About Purpose Driven
Purpose Driven is a church health model that provides our pastoral team at The Bridge with a unique, biblically-based approach to establishing, transforming, and maintaining a balanced, growing congregation that seeks to fulfill the God-given purposes of worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and missions.
The simple approach of Purpose Driven helps our pastoral team at The Bridge lead the members of The Bridge toward a common focus that includes a foundational understanding of the Bible and a clear method for measuring the member's own spiritual growth and the church's overall growth.
The Purpose Driven model is used by congregations around the world.
Purpose Driven helps The Bridge:
• Establish its core purposes
• Design an intentional discipleship process
• Build an "outward-in" perspective to growth and evangelism
Biblical Foundations
What is Purpose Driven?
Biblical Foundations
The foundation for the Purpose Driven model is the Bible -- with an intentional emphasis on the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37-40) and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). Later, as Jesus said goodbye to his disciples, he gave them a Great Commission that included three more tasks: go make disciples, baptize them, and teach them to obey everything Jesus taught. These two passages, the Great Commandment and the Great Commission, combine to create the essential elements of a healthy, growing, biblically-based church: worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and missions. Being a purpose-driven church helps us to bring God's purposes into balance within our congregation.
Purpose Driven is a biblically-based church health model 
Jesus gave the Great Commandment when he was asked to identify the most important of God's commands. To paraphrase his response, he said, "Here is the entire Old Testament in a nutshell. I'm going to give you a simple summary of God's commands: 'All the Law and all the Prophets can be condensed into two tasks: Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.'"
Balance
We use the "concentric circle" model to explain the core Purpose Driven process for bringing people in our community into our congregation and then developing them into core members involved in ministry and missions. In addition, we use a U.S.-styled baseball "diamond" to show the steps, or bases, toward spiritual maturity for each individual and the congregation as a whole. Purpose Driven draws attenders into membership The concentric circle model helps you identify the different levels of commitment within our congregation. It also helps our leadership team quickly see how people's needs differ at each level and what level members should next move toward. In a sense, you have five different people groups in our church: Each group has unique needs, motives, challenges, and POTENTIAL! Our goal is to support you as we turn an audience into a work force for God. Purpose Driven offers an intentional discipleship model The Purpose Driven process moves people -- from being unchurched and uncommitted -- to a deeper level of spiritual maturity and commitment, where they are involved in ministry and living out their God-shaped mission in the world. We use a U.S.-styled baseball "diamond" to show these steps, or bases, toward spiritual maturity. Purpose Driven helps our members move deeper in their walk with Christ through:
What is Purpose Driven?
Purpose Driven brings balance to our congregation
We believe a congregation must have an intentional process for bringing the lost into relationship with Christ and to encourage its members to purposefully move deeper into their relationship with God. The Purpose Driven process establishes a clear and deliberate structure that makes it easy for every guest to see how to take further steps toward God and helps every member to consistently measure personal progress in his or her own spiritual growth. We believe that to create a healthy, balanced, growing congregation, it takes more than explaining the purposes and more than writing a new mission statement; you must have a deliberate plan to help members incorporate the five purposes (worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, missions) into their lives and to keep those purposes balanced. Healthy, balanced members are foundational to a healthy, balanced church.
Characteristics
What is Purpose Driven?
Purpose Driven congregations have 12 essential characteristics
Since every congregation is unique, there are always a variety of factors that contribute toward the health and growth of any given church. However, there are always 12 essential characteristics present in successful, balanced Purpose Driven congregations:
- PD congregations create a purpose statement describing (in their own words) their commitment to building the church around the five New Testament purposes: worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and missions.
- PD congregations are intentionally purpose driven in their strategies to fulfill their purpose statement. Although different terms can be used, a Purpose Driven strategy is designed to introduce non-believers to Christ, encourage them to join his family, guide them toward maturity, equip them for ministry in the church, and then send them out on a life mission in order to bring glory to God. The PD strategy is based on two assumptions: people grow best when you allow them to make gradual commitments, and you must ask for those commitments in specific ways.
