When ex-hostage Ashley Smith appeared on TV and told how she gained her freedom - and her captor's surrender - by reading to Brian Nichols from "The Purpose-Driven Life," her stirring story sent thousands off in search of the book.

Author Rick Warren, though, didn't really need her help. His work was already the bestselling nonfiction hardback in US history. Since the book's release in October 2002, people apparently hungry for a clearer sense of purpose and direction have snapped up more than 22 million copies.

Indeed, the story behind "The Purpose-Driven Life" is every bit as remarkable as that of Ms. Smith and the book's recent spurt in sales. It's the tale of a 20-something pastor who settled in a community full of "the unchurched," and, beginning in 1980, built Saddleback Valley Community Church in southern California into one of the largest megachurches in the US. And of how his paradigm for personal and church growth has since influenced tens of thousands worldwide.

Rick Warren has been a guest at two state dinners in China, where he told the country's leaders they couldn't have real economic progress without the underpinnings of freedom of religion and information. Fidel Castro has asked for an autographed copy. In the Philippines, the government wants to make use of the study program linked to the book - called 40 Days of Purpose.

Management guru Peter Drucker calls Warren "the inventor of perpetual revival" and his organizational model "the most significant sociological phenomena of the second half of [the 20th] century."

Yet there's also criticism that the purpose-driven approach reflects too much of a corporate mindset, and that its seeker-sensitive model goes too light on the demands of Christian living.

Despite a desire for a low profile (he gives few interviews), Warren is thrust increasingly into the spotlight. During a recent stop in Boston, he spoke at Harvard University and at a breakfast of the Marketplace Network - to some 600 evangelical business leaders. The tall, solid, sandy-haired pastor revealed his penchant for simple, straightforward language flecked with humor and clarity, and free of religious jargon.

"I'm more interested in [fostering] a relationship with God than a religion," he said. And he challenged the idea of just looking within for life's answers.

"I didn't create me, so I can't possibly tell myself what my purpose is," he told the curious, but somewhat skeptical Harvard crowd.

As a teenager in Northern California, the son of Baptist missionaries already hoped to help friends find God, starting a Christian club and newspaper and holding rock concerts after school. As a pastor fresh from divinity school, he shied from a traditional assignment to form a church designed for those who didn't attend church.

Going door-to-door for 12 weeks in his new California community, Warren says he found the main reasons people strayed from church were not theological: "Church members are unfriendly to visitors;" "Sermons are boring and don't relate to my life;" "They are more interested in your money than in you as a person."

Page: 1 | 2