Acts 29 Network Removes Co-founder Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church From Membership
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“In the darkest night, any light is welcome.”
I am not going to get into a debate over the timeliness of Acts29’s decision; more than a few have said that this should have been done a long time ago. I will, however, rejoice that at last someone did something significant to Driscoll - significant enough to make others sit up and take notice, and something significant enough to make Mars Hill budge on their stonewalling. The publishers didn’t do it, the deacons/elders/executive elders didn’t do it, but at last someone did. This is a pointed rebuke from someone that Driscoll was close to.
For that, I can rejoice.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
The irony is that this was a parachurch organization that did this.
Where are all TGC people or men like Dever, who are allegedly about church discipline being so important? Why the silence about Driscoll? Is it a calculated move to not address it because Driscoll is a calvinist/charismatic? Why is it that only the cessationist have the steel to call this clown out?
1 Kings 8:60 - so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God and that there is no other.
The lesson to be learned from the Driscoll implosion is ‘Do not fall for the personality cult’ The ‘Evangelical movement invested too much capital on the shoulders of a single man. As he goes down so does their credibility and sadly the message of Jesus.
I believe wise accountability should also consider ‘risk management’. If the importance of any one person becomes so essential to the proclamation of the message, then that is a danger, not a strength. Years ago the MH elders should have diversified the leadership. Instead they doubled down.
It may be said that Act 29 did that too - but they have been free of Driscoll’s leadership for 2 years. Still I think they should have acted after it became evident that Driscoll publicly lied about the Strange Fire conference ambush.
Driscoll ousted by faith network he co-founded
In response to Friday’s move, Mars Hill officials said they have acknowledged “unhealthy culture issues” within the church and have been working to address them. But the church group expressed dismay that Acts 29 would dismiss Driscoll and Mars Hill without first reaching out to discuss the matter, and said the church’s problems largely stem from old issues that Driscoll has long since put behind him. “There is clear evidence that the attitudes and behaviors attributed to Mark in the charges are not a part and have not been a part of Mark’s life for some time now,” two members of the Mars Hill Board of Advisors and Accountability wrote in a note to church members. …… church officials have made clear that Driscoll has no plans to leave — and they have no plans to ask him to. In fact, they reminded church members that they had predicted there would be controversy from within, stating that “Friendly fire always hurts the most.”
My comments: Why he won’t leave and why he won’t be asked to leave:
- Why he won’t leave: In what career move could he possibly make that would pay him what he is making (not that I know how much he is paid - and probably the MH members don’t)
- Why he won’t be asked to leave: Because M/H is money machine and many underlings depend upon Driscoll the rainmaker. He leaves …. it collapses
- What the sheeples should do (or to use the famous Goldman Sach’s quote … the muppets): Leave and let it collapse
LifeWay Stops Selling Mark Driscoll’s Books at 180 Christian Stores
LifeWay Christian Resources, which bills itself as “one of the world’s largest providers of Christian products and services,” has pulled Mark Driscoll’s books from its website and more than 180 stores nationwide.
The action comes one day after Matt Chandler’s Acts 29 church planting networkremoved membership from Mars Hill churches and their popular pastor, who has authored 15 books and amassed a following of 13,000 weekly worshipers at 15 locations in five states.
“LifeWay Stores and Lifeway.com are not selling Mark Driscoll’s books while we assess the situation regarding his ministry,” Marty King, LifeWay’s communications director, told CT.
[mmartin]Because of their inept, willfully blind leadership how many more people were abused, shunned, lied about, manipulated, taught false doctrine, & church funds misused. Yes, I know many of those people bear some responsibility for sticking around when they could’ve/should’ve left. That said, we are talking about people who gave their time and treasure to be apart of a ministry they bought into because they also bought into the leadership.
I’ve personally seen this over and over again in Christian ministry of all stripes. People working in ministry typically have to or are asked to be paid less and give more because many ministries financially can’t pay true market rates. Yet the leadership all too often forgets or ignores the effort and sacrifice made by the rank and file to be there while they often treat them like dirt. I could use stronger language but I’d be banned from SI.
I can’t say enough how much I HATE it!
Horrible & pathetic leadership on the part of [insert any fundy organization] board!
mmartin, your quote summarizes many fundamental organizations and their leaderships treatment of anyone who does not fall in line with their opinions.
Dear Lifeway,
While you are at it, why don’t you consider not selling all the “To-Heaven-and-Back” books that make you so much money? Oh I guess I answered my own question.
[Larry] Out of curiosity, what you would like them to do if not this?
Publicly confess that they aided and abetted Driscoll. Go to the people they have hurt and make amends. They admit in their statement that they gave Driscoll the benefit of the doubt despite the testimony of more than two or three of their own pastors. They neglected clear Biblical process for dealing with a sinning elder to preserve, by my reckoning anyway, their brand name’s status. They need to own up to this.
EDIT: Sorry, the “admission” to which I refer was in their letter to Driscoll/Mars Hill not the statement linked above. Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/08/08/acts-29-netw…
We have both publicly and internally tried to support and give you the benefit of the doubt, even when multiple pastors in our network confirmed this behavior.
