It was announced the other day that, on top of everything else surrounding the Mark Driscoll controversy of the past few years, Mars Hill church is now going to disband. The Mars Hill website stated their plans with the following four points:
“(1) All of Mars Hill’s existing church properties will either be sold, or the loans on the individual properties will be assumed by the independent churches, subject to approval by the lender; (2) all central staff will be compensated for their work, and then released from their employment; (3) if any funds remain after the winding down and satisfaction of Mars Hill business affairs, they will be gifted as seed money to the newly independent churches, then, (4) the existing Mars Hill Church organization will be dissolved.”
Local church members are encouraged to stay with their church family, continue praying through the transition, and to give generously in order that the 13 individual churches created from this disbanding will be “healthy and sustainable from launch-day and thereafter.”
I met Mark Driscoll once a few years back, in passing at an Acts 29 conference in Chicago. He was at the height of his popularity then, the up-and-coming mega church pastor that had taken not only his own city of Seattle by storm, but also the evangelical world. He was hosting a church planting boot camp that was operating in conjunction with the Evangelical Free Church. Acts 29 seemed to have it all figured out: how to plant a church, secure funding, expect growth, and thrive in the ministry. Mark was an engaging speaker and he, along with a star studded cast of leaders in the evangelical world, put on very convincing conference.
I wish I could say I saw all of this coming, that my experience of Mark at the Acts 29 conference and snippets of conversation on the way to dinner betrayed an arrogance that foreshadowed his fall. But I can’t claim such levels of prophetic insight. I do remember that he was an intense personality. I also remember that others tripped over themselves to follow after this man. He was an evangelical hero to a new generation of pastors that were happy to don Rob Bell styled glasses and use cool new catchphrases like “transformissional” and “reformission.”
I was a fan of Mark Driscoll but, as his lapses in judgement continued to pile up (crude twitter remarks, accusations of plagiarism, schemes to increase his book sales, etc.), I found it harder and harder to rectify the message Mark was preaching with the man being portrayed in the media. I admired Mark for his intense boldness and for what I thought was “strong” leadership of a church. But, as it turns out, he hurt a lot of people in the process.
It’s easy to sit back and judge from a distance. It’s harder to consider that, given a few different choices, I could have been part of the machine Mark had created to plant churches, leaving me just as susceptible to the failings of the kind of leadership model that was once lauded and embraced by many young church planters. It is moments like these, when we see leaders of the church fall and the institutions they have created crumble, that should cause an introspective look at our own ideas of “church” and “church leadership.” How much are these familiar concepts or strategies born from our own desire to add to the eternal kingdom of God? What part does the personality of a pastor or his ability to “lead” play in the continued fellowship of a local congregation? When does my ability to “lead” become detrimental to spiritual growth of the people around me? While this introspection cannot guarantee the “success” of ministries like Mars Hill, it will go a long way towards avoiding the failings that we have grown so accustomed to seeing presented in the media today.
1 Comment
Leave your reply.