Editor: Rick, thank you for taking time to answer a few questions and letting our readers better know your missions heart. Would you take a few moments to tell us about your upbringing?

Rick Warren: I come from a long line of pastors. My great-grandfather was converted through Charles Spurgeon’s historic ministry in London and came to the United States as a pioneer circuit-riding pastor. Both my father and my father-in-law were pastors. My background has been Southern Baptist for four generations.

I was born in San Jose, California, but when I was in the fifth grade, my family moved to Redwood Valley, a picturesque place about two hours north of San Francisco. Our house sat on a 10-acre lot surrounded with trees. Dad had a vegetable garden and fruit trees, and there was a one-acre pond about 50 yards from our backdoor. In many ways, I enjoyed a Huck Finn childhood: swimming, fishing, diving, frog-gigging, rope swinging over the water, playing on our two wooden rafts, and catching tadpoles.

I felt God’s call to ministry as a teenager and began speaking as a youth evangelist while I was still in high school. By the time I was 19, I had preached revival meetings in about 50 churches. I wasn’t sure, however, if God wanted me to become a pastor until November 1973, when I was a student at California Baptist College. A buddy and I heard that W.A. Criswell, pastor of the largest Baptist church in the world—First Baptist Church of Dallas —was going to speak at the Jack Tar Hotel in San Francisco. We skipped out on our classes and drove 350 miles to hear him. As I listened to that great man of God preach, God spoke personally to me and made it very clear that He was calling me to be a pastor.

After the service, we stood in line to shake hands with Dr. Criswell. When my turn finally arrived, Criswell looked at me with kind, loving eyes and said, quite emphatically, “Young man, I feel led to lay hands on you and pray for you!” He placed his hands on my head and prayed: “Father, I ask that you give this young preacher a double portion of your Spirit. May the church he pastors grow to twice the size of the Dallas church. Bless him greatly, O Lord.” God answered Dr. Criswell’s prayer in ways neither he nor I could have ever imagined.

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