As an evangelical I'm ecstatic when I hear of a prominent evangelical getting past the human constructs of our religious ghetto and reading the hidden passages of the Bible. (Not that I've got this down yet…still trying.)

Recently the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life hosted a forum on the "Myths of the Modern Mega-Church." One of the guests was Rick Warren, of the Purpose Driven/Saddleback juggernaut.

I still haven't read the whole transcript, but friend Bob Carlton quoted this portion in his blog this morning and I rejoiced. Not only does Warren voice the shift in his worldview, but he says he's still on the journey. Awesome.

To quote Rev. Warren:

And that was a turning point in my life two-and-a-half years ago, where God basically said to me – and I've never heard God speak audibly; it's in my mind – "The purpose of influence is to speak up for those who have no influence. The purpose of influence is to speak up for those who have no influence." And in religious terms I had to say, "God, I repent, because I can't think of the last time I thought of widows and orphans." I live in a very affluent Southern California neighborhood. There aren't any homeless people lying on the streets where I live. And I said, "I can't think of the last time I cared about the homeless."

And so I went back and I began to read scripture, and it was like blinders came off. Now, I've got three advanced degrees. I've had four years in Greek and Hebrew and I've got doctorates. And how did I miss 2,000 versus in the Bible where it talks about the poor? How did I miss that? I mean, I went to two different seminaries and a Bible school; how did I miss the 2,000 versus on the poor?

See, here's the other reason why I believe a Reformation could happen: every time God's word is put into new technology, there's a Reformation. In 1456 or something, that's when Gutenberg came out with the printing press, and the first thing he prints, what is it? A Bible. It's not pornography; it's the Bible, okay? Within about 50 years of that time we have the Reformation. Why? Because what Martin Luther nailed to the wall of the Wittenberg door somebody pulled off the wall and started reprinting. The Reformation would have never happened without the technology to make it possible. We now have a new technology which allows global networking between millions of local churches. It's called the Internet.

My own shift happened over the last few years, fueled by my work environs at Youth Specialties. Mike Yaconelli and others were so influential in helping me start to discover the biblical passages that are so typically and conveniently ignored by evangelicals.

I was so humbled to be small part of the genesis of the One Life Revolution, a partnership between World Vision and YS, to help widows and orphans of AIDS victims in Zambia. The project was borne from the Barna study that showed that evangelicals were so hung up on the AIDS thing that only something like 5% would even help the widows and orphans of those who died of AIDS. ack

That so ticked Yaconelli off that the project was created. Because he knew that if the adults in the church wouldn't do anything about this travesty, the kids would. And that's what happened.

OLR had the most successful (in terms of raising funds) first year of any other WV project! Youth groups around the country were buying goats, medical supplies, water wells, and even schools to provide these unfortunate victims.

It was changing the lives of the kids (some giving up new prom dresses and more, for instance; other traveling to Zambia to see the fruit of their efforts); and it was pulling adults into the movement.

Check out this blog post from Marko, YS prez, about their recent trip to Zambia for the dedication of the Michael Yaconelli School >kleenex alert< . (When Mike died, his family requested that people donate in his memory to OLR, and enough was raised to build a school!)

Sorry, I'm rambling. But I hope this will be the mark of evangelicalism in the 21st century…that we got beyond our political, denominational, and religious constraints to start really thinking Christianly.