Time magazine’s August 18 cover story on Rick Warren was good. However, some headline-writing editor definitely had a one-track mind, wanting to portray Warren as power-hungry.

• The cover described Warren as “America’s most powerful religious leader.”
• The article was actually titled “The Global Ambition of Rick Warren.”
• A sidebar about three Warren ministries was labeled “How to Build an Empire.”

Contrast those depictions with what I read recently from a couple bloggers who attended a church planting conference. Warren attended; he spoke once, but then, rather than fly away in a jet, he stuck around for the rest of the conference–just attending and learning, like everyone else.

The bloggers were amazed watching Warren. Here’s this guy who planted what is now a 23,000 member church, and he’s sitting in seminars scribbling notes like crazy, soaking up what he’s hearing. He hung around with the other attendees, and then cancelled and rescheduled a flight home so he could spend more time with some church planters who wanted to talk to him.

There’s no power trip in Warren. But Time evidently wants him to be Falwell or Dobson.