Purpose #3: Spiritual Maturity (Week 4)

The third purpose of your life is to become more like Jesus by taking on his values and character. This spiritually mature character is already in you but hasn't been shaped yet.

God’s Character Development Tools

God uses four tools to help shape your spiritually mature character.

Tool #1: His Word

God’s Word should take high priority in your life, as it contains the truths that guide you in fulfilling your purposes. There are three activities that help you internalize and live by his Word:

• Accept the authority of his Word. God’s word is an unfailingly reliable standard. When making decisions or examining your behavior, always ask yourself: “What does the Bible tell me to do?” Whatever God’s Word instructs, you must do with full faith in his authority.
• Fill your mind with his Word. Living by God’s Word becomes easier when it’s always ready to use in your mind. To do this, read the Bible regularly, memorize Scripture, and engage with the text by writing down your questions and observations.
• Apply the lessons of his Word. Each time you read and study God’s Word, think about the lesson in it. Then, create a practical plan to use the lesson in your life. For example, if you read the story of the Good Samaritan, you might make a plan to help someone you don’t know within the next week.

Tool #2: People

God wants you to grow with others, for two reasons.

1. Other people serve as a support system: They encourage you to make the right choices, help you understand God’s Word in new ways, and share ideas for implementing his lessons in your life.
2. Other people are imperfect: When others irritate you or challenge your patience, you face a test of character—will you choose to act like Jesus? Every time you respond with patience and unselfish love in these moments, your character becomes more Christlike.

Tool #3: Circumstances

If you always lived in your comfort zone, you would never learn about enduring pain, taking on seemingly insurmountable challenges, or stretching the limits of your faith. God puts difficult circumstances in your way because they strengthen your character, but only if you respond as Jesus would—that is, you remember that God is acting in your best interest, you give thanks for the opportunity to grow, and you keep pushing through your circumstances instead of giving up or turning away from God.

Tool #4: Temptation

God will put you in situations where you’ll want to act in direct opposition to the qualities Jesus possessed, such as love, patience, faithfulness, and self-control. When you make the choice to stick to Jesus-like qualities in these situations, you strengthen your character. The choice in these situations is crucial, because your character is like a muscle—it needs resistance to develop and strengthen.

• For example, you don’t develop your integrity while taking an exam in a supervised setting, as there’s no opportunity for you to cheat. You do develop your integrity when you’re trusted to take an unsupervised exam and have the opportunity to check your answers against your textbook but choose not to cheat.

Purpose #4: Your Ministry (Week 5)

God wants you to serve others—this is called ministry, the fourth purpose for your life. The way God planned for you to serve others is uniquely yours.

Discover Your Unique SHAPE

Start figuring out the ministry you were made for by examining your SHAPE:

• Spiritual gifts: Your spiritual gifts are capabilities that are gifted to you by God when you become a believer. Your spiritual gifts are not for your personal enjoyment—they are given to you to be used in your ministry.
• Heart: Your heart includes everything you truly care about and what motivates or inspires you—dreams, goals, sources of joy, and so on. God gave you these particular interests to drive you toward the place you’ll best serve. You know that you’re doing something from your heart if you’re enthusiastic about it and are effective in it.
• Abilities: Abilities are things you’re naturally good at. They differ from spiritual gifts in that you’re born with them, and they were given to you for your personal enjoyment. God gives everyone abilities—if you think that you don’t have any, examine yourself more closely. No ability is insignificant. The Bible lists many different skills as “abilities,” including teaching, art, baking, farming, and making music.
• Personality: The type of service that best suits you depends heavily on what kind of person you are—there’s not a “wrong” or “right” way to serve, but there is the possibility of a service-personality mismatch. While you’re figuring out your ministry, you might observe the work of others, but be careful not to replicate their work, as it’s suited to their personality.
• Experiences: God introduced all sorts of experiences into your life to shape who you’ve become and help you serve others, such as your experiences growing up within your family, different job experiences, and painful experiences. Your painful experiences are generally the most helpful to your service, because they teach you empathy and make you more effective in helping others through suffering or pain.

Put Your SHAPE Together

The best ministry uses your whole SHAPE—you use your abilities and spiritual gifts in a way that aligns with your heart and personality, and is supported by your experiences. Ask yourself what abilities align best with who you are, what you love to do, and what you know.

