Rick WarrenI was first introduced to Rick Warren by my dad in the mid-nineties, who had read Warren’s book The Purpose-Driven Church. At that point, I was invested in the idea of church, because I believed there was a way church could be done that would actually work and benefit people. Rick Warren believed that, too, and broke the mold with his Saddleback Valley Community Church here in Southern California, a church which now has around 22,000 people attending weekly.

Tonight, I’ve been watching Warren interview both presidential candidates, McCain and Obama, at Saddleback. So far, Obama has scored a lot of points in this fairly easy conversation-style format, and McCain is just settling in. The topic on which they’ve disagreed most is taxes: Obama wants ’em higher (for the ‘richer’), McCain wants ’em lower across the board. It’ll be interesting to see how people react to what the candidates have said over the next few days.