The historic launch took place May 10-12 at Lakeside Mission in Rancho Capistrano, a sprawling church and retreat center only a few miles from Saddleback Church's main campus.
 
With candor and emotion, Warren spoke for nearly two hours on the evening of the 11th as he exhorted the pastors and their wives to take on the most significant mission of their lives.
 
"If you know something more significant than bringing people to Christ, building them up to maturity, training them for their ministry, and sending them out on their mission for the global glory of God, I'd like to know it," Warren declared.
 
He also shared vulnerably about his own burnout after his first year in ministry—and how it changed the direction of Saddleback Church.
 
"I was just trying to build the church the old traditional way, build a program, work as hard as you can, run yourself into the ground," Warren recalled. "I was working 18-hour days; I had my office in my home and loving every minute of it, but I was burning out very quickly."
 
The church grew to an attendance of about 150 people. On the last Sunday of that first year he stood up to speak and something unexpected happened. (Photo: People Magazine/via God Reports)
 
"I was so exhausted and so emotionally burned out I fainted while I was preaching," he recounted. "I just fell over. When I woke up I was embarrassed and I was dizzy and I went into a deep depression. I had destroyed my health. I was physically and emotionally exhausted."
 
He took his wife, Kay, and their children to Phoenix and dropped them with Kay's parents. "I went off and had my desert experience for a month. I saw no one," he said.
 
Like many other leaders in the pages of Scripture, he had a wilderness experience that brought critical revelation from above.
 
Alone with himself, Warren had to confront a battleground within his own mind. He thought the church's rapid...
 
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