The UK’s first ever Purpose Driven Church Conference, hosted by Rick Warren, is due to begin this Tuesday in Nottingham.

Warren, renowned evangelist and best-selling author of Purpose Driven Life and Purpose Driven Church, will lead the event with his wife Kay, focusing on his biblically based approach to growing congregations, as well as his books. The Pastor’s practices, which he hopes to share at the Conference, have already been well employed in the church Warren founded, Saddleback Valley Community Church in Lake Forest, California.

"We must do whatever it takes to reach more people for Christ," he said. "That doesn't mean compromising the gospel or our commitment to God's Word. It just means that our goal is to make it easy - not as difficult as possible - for the unchurched to hear about Christ," says Warren.

He added: "This is called ‘saturation evangelism’: using every available means to reach every available person at every available time."

The event will be held 19–21 July in the Nottingham Arena, and is expected to draw around 1,500 to 2,000 people.

Evangelical Alliance UK director for church life, John Smith, said: "For seven years the Evangelical Alliance has been in negotiations to bring Rick Warren to the UK. We are very excited he’s now paying us a visit.

"He continually goes back to biblical principles, rather than a particular model.

"I know that many of our members have found him an invaluable help to them in their Christian lives."

Over 350,000 pastors and church leaders from all over the world have taken part in Warren’s training.