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Warren has been invited to speak at national and international forums, including the United Nations, the World Economic Forum in Davos, the African Union, the Council on Foreign Relations, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, TED, and Time’s Global Health Summit. He has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) since 2005.

Warren taught the material that would one day become the Purpose Driven philosophy of ministry to individual pastors who called or wrote him in Saddleback’s early days.

The Warrens’ plan centers around the C.H.U.R.C.H. acrostic. C stands for “Care for and support the sick.” H stands for “Handle HIV testing and counseling.” U stands for “Unleash a volunteer labor force.” R stands for “Remove the stigma.” C stands for “Champion healthy behavior.” H stands for “Help with HIV medications.” Warren's stated intention is to involve every Christian and every church in every nation in the task of serving people in the areas of the greatest global needs. The tagline is “Ordinary people empowered by God making a difference together wherever they are.” P.E.A.C.E. is an acronym for the stated methodology for achieving the plan: "Promote reconciliation. Equip servant leaders. Assist the poor. Care for the sick. Educate the next generation."

On Hardball with Chris Matthews, after repeated questioning over why Michael Schiavo would want his wife’s feeding tube removed, Warren responded, “I have no idea. Well, I don‘t know. There‘s a thousand reasons you could speculate. What if she came back out of the—out of this state and had something to say that he didn't want said?”

In a May 2014 article in The Washington Post, Warren expressed his support for David and Barbara Green, the owners of Hobby Lobby, in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case centered on the company's request for a religious exemption to certain portions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act mandate that companies provide employee health insurance. Warren wrote, “The [A]dministration wants everyone to render unto Caesar not only what is Caesar’s but also what is God’s. If it wins, the first purpose on which the United States was founded would be severely damaged.”

Warren's youngest son, Matthew, took his own life on April 6, 2013, after 10 years of struggling with mental illness. Almost a year after his son's suicide, Warren launched a ministry to educate the church on its role to help people struggling with mental illness and the Church Gathering in March 2014. In the year following the suicide, Warren says that more than 10,000 people wrote to him about their struggles with mental illness within the church.

In a December 2012 interview, Warren publicly said that religious freedom will be the civil-rights issue of the next decade. He publicly denounced President Obama's record on religious freedom, saying that Obama was “absolutely unfriendly” to religion.

By the end of 2010, Saddleback P.E.A.C.E. teams had participated in mission trips to every country in the world. Warren has stated that Saddleback is the first church in the 2,000-year history of Christianity to do this.

In December 2008, President-elect Obama chose Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration ceremony. The decision angered pro-choice and LGBT advocates and led to criticism of both Obama and Warren. Obama defended his choice of Warren, saying that although he disagreed with the minister's positions on abortion and same-sex marriage, there should be room for dialogue on such difficult social issues. More controversy ensued when it was announced that Warren would be the keynote speaker at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Annual Commemorative Service on January 19, 2009, the day prior to the inauguration. On January 20, 2009, Warren delivered the invocation, which was generally praised for its positive message.

In January 2009, Warren and the Reader's Digest Association partnered in the launch of the Purpose Driven Connection, a quarterly publication sold as part of a bundle of multimedia products. In November 2009, the partners announced that the magazine had not drawn enough paying members and would cease after publication of the fourth issue that month.

During the 2008 United States presidential election, Warren hosted the Civil Forum on the Presidency at his church with both presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama. Obama later sparked controversy when he asked Warren to give the invocation at the presidential inauguration in January 2009.

In August 2008, Warren drew greater national attention by hosting the Civil Forum on the Presidency, featuring senators John McCain and Barack Obama at Saddleback Church. The forum marked McCain and Obama's first joint appearance as the presumptive Republican and Democratic presidential nominees and was broadcast live on national television.

Two weeks before the 2008 U.S. general election, Warren issued a statement to his congregation endorsing California Proposition 8, which would amend the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry, a position consistent with the official position of his church's denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention. After the measure passed, Warren's church and others were targeted by protesters.

In an interview with Beliefnet in early December 2008, Warren again sparked controversy by appearing to equate same-sex marriages with marriages between siblings, marriages between multiple partners, and marriages between adults and minors. He later released a video message explaining that he does not equate gay relationships with incest or pedophilia, but that he opposes the redefinition of marriage.

Warren has an initiative for global action and service, the "P.E.A.C.E. Plan". The letters in the acronym stand for the five points in the plan: Plant churches that promote reconciliation; Equip servant leaders; Assist the poor; Care for the sick; and Educate the next generation. In February 2006, he signed a statement backing a major initiative to combat global warming, thus breaking with a number of other high-profile conservative evangelical leaders.

