http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/may/matt-chandler-preacher-stung-by-joy.html
... And just as Mohler became president of the Southern Baptist Convention's (SBC) flagship seminary at the young age of 33, Chandler has now become the president of the Acts 29 Network. The 16-year-old "gospel-centered" band of churches aims to write the next chapter of the missions described in the Book of Acts' 28 chapters. Seattle pastor Mark Driscoll cofounded the network with late Presbyterian pastor David Nicholas in 1998. In March 2012, during a meeting with board members present, Driscoll tapped Chandler to succeed him, shifting the offices to Dallas. (Driscoll remained on the board for a time, but is no longer listed as a member of Acts 29 leadership.)
But in the Spring 2000 Leadership Journal
http://web.archive.org/web/20010308211949/http://www.a29.org/about_us_history.htm
Leadership Journal, Spring 2000
MAKING DEVOTED DISCIPLES
Generation to generation
How mentoring works for pastors
Mark Driscoll
I'm a 29-year-old church planter in Seattle. A couple years ago I met David Nicholas, who lives in Boca Raton, Florida. He pastors a large church, Spanish River Presbyterian, that he planted 35 years ago, and he still has a heart for church planting. We developed a close mentoring friendship. I fly down to see David about four times a year, and he visits me each summer. We talk on the phone a couple times a week. He has walked me through some major issues in my life and ministry.
I am now mentoring other church planters who have launched three daughter congregations out of our church. One is Ron Wheeler, a 23-year-old church planter with a congregation of 200 that already has had a daughter church, our granddaughter, as it were. That daughter church is led by a young man being mentored by Ron.
David has interacted with all of these young planters. We've put together an entire network of church plantersÑfrom Omaha, Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, and other places. Each March, we gather with David in Florida for training and friendship.
David and I are now partnering to launch a mentoring organization for young church planters called the Acts 29 Network. We began with 11 churches in the U.S., some overseas, and we're getting several requests weekly from young pastors wanting to join. David and I invest in them theologically, financially, and personally.
All of this came out of a friendship between an older man and a younger man who share a love for church planting.
Mark Driscoll
So if in a 2000 edition of Leadership Journal Driscoll wrote "David and I are now partnering to LAUNCH a mentoring organiation for young church planters called the Acts 29 Network" [emphasis added] then by Mark Driscoll's account circa the year 2000 the Acts 29 Network wasn't officially launched yet, was it?
Or maybe it was.
For some reason when Tom Telford broached the subject of Acts 29 Network in a 2001 book he didn't mention Driscoll at all and focused quite a bit on David Nicholas.
TODAY'S ALL-STAR MISSIONS CHURCHES: STRATEGIES TO HELP YOUR CHURCH GET INTO THE GAME
Tom Telford
copyright 2001 by Tom Telford
Published by Baker Books
ISBN 0-8010-6381-7
Spanish River Church has listed as its "Most valuable missions agency: Acts 29 Network"
from page 63
page 66 David Nicholas' "Acts 29: Churches planting Churches" gets a reference from Telford. Is that message still accessible for consultation?
from page 69
Acts 29 Network. With things moving well with the network of church-planting pastors, Pastor Nicholas felt led of God to start a new network of churches that wasn't directly part of the denomination. He decided to call it the Acts 29 network and wrote up guidelines: the planted churches should be theologically Reformed, have a heart for church planting, and prmoise that when they become self-supporting, theyw ill pay back the amount that was given to them to initially begin, and put 10 percent of their income into new church plants.
As he shared the idea with the church and others, almost right away, ten established churches responded enthusiastically and committed to the Acts 29 Network, agreeing to sponsor church plants. A Network agreement was drawn up to show the relationship between Spanish River Church and the church plant. The agreement requires reports for financial and leadership accountability.
For whatever reason, when Telford's book was published in 2001, David Nicholas was noteworthy and Driscoll wasn't. The recent CT article states that Mark driscoll co-founded the Acts 29 network sixteen years ago as of 2014, which makes for a year of 1998.
Nevertheless, Driscoll's early 00's account may square the circle here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20001210191200/http://www.marshill.fm/who/our_history.htm
Seasons of Grace: The Story of Mars Hill
By Pastor Mark Driscoll
In the eighth season, our worship ministry was in great disarray and I had a dream that Brad Currah, who had been a member of our core group before the launch, was leading worship. I repeatedly informed Brad that he was to be our worship leader and after numerous conversations he began volunteering time overseeing the worship and arts ministries. Brad had spent a few years playing the club scene with his band Springchamber, but was quickly overwhelmed with the demands of his first time pastorate and quit his job at Microsoft to free up time for ministry and hoped to live off of his wife Devonna's salary. But, she soon became pregnant and needed to quit her job. I then got a call from a pastor in Florida who had a network that funded church plants. Grace and I met with Pastor David Nicholas at Spanish River Church, and his church planting network agreed to help us financially. [emphasis added] This gift allowed us to bring Brad on full-time, which has culminated in a fantastic independent worship album, multiple worship teams, and an aggressive set of new songs written by some of our many gifted artists.
