'Purpose-Driven Live' -- March 27, 2005

  -- A weekly feature on This Week.

Rick Warren's Saddleback Church has more than 15,000 regular worshippers. His book, "The Purpose Driven Life" has sold more than 20 million copies. His program has trained more than 100,000 pastors and some call him the next Billy Graham.

Rick Warren: "One of the fundamental rules of life is this: God is God and you're not. It's kinda like on the old Saturday Night Live skit where Chevy Chase says, 'Hi, I'm Chevy Chase and you're not.' Well I can hear God saying, 'I'm God and you're not.' And every time I act like God, then I get into all kinds of problems. In fact, there's one stereotype, or one sign, that we know when we're not letting God be God, and it is a sign called 'worry.' Worry is the symbol that I've resumed trying to take responsibility God never meant for me to have. Worry says, 'I'm trying to be God, I'm trying to be manager of the universe, I'm acting as if it all depends on me.' And so stress is a warning light that says somehow I've got disconnected from God. So these are the purposes of life. First, to know God and love Him. Second, is to learn to love other people. Third, is to grow more like God in character -- not to become a God, but to become Godly, for instance in love and joy and peace and patience and character. The fourth thing that is the purpose of life is to serve God because we're gonna serve God in Heaven, and God wants us to practice here on Earth. You see, for the last 50 years we've lived in a real narcissistic culture which has said, 'It's all about you. Everything's about you.' All of, all the advertisements, all of the commercials say, 'We do it all for you. You gotta do what's best for you. Have it your way.' And it's all a very self-centered attitude. And that has created a nation of loneliness. I mean, a lot of lonely people. And so I wrote a book that the first sentence says, 'It's not about you.' Now, that's a slap in the face. That's about the most counter-cultural statement you can give. And how does a book that starts, 'It's not about you' become the best-selling book in the world for the past two-and-a-half years? We need something greater than ourselves. We need a may purpose. I say, 'I don't care what your background is; you be Catholic, you may be Protestant, you may be Jewish, you may be Muslim, you may be Mormon, you may even have no relationship with God in the past.' The vast majority of people in our church had no religious background. What matters not is where you've been, but where your feet are headed now. And I say, on Easter develop a relationship with God, not a religion. And get to know him on a personal relationship."

Late Night with Conan O'Brien:

O'Brien: "India is upset with us. India is upset with President Bush because Bush has agreed to sell F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan. Yeah, which India doesn't want. And this could cause a problem because, if the U.S. goes through with the sale, India says they will stop answering our computer questions."

Late Show with David Letterman:

Letterman: "Martha Stewart is under house arrest, and there's a 24-hour surveillance team monitoring Martha's whereabouts. Nothing yet on al Qaeda."

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno:

Leno: "Condoleezza Rice made her last stop in her foreign trip. She was in Beijing. They went nuts for her. From their reaction, you would think people in China had never seen Rice before."