Warren plays the pied piper to Piper

This is a follow up on my Purpose Driven post down below 'Is God Purpose Driven?'.  It's currently making the 'rounds' that John Piper has invited Rick Warren to speak at his upcoming Desiring God conference. Piper met Warren at a funeral and striking up a conversation, found him very likable.  Piper asked Warren some very direct questions about his pragmatic methods (which Piper is against) and was bowled over by Warren's responses.  I first read about this disturbing development on Lighthouse Trails newsletter.  Yesterday while researching something else I came across a new post from blogger and friend of John MacArthur, Phil Johnson where he discusses the fallout from Piper's announcement and his own balanced thoughts on the matter.  It's a very well written post that I agree with whole heartedly.  You can read it here:

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2010/04/on-piper-warren-connection.html

I also highly recommend clicking on the links Johnson provides at the end of his post, particularly the response from Chris Rosebrough, which is an audio file. (Listen to the first half of his Pirate Radio broadcast) These men offer valid and discerning insight into Rick Warren's ability to 'read' his audience and say whatever he needs to disarm any mistrust you might have toward him.  I believe that our brother, an amazing Pastor and teacher, John Piper would do well to heed their words.  He has been played by Warren in my opinion.  I will be praying that God turns the tables on Warren and he is exposed, and hopefully he will repent and begin to declare the true biblical gospel and stand for Christianity that honors God's word.  

Another resource I came across from Rosebrough describes the tactics that are employed by Purpose Driven methodologies in Churches undergoing PD transitioning.  How eerie to see the exact list of maneuvers we experienced 3 years ago when our Church was merged with a Purpose Driven group in the same denomination.  I always believed in my heart that the entire experience was planned in advance much like when businesses engage in a 'hostile takeover'.  

Here is an excerpt from Rosebrough's blog, followed by a link where you can read (or listen as it were) the whole thing.

Exposing The Cult-Like Hostile Takeover Tactics of the Purpose-Driven Church Transitioning Seminar

Below is a Special Edition of the Fighting for the Faith radio program that exposes the Cult-Like Hostile Takeover Tactics of Dan Southerland's Purpose-Driven Church Transtioning Seminar. The list of cult-like tactics employed by Southerland is LONG. They include:

1. Flat out lies and manipulative double speak
2. Blatant Scripture Twisting
3. New & Direct Extra Biblical Revelation and Visions from God
4. Flat out intolerance for anyone who questions or challenges these "new" Extra Biblical Revelations and Visions that are supposedly from God.

All of these cult-like tactics are exposed and discussed in this special edition of F4F. Furthermore, I cannot emphasize enough the fact that Dan Southerland's Church Transitions company has been the "go to" company used by Rick Warren's Purpose-Driven businesses to train pastors into Warren's Druckerite leadership methodologies.

http://www.extremetheology.com/rick-warren/

Me again...  If anyone would like to hear how those 4 tactics were specifically fulfilled in the situation we encountered back in 2007, I'd be happy to write them up.  Let me know in a comment.  (Sadly we recently left a Church when, at the end of a long Pastoral search, the gentleman chosen as Pastor seemed to follow a mixture of vision and methodologies fairly similar to PD.  For us the deciding issue was his treatment of scripture.)  It is grievous to my heart that many Christians may be getting side tracked onto a man-made, though well meaning perhaps, agenda with a mixture of truth and error.  May the Lord protect His people from false or simply misguided Shepherds which seem to be more in number in America than those faithful to teach and apply scripture.