Develop Your Servant’s Heart

Finding your unique ministry is the first vital part of serving others—the second is developing your servant’s heart, which allows you to serve unselfishly in whatever way God calls you. Your servant's heart is made up of your character and attitude.

• Someone with a servant’s character makes themselves available to serve whenever it’s needed; sees things that need to be done without being asked; dedicates themselves fully to all their tasks; is reliable; and doesn't expect praise for their work.
• Someone with a servant’s attitude always puts others’ needs first; recognizes that everything they have is a gift to be temporarily taken care of; doesn’t compete with others or compare ministries; doesn’t feel that any task is “beneath” them; and sees their ministry as an opportunity to express gratitude to God for all he’s given them.

Purpose #5: Your Mission (Week 6)

Whereas your ministry is how you serve other believers, your mission is your service to unbelievers. God wants you to spread word of his love, his glory, and the promise of eternal life to unbelievers, through your unique mission and a shared mission.

Your Unique Mission: Your Life Message

Your story of your experience with God helps you explain the benefits of joining his family to unbelievers. Your message has four main parts:

1) Personal testimony. Your testimony reveals how God has made a difference in your life. This is a valuable tool for connection—you come across as a peer rather than an authority figure trying to “sell” God’s Word. Your testimony should touch on how you felt about your life before you discovered your purpose, when you realized you needed God, the difference you’ve felt in purpose driven living, and how you’ve felt God’s power and love in your life.

2) Lessons you’ve learned. Explain what you’ve learned from your life experiences. This demonstrates that everything has meaning. This is especially helpful when talking to someone who doesn’t know how to find lessons in her experiences yet.

3) Your passions. God will give you a passion for something he cares deeply about so that you’ll be compelled to speak about it to others and find a way to make a difference with it. For example, you may feel passionate about a cause such as the environment, a group of people without a voice such as wrongfully convicted prisoners, or bringing his Word to specific groups such as college students.

4) The Good News. The last part of your life message is your explanation of the gifts that come along with trusting and obeying God, such as a deep sense of meaning, unselfish love, forgiveness of our sins, and the promise of eternal life.

Your Shared Mission: Represent Christianity Everywhere

You and all Christians share the mission of spreading the word about God all over the world—just as Jesus did. Like him, share what you know about God throughout your life, to everyone you can. Make sure you’re not missing out on your mission because of a purpose-blocking mindset, such as:

• “I’ll spread the news my way.” Put others’ needs first—in speaking to unbelievers, think about what they need from you in their spiritual journey, not the other way around. Imagine the person you’re speaking to says, “All that Bible stuff isn’t for me.” You personally think Scripture is the best way to talk about your faith, but their need is a less Scripture-based approach. You respond, “I understand. How about I tell you about my personal experience of finding meaning instead?”
• “I would, but…” Don’t let excuses deter you from answering the call to spread God’s Word. There are many available excuses, such as, “I don’t speak any other languages,” or “I’m not able to travel.” You can always find a way to fulfill your mission—you might join a trip to a country that speaks your native language or spread the word about God right in your hometown by connecting with new communities.
• “God hasn’t told me I’m ‘ready’ yet.” No use waiting—God’s Word has already told us, numerous times, that we’re called to spread the Good News and show his glory.

Conclusion: Keep It All in Balance

There are four ways you can maintain balance among your purposes throughout your life.

• Accountability partners: Engage in regular discussion with others about your purposes—you’ll gain a better understanding of your purposes, get new ideas for fulfilling them, and strengthen your faith. Look around you—a good support system probably already exists in your community. For example, you might ask your fellowship group to act as your accountability partners or meet up monthly with a friend who’s on the same spiritual journey as you.
• Spiritual check-ins: Every now and then, check in on your spiritual health and honestly evaluate how you feel you’re doing in the areas of worship, fellowship, character growth, ministry, and your mission. During this check-in, ask yourself questions such as: “Are there areas of my life where I’m holding back from surrendering to God?” or “Am I being as honest and patient in fellowship as I’d want others to be toward me?”
• Journaling: Journaling is useful both for tracking your progress and growth and for spotting areas for improvement. Schedule a regular time to write about what you did during the week, including the lessons you learned from your experiences and how your actions helped fulfill your purposes.
• Modeling purpose driven living: Share what you know about purpose driven living with others. This isn’t just telling others what to do—be a living demonstration of what it’s all about. When others are looking to you as an example, you’ll naturally be more careful to uphold your work in all your purposes.