Many Chinese churches will be participating in the four-day Purpose Driven Life Conference starting from today in California.
Running from May 16 thru May 19, the Purpose Driven Church Conference and Preaching for Life Change Conference will be held one after the other. At the Saddleback Church Campus, the participants will be joining the Purpose Driven Church general sessions and workshops in the first and second day, while on the third and fourth day, application seminars are available.
As the series of Purpose Driven books written by the founding pastor of the Saddleback Church Rick Warren become the world’s best sellers and are translated into over 30 different languages, Purpose Driven program has been widely adopted by more ethnic churches as well. In the United States, many Chinese churches and pastors have showed more active participation in the recent annual Purpose Driven Conference.
This year, one of the largest Chinese churches in San Francisco Bay Area- the evangelical community church Home of Christ 5 (HOC5) – will send around 13 pastors and ministers to the Purpose Driven Conference. In addition, including the participants from the remaining five Home of Christ churches in California and other members from Taipei, the total number attending the Conference reaches 44.
HOC5 has just launched the 40 day Purpose Driven Life campaign in January. HOC5, with an active congregation of 1,000 to 1,200 on average, hopes the campaign will give their members an opportunity to commit to habits of spiritual growth, memorizing scriptures, and participating in small group activities.
Christian Communication Inc. U.S.A. (CCI USA), the only authorized agent to translate and distribute the Chinese material of "Purpose Driven Life 40 Days" campaign, will also send coworkers to join the Conference as well.
More than 300,000 pastors have joined the Purpose Driven Church Conference so far, according to Purpose Driven. Approximately 4,000 guests from 46 countries and 80 denominations attended the 2005 event, which was simultaneously translated into Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japanese.
