My Bible Study group of six close friends went off our tried and true path for study and chose to study this book for the past three months. It prompted much discussion and introspective thinking about our faith and our role and responsibility as Christians.

There are many interesting thoughts to take from this study. For example, he suggests that the goal of worship is to bring glory to God rather than to please ourselves and so anything if done with exuberance, love and dedication could be seen as worship. - even cleaning house, ironing, raising children, employment, kindnesses done for others, etc. But he does also emphasize the benefits of collective worship as a member of a church community.

He also emphasizes the benefits of small group study for encouragement and discussion. My small group has been studying together for over five years now. We have formed a bond that goes beyond mere friendship. While I did not necessarily agree with everything in this book, it certainly provided much food for thought and was well based in Scripture.

This book was on my shelf, but frankly, not on my list. I read it because a friend asked me to join him in his 40-day journey. Took me 109 days, to be exact, which probably says something about my purpose and drivenness. Honestly, I think it says more about my season: the book might have really grabbed me in a different season—say, 15 years ago. Today, I appreciated some of the pithy takeaways, and I admire the author; but the whole project seemed pervaded by a “just-so” set of answers to every question—a simplified, self-help-y gospel that intrinsically flattens out the textured terrain of Christian life. I realize this is probably the exact reason it has had such an impact on so many—and for that I really am grateful—but as I said, it wasn’t on my list.

While the philosophy and prompts for personal reflection were engaging, I didn't learn anything new from this book. Even organizing my thoughts through the exercises in the accompanying workbook and viewing these things from Rick Warren's perspective didn't really provide me with anything fresh to help me move forward with fresh direction and purpose. Maybe this is better for a type B person, instead of someone like me?

It's rare that I can't force myself to get through a non-fiction book, even if I don't care for it much, but I just couldn't finish this one. It's also the first book I ever placed in the recycling bin; I couldn't in good conscience pass it on to anyone else. There are some good nuggets, but sweeping statements like "every one is a creature of God, but only believers are children of God" made this book unreadable for me.

I've heard a lot of things about this book especially from my mom who made this her most favorite. It intrigued me to know if what the people around me said was true. And now, thanks to a friend of my mom's, gave me a hardcover format of this book (which I'm very thankful for I think it deserves to be bought a copy).
I've read the preface and some introductory notes from the author recommending I shall read a chapter per day and join him in a journey of 40 days of finding purpose.
I already signed the covenant with my mom and will now start my voyage of 40 days. I'm really expecting a lot and I wish I'll be able to find out God's purpose for me. :)

Like the Shack, not bad just not great. I think all the Purpose Driven Life merchandising bothered me some to...that could be, just me though.

I am a Christian and I find that "popular" Christian books tend to have a "hard row to hoe" with me.

I'd say, know what you believe and then read this. Works flow from a person's relationship with God, they do not bring it about.

I'm not saying that this book claims they do, I'm just saying fit the contemporary read (any contemporary work)into grounded Christian belief, not the other way around.

Rick Warren's books are read as part of small groups in churches of almost every denomination. I'm glad this book seems to have positively affected so many people, but to me, it seemed somewhat typical of the simplified, talk-down-to-you, kill-the-mystery, commercialized Christian devotional. I'm still waiting for the Purpose Driven board game and the Purpose Driven action figures.

This is a compelling book about living your purpose driven life, and living the life that God planned for you to have. I loved how the author had different sections, as he explained why we are here: The creation, we were crafted by God, we are his workmanship,service, commission, etc. I also love the scripture references, it was very poignant and inspiring. I learned many new things that I will adapt to my personal life, it was a very interesting and Spiritual read.

Our life now here on earth is the warm-up act - the
dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice what we will
do forever in eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense. Life is a series of problems: Either we are in one
now, we're just coming out of one, or we're getting ready to go into another one.

The reason for this is that God is more interested in
our character than our comfort. God is more interested in making our life holy than He is in making our life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's
not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character,
in Christ likeness.

