Rick Warren: Mainline Church Problems Need Evangelical Solution
By Michelle A. Vu
Christian Post Reporter
Mon, Jan. 28 2008

WASHINGTON – Megachurch pastor Rick Warren suggested Sunday that mainline churches need to reconcile with evangelicals to counter its mounting problem of membership decline.

“The reconciliation is that in a pluralistic world…we (Christians) need to be on the same team because we share the same savior,” Warren contended Sunday, as he spoke with the dean of the Washington National Cathedral, Samuel T. Lloyd III, who observed that evangelical churches are thriving and full of vitality, while most mainline denominations are confronting worrisome membership decline.

During the Cathedral’s weekly Sunday Forum: Critical Issues in the Light of Faith, Lloyd asked Warren how mainlines should tackle the problem.

“100 years ago the phrase ‘social gospel’ first came out,” Warren responded. “Some people took that to mean only if we reform the social government and society and not personal faith in Christ Jesus – that is, if we make the world a better place – we don’t need personal redemption.”

That idea led to mainline churches going “one way” and evangelical churches another way, he said. the rest