In 2006, Wall Street Journal writer Suzanne Sataline cited examples of congregations that have split over the growth strategies and congregations that have expelled members who fought changes. She wrote, "Warren acknowledges that splits occur in congregations that adopt his ideas, though he says he opposes efforts to expel church members."

In 2004, Rwandan President Paul Kagame sent Warren a letter, explaining that he had read The Purpose Driven Life, and invited Warren and his team to help make his country the first “purpose driven nation.” Over the next several years, Saddleback Church sent a series of P.E.A.C.E. teams to the country.. As of 2014, 1,300 P.E.A.C.E. teams had served in Rwanda. On April 17, 2005, Saddleback Church celebrated the church's 25th anniversary with a special worship service at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California, with more than 45,000 people in attendance. President Kagame was one of the service's special speakers.

Because of the success of his book sales, in 2005 Warren returned his 25 years of salary to the church and discontinued taking a salary. He says he and his wife became "reverse tithers", giving away 90% of their income and living off 10%.

In a 2005 Larry King Live interview, during the Terri Schiavo controversy, Warren stated that withholding feeding to Schiavo, a woman in a persistent vegetative state, was "not a right-to-die issue." He elaborated on his concerns over the decision to remove her feeding tube: ”I fear the day, that if we start saying, well, you don't have a right to live if you are mentally handicapped or you're physically handicapped or emotionally handicapped...we're just not going to feed you anymore. To me, that is an atrocity worthy of Nazism.”

In 2004, more than 10,000 churches of various denominations attended a seminar or a conference led by Warren.

In 2004, Warren was named one of the "leaders who mattered most in 2004" by Time. In April 2005, Warren was named by Time as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World". Warren was named one of "America's Top 25 Leaders" in October 2005, by U.S. News and World Report. In 2006, Warren was named by Newsweek one of "15 People Who Make America Great".

The P.E.A.C.E. Plan is an initiative begun by Saddleback Church. In 2002, Kay Warren became “seriously disturbed” by the global HIV epidemic through a Newsweek cover story. In 2004 she began an HIV ministry at Saddleback. Through Saddleback's P.E.A.C.E. Plan, the Warrens have spoken up for those marginalized by the epidemic all around the world. The Warrens’ focus has been to mobilize local churches to combat the spread of the disease.

In 1995 Zondervan published Warren's best-selling book, The Purpose Driven Church, which distilled many of the lessons he had learned while starting Saddleback Church and honed during years of training other pastors. After sharing the “Saddleback Story”, the book makes a case for building a church around five purposes (worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and evangelism) through what Warren called a “crowd to core” method of church growth. He encouraged churches to reach their community, bring in a crowd, turn attendees into members, develop those members to maturity, turn them into ministers, and send them out on a mission. (The Purpose Driven Church, table of contents)

In January 1980, he began a Bible study group, with seven people and his wife, at their Saddleback Valley condo, in Orange County, California. In April 1980, Warren held Saddleback Church's first public service on Easter Sunday at the Laguna Hills High School Theater with 200 people in attendance. Warren's church growth methods led to rapid expansion, with the church using nearly 80 different facilities in its 35-year history. The church now averages nearly 20,000 people in attendance each week.

Warren received a Bachelor of Arts degree from California Baptist University in Riverside, California; a Master of Divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (1979) in Fort Worth, Texas; and a Doctor of Ministry degree from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.

Warren has been married to Kay Warren since June 21, 1975. They have three adult children and four grandchildren. He considers Billy Graham, Peter Drucker, and his own father to be among his mentors.

Warren says he was called to full-time ministry when he was a 19-year-old student at California Baptist University. In November 1973, he and a friend skipped classes and drove 350 miles to hear W. A. Criswell preach at the Jack Tar Hotel in San Francisco. Warren waited afterwards to shake hands with Criswell, who focused on Warren, stating, "I feel led to lay hands on you and pray for you!"

Warren was born in San Jose, California, the son of Jimmy and Dot Warren. His father was a Baptist minister, his mother a high-school librarian. He was raised in Ukiah, California, and graduated from Ukiah High School in 1972, where he founded the first Christian club on the school's campus.

Richard Duane Warren (born January 28, 1954) is an American evangelical Christian pastor and author. He is the founder and senior pastor of Saddleback Church, an evangelical megachurch affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention in Lake Forest, California, that is the sixth-largest megachurch in the United States (including multi-site churches). He is also a bestselling author of many Christian books, including his guide to church ministry and evangelism, The Purpose Driven Church, which has spawned a series of conferences on Christian ministry and evangelism. His subsequent book, The Purpose Driven Life, has sold more than 30 million copies, making Warren a New York Times bestselling author.