- PD congregations organize around a Purpose Driven structure -- keeping a balance and equal emphasis between all five New Testament purposes. PD churches are team-based rather than hierarchical in structure. They organize around purpose-based teams, (at least five -- one for each purpose) composed of lay leaders and staff, with each team responsible for a specific purpose and target group (such as the community, the crowd, the congregation, the committed, and the core).
- PD congregations develop ministry strategies by purpose. They have at least one game plan for fulfilling each of the five purposes: they evangelize the community, gather the crowd for worship, fellowship in the congregation, disciple the committed, and equip the core for ministry and mission.
- PD congregations staff by purpose. Every purpose has its own champion. PD churches begin by finding volunteers to lead and serve on each purpose-based team, and then they develop full-time, paid positions as needed.
- PD congregations are led by pastors who preach by purpose. Sermons, including series, are planned so that the congregation receives a balanced emphasis on each of the purposes.
- PD congregations form small groups on purpose. The Purpose Driven DNA is implanted in every cell of the Body of Christ. Each small group helps members live out the five purposes, so that every member is encouraged to live a purpose driven life.
- PD congregations calendar by purpose. The purposes are the determining factor in deciding what events are scheduled. Every event must fulfill at least one of the five purposes or it isn't approved.
- PD congregations budget by purpose. Expenditures are categorized by the purpose to which they relate.
- PD congregations build by purpose. Church buildings are seen as ministry tools not monuments. They must serve the purposes and never become more important than the purposes or the people a congregation is trying to reach through the purposes.
- PD congregations evaluate by purpose. They regularly ask: "Are we balancing all five purposes? Is there a better way to fulfill each purpose?"
- PD congregations are best built from the outside-in, rather than from the inside-out. It's far easier to turn a crowd into a core than it is to turn a core group into a crowd. You build a healthy, multi-dimensional ministry by focusing on one level of commitment at a time.
Myths
| What is Purpose Driven? |
The most common myths about Purpose
Driven
"It's just for churches following the latest style."
Purpose Driven does not mean chasing after quickly fading fads. PD is
about being biblical and eternal. The five purposes, rooted in the Great
Commandment and the Great Commission, will never go out of style. The five
purposes are based on the commands Jesus said were essential to the church.
"PD is limited to boomer seekers."
Purpose Driven is not about a particular style; rather it's about
balancing the purposes and establishing a target group to evangelize. There are
literally thousands of varieties of PD churches: post-modern, ethnic, language
group, cowboy, singles-focused, artists, surfers - and even traditional. There
are PD churches targeted for the Builder generation, Boomers, Gen-Xers, and
Millennial Gens -- and these congregations are located all around the world.
"It's a 'seeker-sensitive' approach."
Purpose Driven is not a seeker-sensitive approach. It does use a
seeker-targeted strategy for evangelism (one of the five New Testament
purposes), but PD does not require any specific method for evangelism or even a
seeker-oriented worship service. There are thousands of PD churches that DO NOT
have seeker-oriented services. It is a very flexible church health model that
allows congregations to employ a variety of formats for evangelism.
"It's not my worship style."
Purpose Driven is not about a particular worship style. Your church can be
liturgical, traditional, contemporary, country, charismatic, multi-sensory, or
casual. The Purpose Driven model supports you as your church matches the worship
style of those you are targeted to reach in the community. In other words, if
your congregation is targeted for senior adults, then you might offer a very
traditional worship service or a Big Band-styled ensemble to lead worship.
"It's only for bigger churches."
Purpose Driven is one of the most effective church planting strategies
being used today. And that means that many, many PD congregations are very small
in the beginning. But our research shows that successful PD churches come in all
shapes and sizes. The Purpose Driven strategy focuses on balance, health, and
strength, not size. There is no correlation between the size and strength of a
church. PD is a church-health emphasis, not a mega-church program.
"It only works in a locale that. …"
Purpose Driven churches are located in all sorts of settings: rural, small
town, suburban, urban, inner city, jungle, war zone. It is not limited to a
Southern California setting, either.
"It needs to be denominationally approved."
The Purpose Driven strategy dovetails easily into the polity of many
denominations. It is like a computer chip that can be used in any form of
computer. Purpose Driven churches exist in more than 100 different denominations
and associations.
