Rick Warren sermon notes: where to find them (+ how to make your own)
Rick Warren founded Saddleback Church in Southern California in 1980 and pastored it for more than four decades before handing the senior pastor role to Andy Wood in 2022. He is the author of 'The Purpose Driven Church' and 'The Purpose Driven Life', and his Purpose Driven framework, built around five purposes for the church and the individual, organises much of his teaching.
For note-takers, Warren is a special case, because his teaching was designed around note-taking from the beginning. Saddleback became widely known for handing out message notes with blanks for the congregation to fill in during the sermon, and the practice spread to thousands of churches that copied it. The sermon structure and the note structure were built to match.
So the search for Rick Warren sermon notes is unusually literal: people are often looking for the actual outline sheet. This guide covers where to look for official material, and how to reproduce the fill-in-the-blank format for any message where a sheet is not available.
Where to find official Rick Warren sermon notes
His teaching is published by the church he founded and by the ministry channels built around the Purpose Driven material:
Saddleback Church
The church publishes its weekend messages and has long provided message notes for the congregation to fill in. Check the church site for what is currently offered alongside each message, since practices change over time.
Pastor Rick's daily teaching
His daily devotional teaching and broadcast material adapt the same content into short form. Useful when you want the substance of a message in a few minutes rather than a full sermon.
The Purpose Driven books
'The Purpose Driven Life' and 'The Purpose Driven Church' are the most complete published statements of the framework, and both are organised in a way that maps onto his preaching.
Pastor training resources
The Purpose Driven training material aimed at pastors explains the message structure explicitly, which is useful if you want to understand why the notes are shaped the way they are rather than just filling them in.
A note on copyright: Rick Warren's sermons and any official notes remain the intellectual property of Saddleback Church. Everything below is about making notes for your own study, not about republishing the ministry's content.
How to create your own sermon notes from any Rick Warren sermon
When there is no sheet for a given message, you can rebuild one in about ten minutes, and the rebuild is more valuable than a sheet handed to you:
Get the audio
Save the message from the church's archive. Note the series title, because the Purpose Driven approach organises teaching into practical series and the series frames the individual message.
Transcribe it
Upload the audio for the complete text in minutes, first sermon free. His delivery is deliberate and conversational, and transcripts come out clean.
Transcribe the messageGenerate the outline
Paste the transcript into the free outline generator. Because the points are announced plainly and usually numbered, the recovered outline is typically very close to the original sheet.
Generate sermon notes freeBlank out the key words
Take the recovered outline and delete one significant word from each point. That is the fill-in-the-blank sheet. Print it, then complete it from the message. Completing a structure yourself is what makes it stick.
Start from a blank templateFile it by purpose
Tag the page with which of the five purposes it serves. Over a year this turns a stack of messages into an organised picture of your own growth areas.
The Fill-in-the-Blank Method
Point, Blank, Verse, Action
This is the format his teaching was engineered for. Repeat the four lines for each point of the message, and print the page with the blanks empty before you listen:
The point as stated, usually practical and phrased as a principle for living. Keep his wording, since these are written to be memorable and often parallel across the message.
One significant word removed from that point, to be written in as you listen. The physical act of completing the sentence is the entire reason this format works, so do not skip it by printing the answer.
The supporting scripture and its reference. He often quotes from more than one translation or paraphrase for clarity, so note which version the wording came from.
The application step for that point, written as something with a day and a time attached. Purpose Driven teaching is aimed at behaviour, so an action row is not optional here.
Tip: Add a single line at the foot of the page: which of the five purposes this message served, worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry or evangelism. That one tag is what makes a year of pages searchable.
Study tips for Rick Warren's preaching
Do not pre-fill the blanks
The format has been copied so widely that people often print completed sheets, which defeats it entirely. The learning happens in the act of writing the missing word while listening. An empty blank is the feature.
File the pages by purpose, not by date
Five folders, one per purpose. After a year the thin folder tells you something true about where your attention has not been going, which no chronological pile ever will.
Note which translation is quoted
He frequently quotes several versions to make a phrase land in plain language. Recording which version a memorable rendering came from saves confusion later when you look the verse up and find different words.
Frequently asked questions
How do you take sermon notes?+
What is the best sermon note format?+
Should I write during the sermon?+
Do I need a sermon notes template?+
Does Saddleback still provide message notes?+
What are the five purposes?+
Can I use the fill-in-the-blank format in my own church?+
Transcribe any sermon free
Fill-in-the-blank notes start with an accurate outline. Turn any message into one in about five minutes. Your first sermon is free, no credit card to start, then $19/month for unlimited sermons.
Start transcribing freeThen turn the transcript into notes with the free sermon outline generator.
Want the bigger picture on Rick Warren's ministry and most notable messages? See our Rick Warren sermon archive guide in the Famous Sermons library.
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