Christians need to step out

Joe Southern
joe.southern@amarillo.com
Pastor Rick Warren's message Monday to the more than 2,000 people gathered at the Amarillo Civic Center was a simple one.
"If you want God's blessing in your life, you must care about what God cares about most," he told the crowd assembled in Amarillo for the annual meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
In an impassioned, hour-long talk, Warren implored BGCT members to engage in his PEACE Plan, a missions-oriented strategy to bring people out of church pews and into action. He hoped doing so would help tackle what he called the "five Goliaths" facing the world today - spiritual emptiness, self-centered leadership, poverty, pandemic disease and illiteracy.
"These five problems are so big it's depressing," he said.
The PEACE Plan is acronym for ideals he hopes Christians would embrace - to Promote reconciliation, Equip servant leaders, Assist the poor, Care for the sick and Educate the next generation.
Warren said he prioritized these problems by looking at conditions through his travels around the world. He found the answers in the Bible, which he claims is the only book to outsell his own "A Purpose-Driven Life" in American history.
Jesus tackled those five Goliaths throughout his ministry, Warren said.
"The five things Jesus did are the antidote to the five biggest problems," he said.
Speaking with a hoarse voice damaged by smoke from the Southern California fires, Warren seemed to light a fire at the conference, where missions were the theme. He said most churches have the model of missions backwards. Churches study an area and train missionaries before sending them out. Warren said the victory is in the harvest and recommended that people go on missions first, then pray and learn.
"We need to release the latent, pent-up power that's sitting in our pews today," he said.
He urged people to get out of their comfortable pews and get involved in the world around them.
"Every member is a minister and every member is a missionary," he said.