In our ninth season in the beginning of 1999 we were forced to move from our Laurelhurst location. Five days before the end of our lease we still did not have a location to meet in and were dreading the move. Then, pastor Rick Hull and First Presbyterian Church in downtown Seattle graciously welcomed us in. So, we shut down the 7pm service, and ran the 5pm service in their 1300 seat sanctuary. The move was nothing new, in three years we have had services in four locations and at four different times, and the office has had six different phone numbers due to all the moves. It was also during this season that we launched our first daughter church, The Gathering, one hour north of Seattle in Mount Vernon. A family, the Tackels, I had met while teaching at a conference purchased an RV to begin taking their children and their friends to our church. Their 23 year old son Ron Wheeler had returned from a one year missions trip in Africa and resonated with much of our ministry philosophy. He began a Bible study in his community that continued to grow until they launched their church at 6pm on Easter of 1999 in a beautiful old brick church in downtown Mount Vernon. Funding for Ron was generously given by Dr. David Nicholas and our Acts 29 church planting network, and funding for his worship leader Micah Kelly was given from Ken Hutcherson and Antioch Bible Church. [emphasis added] It was also at this time that we hired Janet Sawyer and Eric Brown, both members of our church, to come on staff full-time as administrators who have very much helped organize and stabilize our chaos. [emphasis added]
It would appear that by 1999 some Acts 29 Network organization existed through which to provide support for a church, by Mark Driscoll's account. In this case Driscoll's comments from a spring 2000 journal could be explained by the possibility that some journals are quarterly and take months to assemble. By the time the copy hit print the present-tense description Driscoll gave at Leadership Journal would have been past-tense.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2000/fall/6.44.html
http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2000/fall/6.44.html?start=2
How do you do this over such long distance?
Driscoll: We talk all the time. David is my pastor [emphasis added]. He prays for me. He invests in me. He doesn't tell me what to do, but when he sees things in my character or theology that need to be challenged, he speaks to that very directly. I desperately need that. I tend to be stubborn and aggressive. I need someone strong speaking into my life, saying, "Think about this." But it has to be predicated on friendship and love.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2000/fall/6.44.html?start=3
http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2000/fall/6.44.html?start=4
http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2000/fall/6.44.html?start=5
And yet in Real Marriage Mark Driscoll took pains to explain that during the early years of his marriage before and after the birth of the Driscoll's first child that he DIDN'T have a pastor.
Now by February 2008 at a Q&A Driscoll also said the following:
http://theresurgence.com/2008/04/07/question-and-answer-with-mark-driscoll-video
http://www.theresurgence.com/mark_driscoll_2008-02-27_video_tnc_qa
http://www.acts29network.org/sermon/qa-with-mark-driscoll/
Some of my dearest friends today are not at Mars Hill. They're also pastors at other churches. Darrin Patrick is here. He's the vice-president of Acts 29. I love him. He's a brother. He's the guy I call. ... He's a pastor to me, you know? [emphasis added]
It has been axiomatic that David Nicholas and Mark Driscoll co-founded the Acts 29 Network. Perhaps Tom Telford didn't mention Driscoll because of a particular perspective or because back in 1998-2000 Driscoll was not particularly important yet, Mother Jones coverage withstanding.
But by all the early accounts, including those of Driscoll, Acts 29 Network seems to have begun as a collaboration in which Nicholas was the older, well-established man in ministry helping the young buck and yet by about 2002 Nicholas' name seems to vanish from anything to do with Acts 29 Network. How and why David Nicholas transitioned off the board and presidency of Acts 29 Network has never been addressed in public discussion or enquiry so far as Wenatchee The Hatchet knows. The transition of Acts 29 from being dominated in funding and staffing by Mars Hill to being a kind of denomination that doesn't concede it's a denomination could use some further investigation.
To go by a survey of Mars Hill FY reports in the last few years donations to church planting seemed to take a big dive after 2012. This might have coincided with an abrupt change in leadership at Acts 29 Network in which the board at the top no longer consisted of four men who were then or had been executive elders at Mars Hill Church. Acts 29 leadership and history has been only an occasional topic of discussion at Wenatchee The Hatchet:
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2012/04/chandler-on-mars-hill-a29-was-so-kind.html
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2012/04/mars-hill-acts-29-and-enough-boards-for.html
Seeing as Acts 29 has been in the news (sort of) it seemed worth revisiting some earlier material that's been blogged about here at Wenatchee The Hatchet. An anonymous comment in the past indicated that Driscoll no longer really associates with Darrin Patrick. Though it wasn't verified independently at the time the comment seems borne out by the reality that Jamie Munson is no longer publicly even listed as a pastor at Mars Hill and neither Munson nor Patrick have any role on the BOAA.