Mars Hill Church is nearing the twenty year point and this year has seen more controversy connected to it and its president than possibly at any time in its history.
Ever since Janet Mefferd accused Mark Driscoll of plagiarism on air there has been a cascade of controversy and inquiry into what has been going on at Mars Hill Church from both outsiders and insiders (it seems).
In the last few months Mars Hill Church has been scrubbing away a decade's worth of preaching that at one point was easily accessible. In a post such as the following:
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2012/06/joy-in-anxiety-driscolls-gloss-on.html
Wenatchee The Hatchet was able to compare what Driscoll shared from the pulpit to controversies that were brewing within the church that were not fully brought to light for public consideration in at least one case until the emergence of Joyful Exiles. Even if you could look up and listen to "The Rebel's Guide to Joy in Anxiety" from the Phillipians series from 2007 it comes across now less as an expository sermon on a passage from a Pauline epistle and more as a Driscollian gloss on that particular moment in Mars Hill history and his own anxieties about controversies within the church and about the church. And the sermon, of course, is gone from the Mars Hill media library.
So is everything prior to the Doctrine series in 2008.
One of the trends Wenatchee The Hatchet has documented about the history of Mars Hill leadership has been to note that it's possible for someone to be a convicted felon on his second marriage and still get rather quickly into a significant leadership role within Mars Hill Church after helping play some kind of role in getting to Mars Hill real estate Mark Driscoll said from the pulpit he had wanted for Mars Hill for ten years.
For those who don't follow every link:
http://marshill.com/media/rebels-guide-to-joy/the-rebels-guide-to-joy-in-humility
Mark Driscoll on November 4, 2007
... The last one is James. He was running a drug and alcohol treatment center, I think for the Union Gospel Mission. He was an elder at Doxa Church in West Seattle. He and Pastor Bill were there and I approached them and said, “I think we should partner together,” and turned that building into Mars Hill West Seattle. I don’t know what the building’s worth – $4 million, whatever. He said, “Well what’s the deal?” I said, “Give us the building, resign as elders, work through the membership process, work through the eldership process. I guarantee you nothing – no power, no job, no eldership. If you meet the qualifications and the men vote you in, we’ll make you an elder, but I guarantee you no job. Nothing. If you believe it’s right for Jesus, give us the building, resign, give up all power of authority, give up your position. Walk away from it all for the cause of Jesus.”
He said, “Okay, I think it’s best for Jesus.” He resigned, voted to hand us the building and the people. Humbly went through the eldership process. After he finished the membership process, oversees our drug and alcohol addiction recovery. We just voted him onto the Board of Directors. Why? Because God opposes the proud and he gives grace to the humble.
http://marshill.com/media/1st-corinthians/spiritual-gifts-part-ii#transcript
Part 26: One Body, Many parts
1 Corinthians 12:12-26
Pastor Mark Driscoll
July 30, 2006
… In the meantime, we also picked up another miracle. This is West Seattle. This is on 35th at the top of the hill in West Seattle as you head toward White Center. I grew up in this neighborhood. This is a church building that is an absolute miracle. I’ll tell you the story on this space. I tried to launch Mars Hill Church in that building ten years ago, and we were rejected, and I’ve always wanted to be in there since. And what happened was, is we were growing. I went to Pastor Bill Clem, who was leading that congregation. He planted it for Acts 29 Church Planning Network [emphasis added], him and James Noriega, who is the other elder there and I said, “We’re maxed out. You got a fat building, 50,000 square feet, 1,000 seats.:” It’s a bigger building and the one you’re sitting in right now. I said, “Is there any way we to use it?” They said, “Well, we wanna reach as many people in West Seattle as possible. How about if we give it to you and work together?” we prayed about it for a second and said, “Yes.”
That is a $5 million gift. That is a $5 million gift, right? And I don’t know if you’ve been tracking the real estate market, people aren’t giving away a lotta real estate right now in Seattle and so we have – we’ve taken Pastor James and Pastor Bill on staff at Mars Hill. We have taken their members through the Gospel Class and they’re now members of Mars Hill. [emphasis added] They’ve been meeting as a core group over there. As we speak, there is $1.5 million of construction going on at the West Seattle campus, with the intention of opening in October in time for our ten year anniversary, and we want to expand over to West Seattle as well. We were thinking, “Well, we can borrow $8 million from the bank. We can spend $3 million and for $11 million, we can open up a 40,000 square foot location.” Well, we can now open more square feet for $1.5 million. So obviously, you take that opportunity.