Life being hills and valleys (you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth), no matter how good things are in our life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in our life, there is always something good we can thank God for.

We can focus on our purposes, or we can focus on our problems. If we focus on our problems, we're going into
self-centeredness,'which is my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get our focus off yourself and ontoGod and others.

We have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes for my life? God didn't put us on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what we are than what we do.

That's why we're called human beings, not human
doings.

This book was recommended to me by a good friend to help me through a difficult period in my life.

Per his recommendation, I read one day at a time and processed each day’s reading. This book was excellent at bringing in perspective without beating religion over my head.

While I read this one via ebook, I have ordered a print copy for highlighting and notes.

Leer sobre religión y espiritualidad no es algo común para mí, sin embargo, dentro de mis desafíos de lectura autoimpuestos para este año está el echar mano a aquellos libros que andan dando vuelta en mi casa, para luego de leerlos decidir si me los quedaré o los donaré/venderé/regalaré.
Este libro fue muy útil en momentos de seria crisis espiritual/religiosa. Con la situación actual del cristianismo resulta difícil mantener una relación cercana con Dios y su mensaje. Si bien este libro no busca cambiar eso, me ayudó tremendamente a reencontrarme con Dios y comprender, desde un punto de vista espiritual, algunos propósitos de vida.
No seguí la premisa de seguir los 40 días de lectura, sino que lo leí de corrido. Así y todo se me hicieron más útiles los capítulos 1 al 28, de ahí en adelante se notaba mucho el sentido evangélico del mensaje del autor.
Mantendré este libro en mi biblioteca para releerlo en distintos momentos de mi vida.

This book teaches its reader God's five purposes for his or her life on earth: He makes you a member of His family, a model of His character, a magnifier of His glory, a minister of His grace, and a messenger of His Good News to others.

Among those five purposes, at this stage in my life, the only engaging read for me was the first one. There was nothing new about it really as I basically studied at several Catholic universities during my younger years. However, there were some bible passages and pointers that Warren reminded me of and the book had the usual positive impact to me so I still liked it. It's just that pages after pages of it sounded like some of the religion teachers that I had in the past. Maybe when I am in the twilight years, I will read this book again and its the impact will be greater than it has on me now.

There are also many quotable quotes that were able to inspire me there past few weeks. The book is designed to be read one chapter a day for the reader to "digest" and ponder the point that the chapter wants to convey. I recently had a couple of misunderstandings with someone close to me and this book became my companion in threshing out what could be done to fix things. Warren actually helped me in seeing things at that someone's points of view so saying sorry, forgetting and granting forgiveness were not really that difficult.

We have three copies of this book at home. The first was a Christmas gift from an office mate. The second was a retirement gift to my wife by another office mate. The third was the book my daughter bought for herself. I am not sure which one I read but since this book was first published in 2002, it has sold 25 million copies worldwide. I was in a bookstore last week and the latest copy proudly bears 30 million mark. Why did I not read this right away say when we received the first copy of the book at home? I dunno. Just browsing the book gave me then an impression that it was saccharine sweet and was unrealistically all positive that means falsely deceptive.

That impression is not true. The book is realistic and Warren presents the challenges that every Christian should work for. From the first declaration of "this is not about you" to "living with purpose is the only way to really live," the book is peppered with heartfelt applications of bible passages as Warren presents the five purposes that I mentioned above. My eyes did not get blurred not my heart pounded with sadness or inspiration but I felt that my spirit flew and soured while reading some of its pages.

A dear friend mentioned that the youngest child of Warren committed suicide this year, April 5, 2013 after struggling with mental illness that caused severe depression. In my life, I've seen several similar cases like this: a successful parent losing a child possibly because the celebrity parent got too focused with fame and in the process neglected his o her own family. But I do not know Warren's complete story so I'd rather keep my comments to myself.

At some point in your life you should read this book.