The Purpose-Driven Blog

Joe Carter at The Evangelical Outpost is still trying to convince people that Rick Warren is the most influential person in America by highlighting this statistic:

The average number of copies sold per week of Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven® Life: 193,700

There's a reason why Rick Warren's book has sold so many copies. It's because whole churches commit to doing his 40-day study, and therefore entire congregations will purchase the book. You can't buy a marketing gimmick like that. Nevertheless, I stand by my earlier assertion.

As for the book itself, I checked it out from the library at church, because a few people in our small group (which really isn't very small) were saying it was good. However, I was a bit put off from the opening sentences, which audaciously promised that "by the end of this study you will know your purpose in life."

Uh . . . okay.

What I read before I returned it (30-day loan, 40-day study . . . you do the math) I felt was very basic and rather obvious. Now to be fair, I did not seriously commit myself to doing the daily study, but it just didn't strike me as being all that. Rather, it struck me as being sort of shallow.

But, yes, it's sold many, many copies and spawned a whole line of other "Purpose-Driven" paraphenalia. I suppose it's wrong for me to come away from it feeling that my purpose in life is to figure out how to get a piece of the action.

So, I'm still going with Oprah.