The two cool aspects of this particular campus is one, is already zoned as a church, so we don’t need to fight use permits. We don’t have to bring it up to code. We can just walk in and use it immediately and it saves us, literally, a few years of permitting. Secondly, the lot that it is on is only zoned for 15,000 square feet of building and it already has 50,000 square feet, and because as grandfathered in, we could use it all. We could never build this building today as it exists. And the cool thing with this building, a very Godly church that loved the Bible – started this church, built it, their denomination went liberal, dropped the doctrine of the inerrancy or perfection of Scripture and this building went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and was the test case for who owns the church building, the congregation or the denomination. The congregation lost and these people actually bought their own building back, because they refused to drop the authority of Scripture as their value. [emphasis added] And so, there were some Godly older saints who paid for this building twice. It then went into decline but there is still a core of these people, like in their 70s and 80s, that are now members of Mars Hill. Grandmas tithing, waiting for us all to show up and fill that thing up again, and they’re praying us in. It’s a really cool God story and what God has done is pretty amazing.
Now in other church settings there would have been some debate about whether Noriega was ready to be a pastor, let alone a pastor in charge of recovery/addiction groups with a history of felonies and only a few years into a second marriage. True, he converted to Christianity in 1998 but he may have been fast-tracked too quickly into leadership. Then again, precisely how, when and why Jamie Munson was qualified to be the legal president of Mars Hill as a corporation never really got an explanation, either.
But let's consider what Driscoll had to say in a letter from November 8, 2007 about where he was at in late 2007. He was willing to explain at least some things.
http://joyfulexiles.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/elders-response-to-questions-11-9-07.pdf
... My wife and I are closer than ever and she is the greatest woman in the world for me. I deligth in her, enjoy her, and praise God for the gift that she is. She recently brought me to tears by sweetly saying, "It's nice to have you back," as apparently I had been somewhat gone for many years. [emphasis added]Our five children are wonderful blessings. I love being a daddy and am closer to my children with greater joy in them than ever. ...
The past year has been one of the most difficult of my entire life. It has been painful to see a few men whom I loved and trained as elders become sinful, proud, divisive, accusatory, mistrusting, power hungry, and unrepentant. It has, however, been absolutely amazing to see all but one of those men humble themselves and give up what is best for them to do what is best for Jesus and our entire church. In that I have seen the power of the gospel, and remain hopeful to eventually see it in the former elder who remains unrepentant but to whom my hand of reconciliation remains extended along with a team of other elders assigned to pursue reconciliation if/when he is willing. Furthermore, sin in my own life has been exposed through this season and I have also benefited from learning to repent of such things as bitterness, unrighteous anger, control, and pride. As a result, I believe we have a pruned elder team that God intends to bear more fruit than ever. This team of battle-tested, humble, and repentant men is now both easy to enjoy and trust.
Emotionally, I told our Board of Directors recently that I felt like I walked Mars Hill down the aisle and married her off so that she could be best cared for and loved in the next season of her life. I remain her father who loves and cares for her and is vitally involved in her growth and well-being, but now trust the elders to take good care of her thanks in part to a structure that enables her to be loved well. [emphasis added] Subsequently, for the first time in my tenure at Mars Hill I am able to work in my area of gifting with men I trust on a mission I believe in with church members I love and a Jesus I worship. That harmony is priceless.
So let's revisit what one of the signal events was that Mark Driscoll said was a positive change in 2007.
http://www.theresurgence.com/mark_driscoll_2008-02-27_video_tnc_qa
"Jamie Munson is head of the elder board. Jamie Munson is executive pastor. He is legal president of the organization. And for me, to be honest, it was the most freeing, liberating thing I could have dreamed of because now I don't have all that conflict of interest. I can be friends with someone but I don't have to fire them, do their performance review, and decide how much they get paid. It's just too conflicting for me."
What conflict of interest was Mark Driscoll referring to, since he made a point of using those specific words? What about appointing Jamie Munson as head of the elder board, executive pastor, and legal president of Mars Hill as an organization freed Driscoll up from conflict of interest? The above explanation invites more uncertainty than certainty. Why?
Because Mark Driscoll became legal president of Mars Hill at some point in later 2011 or early 2012. If the process of letting Jamie Munson draft bylaws that made himself legal president was likened by Mark Driscoll to walking Mars Hill Church (as though it were his daughter) down the aisle to marry her off to a good guy then what did Mark Driscoll resuming legal presidency of Mars Hill Church indicate?