One thing that comes to mind as a valid expression of repentance for when cults of personality cause problems is to remove situations where said cults of personality can flourish. Here are some thoughts that come to mind;
I recognize that Christ chose primarily to train twelve men who He then sent out to change the world. Hence:
1. I am going to invest my energy primarily in men who will be able to train others to do the same.
2. I am not going to make a name for myself through the size of the church I lead, and will recommend planting new churches rather than building bigger buildings.
3. The men I train will, Lord willing, be men who will say no to me when necessary, and these will be on the board of deacons or elders.
4. I will abstain from emotional manipulation and remember that lasting results arrive from reaching both hearts and minds.
5. I will make sure that I help make disciples in my own family.
Maybe some other thoughts, but this will get us started, no? It appears to me that Driscoll and Hyles violated most of these routinely, and I think I can justify this from the Scriptures. Thoughts?
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
[JJ Hoban]mmartin wrote:
Because of their inept, willfully blind leadership how many more people were abused, shunned, lied about, manipulated, taught false doctrine, & church funds misused. Yes, I know many of those people bear some responsibility for sticking around when they could’ve/should’ve left. That said, we are talking about people who gave their time and treasure to be apart of a ministry they bought into because they also bought into the leadership.
I’ve personally seen this over and over again in Christian ministry of all stripes. People working in ministry typically have to or are asked to be paid less and give more because many ministries financially can’t pay true market rates. Yet the leadership all too often forgets or ignores the effort and sacrifice made by the rank and file to be there while they often treat them like dirt. I could use stronger language but I’d be banned from SI.
I can’t say enough how much I HATE it!
Horrible & pathetic leadership on the part of [insert any fundy organization] board!
mmartin, your quote summarizes many fundamental organizations and their leaderships treatment of anyone who does not fall in line with their opinions.
Yes, you are correct.
However, since we are discussing Driscoll this abuse of leadership happens just as easily & as often as outside of fundamentalism.
Ministry leaders and members of every stripe are made up of selfish and prideful people. We all retain our sin nature. No group is exempt.
Interesting connection brought to my attention via Greg Easton’s blog
http://netgrace.org/about-us/partnerships/
Seriously … why don’t they break with that partnership!?
People working in ministry typically have to or are asked to be paid less and give more because many ministries financially can’t pay true market rates.
This quote got to me—it strikes me that this may be one of the issues that leads to problems. Let’s explore a moment; our ideal pastor is a man first of good character and sound faith, but also his “abililty to teach” suggests to me certain habits of study (including learning languages, logic, etc..) and personal approach to congregants that wouldn’t be out of place in a corporate manager, real estate agent, insurance agent, financial counselor, or the like. With which group does one compare to find the “market rate”?
The trouble here, as far as I can tell, is that all too many pastors automatically assume that they will be either the “star performer” real estate or insurance agent, or the corporate executive, and thus they design their churches after that brass ring—in other words, some of them clearly, in violation of Paul’s prescription for pastors, love money. Moreover, too many deacons and elders help them in this by arranging compensation after membership and donations. “get another 100 rears in pews and 5% more tithes, get a nice raise”.
And so it strikes me that churches might do well to organize compensation after the question of not how big the church is getting, but rather at how well the pastor does at training others to do his job, like Jesus did. Make sure you take care of the pastor, including retirement funds, but recognize that there ought to be a roof on compensation simply to deter gold-diggers from the pastorate.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
[Jim] Interesting connection brought to my attention via Greg Easton’s bloghttp://netgrace.org/about-us/partnerships/
Seriously … why don’t they break with that partnership!?
Jim -
FYI - NetGRACE doesn’t link to the Resurgence as a partner as of today at 3:34 EST. Not sure what happened there, but that IS an interesting pairing.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
I contacted GRACE and just got back a note from the leader noting they haven’t had a relationship for years, but they’d never eliminated that from the website. Check it out. (not to brag, but he blames me!)
Thanks for the reminder. We haven’t had any type of relationship with The Resurgence for years. Unfortunately, we never removed that from our website. Your note prompted the change. Thanks.
Boz Tchividjian
Executive Director, GRACE
http://netgrace.org
It also strikes me that GRACE could do a lot of good work by doing more or less an ISO style audit of churches and ministries to see if they’ve got procedures in place to deal with abuse. Good investigations are going to be hard, and more or less the province of seasoned detectives, but the factors of whether a program is in place are lot easier to discern. Do GARBC and others do this? (off topic, but given that this is my line of work, I’m curious)
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
[Jay]Jim wrote:
Interesting connection brought to my attention via Greg Easton’s bloghttp://netgrace.org/about-us/partnerships/
Seriously … why don’t they break with that partnership!?
Jim -
FYI - NetGRACE doesn’t link to the Resurgence as a partner as of today at 3:34 EST. Not sure what happened there, but that IS an interesting pairing.
When I posted earlier today, it still displayed a partnership.
Discussion