Rick Warren Reveals He Has Been Battling Autoimmune Disease for the Past Two Years

Bestselling author and former megachurch pastor Rick Warren recently shared some health challenges he has faced in the current season of his life. Warren reveals that he has been battling an autoimmune disease for the past two years. 

"I've been in a two-year battle with an autoimmune disease," Warren told host Ed Stetzer and co-host Daniel Yang on the Stetzer ChurchLeaders Podcast. "It's not life-threatening. It won't even last. It lasts between three to five years. But without getting into all the details, the bottom line is it leaves my muscles, all my major muscles in pain pretty much 24 hours a day."

"It leaves all my major muscles in pain, pretty much, 24 hours a day," he said. "It's debilitating. It's tough walking, working. But it hasn't changed the way that I think. The problem is sometimes I feel like I am this brain on fire, and I'm like in a wheelchair. I'm not in a wheelchair, but the bottom line is it's difficult to move around." 

Despite his health struggles, Warren still has four goals his wants to achieve. First, he wants all people in the world to have access to the Bible in their "heart language," that is, their mother tongue. Second, he wants everyone in the world to have access to a church. Third, he wants every person to hear the gospel directly from another person, not simply through media. And finally, he wants everyone across the globe to be prayed for by name at least one time in the next 10 years.

Warren co-founded Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, in 1980 with his wife, Kay. In 2022, he stepped down from the lead pastor role at Saddleback. Warren continues his ministry through his Daily Hope Devotional and his podcast, Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, as well as through Finishing the Task, which "exists to convene and to catalyze the global body of Christ towards the goal of ensuring that everyone, everywhere has access to a Bible, Believer and Body of Christ."

Warren is the author of The Purpose Driven Life, one of the bestselling nonfiction books in publishing history. His latest book, his first in a decade, is Created to Dream: The 6 Phases God Uses to Grow Your Faith.

 

 

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