Something about the more recent internal communication from Mark Driscoll posted on The City that was republished by Warren Throckmorton is worth noting.
http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/files/2014/03/MHCletterMD.png
Personally, I find all of this relieving. the pressure and pace has increased every year since I started in 1996. [WtH what about the previous quote about the hand-off of 2007?] I don't want to be burned out or angry, and I want to become more like Jesus every year. I want to teach the Bible, love well, and run at a pace to finish my race many decades from now. My health is actually in the best place it has been in recent years [WtH--no word from Driscoll about John Catanzaro, still]. I have a skilled and unified team that loves you and can handle more responsibility [WtH--like the one alluded to in 2007?], if I can free up the time and energy to love them and invest in them. Grace and the kids are doing very well, and my family is still my joy and my priority. This year we will have three of our five kids as teenagers, and our oldest will be a senior preparing for college. I don't want to miss this season, as these are years I can never get back. If I am going to err, I want it to be on the side of guarding too much time and energy for family and church family rather than not enough.
To be clear, these are decisions I have come to with our Senior Pastor Jesus Christ. I believe this is what He is asking of me, and so I want to obey Him. The first person I discussed this with was our first, and still best, church member, Grace. Her loving agreement and wise counsel only confirmed this wonderful opportunity to reset some aspects of our life. I want to publicly thank her, as it was 26 years ago this week that we had our first date. She is the greatest friend and biggest blessing in my life after Jesus. When we recently discussed this plan to reset our life together, late at night on the couch, she started crying tears of joy. She did not know how our life more sustainable, and did not want to discourage me, but had been praying that God would reveal to me a way to reset our life. [emphasis added] Her prayer was answered, and for that we are both relieved at what a sustainable, joyful, and fruitful future could be. As an anniversary present, I want to give her more of her best friend.
I have also submitted these decisions to the Board of Advisors and Accountability. They have approved of this direction and are 100 percent supportive of these changes. It's a wonderful thing to have true accountability and not be an independent decision maker regarding my ministry and, most importantly, our church.
And yet Grace Driscoll herself, as Mark Driscoll quoted her in early 2007, was willing to tell Driscoll to his face that the person in the book of Ruth he most resembled was Elimelech. Since, of course, all the Driscoll sermons prior to 2008 aren't exactly available at marshill.com these days ... :
http://marshill.com/en/transcript/redeemingruth/gods-hand-in-our-suffering
January 7, 2007
Redeeming Ruth
Part 1: God's Hand in Our Suffering
Ruth 1:1-1:22
Let me wrap all of this up. As your pastor, who loves you very much – I say that sincerely – would you be as honest as Naomi today, and would you acknowledge that your life and mine are like Naomi and Ruth’s stories in which the providential hand of God is at work, in which he calls us to be honest and to run to him and one another as God’s people, to work out those parts of our life that we consider afflictions, but not yet have received them as sanctified? And would you identify yourself with someone in the story – who are you? How many of you, you’re Elimelech-ish? You’re Elimelech-ish. Elimelech is the guy – Everything falls apart. It looks dark. It looks bad. He takes a poll. He makes a plan. He decides Moab has a lower cost of living. Moab has more vocational opportunity. Moab has food on the table – I will make a plan. I will be the sovereign. I will take care of everything. Trust me, I know what I’m doing. He leads well. He plans well. He tries to be the sovereign. Everybody dies anyways.
I am Elimelech. I asked my wife, “Which one am I?” Oh, my wife – she didn’t even breathe. Didn’t even take a breath. “Oh, you’re Elimelech.” And his name means what? My God is King! That was me. If you ask me, Jesus, sovereign, Lord, King, God, and if I ever need ‘em, I’ll call, but I don’t think I do ‘cause I got this all taken care of. Elimelech-ish.
And then there's this old nugget:
http://townhall.com/Columnists/ThorTolo/2008/03/06/the_gospel_according_to_mark_driscoll
When the Lord isn’t talking to this man, kiddingly called a short-fused drama queen by his wife, his critics are blogging about him. Some of the sharper barbs make it difficult for Driscoll to hide the hurt.
Mark Driscoll presented a narrative of how he used to be angry but everything is better now that a new governance system has been put in place before. It happened in 2007 and it seems to have happened again in a more piecemeal fashion through 2012-2014. Only back in 2007 no one had produced evidence that Mark Driscoll had plagiarized anyone else's work or that anyone at Mars Hill had signed a contract with an entity like ResultSource to secure a place on the NYT bestseller list for a book that turned out to use the ideas of others without giving them credit in the first edition.
There was no controversy about the extent to which executive leadership was aware of or ignored city zoning ordinances with respect to a Mars Hill campus. Well, actually ... there kind of was about the 50th street building. Which may be a sober reminder to people who have at some point called Mars Hill Church home that the more things change the more some things, even after all this time, might still be the same.