Lead pastor of U.S-based mega church, Saddleback Church, Rick Warren, has announced plans to step down.
Pastor Warren announced his plan on June 6, saying the process for the search for his replacement would commence in the coming week.
Saddleback Church, a mega church, based in Southern California, was established in 1980. It has a congregation of about 30,000 and 7,000 small groups every week.
The church grew from a modest Bible study in Warren’s home attended by a few families to 19 domestic campuses and four others in the Philippines, Germany, Hong Kong and Argentina.
Pastor Warren is widely known for his books Purpose Driven Church he wrote in 1995 and which has sold more than one million copies worldwide and Purpose Driven Life he authored in 2002 and which has sold more than 50 million copies.
He also authored Dynamics Bible Study Methods, God’s Answers to Life’s Difficult Questions, God’s Power to Change Your Life and What on Earth Am I Here For?
He was named one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World” by Time magazine in 2005.
Warren, 67, announced his retirement during a sermon titled, “How to Discern the Best time to Make a Major Change.”
“This next week, we are going to begin the official search for my successor. That’s a big deal, the official search for my successor,” Warren told his congregation via video and in person at the Lake Forest campus.
“This is not the end of my ministry. It’s not even the beginning of the end. It’s the beginning of the beginning, but we are going to start looking for the next-generation pastor who will replace me and lead our family into the future.
“We are going to take one step at a time in the timing of God……God has already blessed me more than I could ever possibly imagine. I don’t deserve any of it, and so this next transition in my life is something I am anticipating with zero regrets, zero fears, zero worries.”
He recalled that he pledged upon founding the church to lead the Saddleback family for the next 40 years.
He said he would make the “smooth transition into a less visible role of founding pastor.”
He added, “Now, this is such a significant decision because I am only (the) lead pastor our church family has ever had.”
The clergyman explained that Saddleback does not have a successor in mind already, adding that it would search for one inside and outside the church.
He said the church is looking for “a leader who is already doing some purpose-driven ministry” – a term synonymous with his (Warren) life and leadership.
“You don’t have to see the ultimate step to take the first step; you just take the first step,” he explained about the search.
Warren said he and his wife, Kay “knew this day would eventually arrive,” adding that they were already waiting on God’s perfect timing to commence the process of finding the next lead pastor for the church.
In 2019, while preaching his 40th Easter service, Warren said he and his wife had made a promise to lead Saddleback for 40 years.
He said, “Kay and I made this crazy promise when we were 25 years old that we would give 40 years to one location, that we wouldn’t move and that we wouldn’t be tempted to go to another church.”
Warren noted that now that the United States is already emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, he and his wife felt God saying “now is the time” for another person to step in.