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Posted on 10/31/2014 4:31:14 PM PDT by Gamecock
The Mars Hill Church is dissolving itself, with 13 remaining campuses of the troubled mega-church becoming “autonomous, self-governed entitles,” in dramatic news posted Friday on the church website by Lead Preaching Pastor Dave Bruskas.
Mars Hill has been a centralized, top-down operation under Lead Pastor Mark Driscoll, who resigned earlier this month after an investigation sustained charges of “sinful” behavior. It has featured video-led teaching distributed to campuses in five states.
“This means that each of our locations has an opportunity to become a new church, rooted in the best of what Mars Hill has been in the past, and independently run by its own local elders,” Bruskas wrote.
The remaining congregations — Mars Hill closed three of its campuses earlier this month — will have a three-way choice. Each can become an independent, self-governed church. They can merge with existing churches to form a new congregation. Or they can disband.
The shut-down Mars Hill congregation in Arizona has already reconstituted itself as the Phoenix Bible Church. Two laid-off Mars Hill pastors in Seattle have recently created a “Gospel-centered and grace-driven” Redemption Church in North Seattle.
Mars Hill is “essentially disbanding” with Bruskas’ announcement, according to Warren Throckmorton, a Pennsylvania college professor who has recorded the mega church’s tribulations for Patheos.
The Bruskas letter outlined a transformation due to be in place by the beginning of 2015. It said:
–”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 church.” The lenders, of course, must agree.
–”All central staff will be compensated for their work and then released from their employment.”
–”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.”
–”The existing Mars Hill Church organization will be dissolved.”
The dissolution comes after an eight-month implosion of the 18-year old mega church, cofounded by Driscoll in a Seattle living room.
Mars Hill was dreaming big dreams last winter, raising $2 million for a planned “Jesus Festival” in August at Marymoor Park and another high profile “Resurgence Conference” with big-name preachers in October. Driscoll was slated to be keynote speaker at the annual Gateway Church Conference at a mega church in Dallas-Fort Worth.
The lead pastor first had to apologize for hiring a marketing firm RealSource Inc. to spike sales of a book “Real Marriage” coauthored with his wife, Grace, and get it onto The New York Times bestseller list. The church paid for the consultant and bought thousands of copies of the book.
As well, Driscoll pledged to “reset my life” and cease making provocative statements on his Twitter account. Driscoll told the faithful that his “angry young prophet days are over to be replaced by a Bible-teaching spiritual father.”
“I don’t see how I can be both a celebrity and a pastor, and so I am happy to give up the former so that I can focus on the latter,” he said.
The lead pastor could not leave his “angry young” past behind. A growing number of ex-elders charged Driscoll with abusive behavior, with having the church shun ex-pastors and their families, and with creating a structure that precluded meaningful accountability.
Driscoll has espoused a stern Calvinism, preached male dominance in the family and condemned homosexuality. In a January Tweet, he declared: “If you are not a Christian, you are going to Hell. It’s not unloving to say that.”
But earlier, raunchier words leaked out. In 2000, using an alter ego William Wallace II, Driscoll wrote on a Mars Hill website: ”We live in a completely Pussified nation.” He went on to make a derogatory reference to Focus on Family founder James Dobson.
The Mars Hill senior pastor went on to talk about standing by to see “a nation of men be raised by bitter, penis-envying burned feministed single mothers who make sure Johnny grows up to be a very nice woman who sits down to pee.”
The departures began.
Two outside members of Mars Hills’ Board of Advisors and Accountability, both high-profile evangelicals, resigned. One of them, Pastor Paul Tripp, a popular evangelical speaker and author, had worked to effect a reconciliation between Driscoll and his critics.
The Jesus Festival, touted as late as March, was quietly shelved. Later in the summer, the Resurgence Conference was called off.
A key move came when the Acts29 Network, a global “church planting”network co-founded by Driscoll, dismissed both Mars Hill and Driscoll from membership. Its directors told Driscoll he had become “a major distraction” and that his association “discredits the network.” They urged him, in a private letter made public, to leave the pulpit and seek help.
A network of Christian bookstores pulled Driscoll’s works from its shelves. Plans for a new book were put indefinitely on hold. Driscoll was scratched as a speaker from three upcoming Act Like Men conferences, big events on the evangelical circuit.
The downfall of its dominant personality was felt on Mars Hills’ 15 campuses. Attendance, once as high as 13,000 on a Sunday, declined. Donations cratered, with a $655,000 shortfall in August. Staffer were laid off.
Finally, returning from vacation, Driscoll announced on Aug. 24 that he would take a six-week leave. The leave coincided with investigation of charges by the 21 ex-elders.
The senior pastor would not return.
Driscoll resigned on Oct. 15. The church’s board of elders concluded he had behaved with “arrogance, responding to conflict with a quick temper and harsh speech, and leading the staff and elders in a domineering manner.” Driscoll had committed “sin in three areas.”
The elders drew out a plan of “restoration” that would have eventually restored Driscoll to leadership in the church he co-founded.
He quit and has surfaced once since, at the Gateway Conference in Texas. Driscoll talked about threats made against his person and family, having to move three times, news helicopters hovering overhead, and rocks being thrown while the family was camped outside.
He will in the near future, said Driscoll, take time “to sing, to pray, to learn, to grow and to repent.” He is believed to be receiving a year’s severance. Driscoll’s salary has never been disclosed. In 2013, however, a memo from elder Sutton Turner recommended that Driscoll’s salary be raised to $650,000.
The remaining pastors at Mars Hill have been left to sort through spiritual wreckage.
Bruskas, in a letter last week, vowed to heal a “broken and repentant” church, and confessed to an “unhealthy culture in the church.”
Steven Tomkins, pastor at Mars Hill Shoreline, voiced his sorrow and regret over “deep spiritual and emotional wounds” and “profound hurt” felt by former members.
Bruskas, in announcing breakup of Mars Hill, concluded with a few admonitions.
“Stay with your church family as we embark on a new expression of the same mission,” and a bit later, “Give generously, as your gifts in November and December of this year will make a critically important difference in our desire for 13 churches being healthy and sustainable from launch day and thereafter.”
The YBPDLN Ping List is generally published infrequently but based on the exploits of the megachurch pastors posts can spike for a season. If you would like on or off of this list please FReepmail me.
*YBPDLN=Your Best Purpose Driven Life Now
Lived in downtown Seattle for 5 years and never heard of Mars Hill!! A CHURCH in Seattle???? WOW!! Talk about a Hen;s tooth!!
Had my attention drawn to this earlier. A good move.
Best wishes to the new congregations and all their members.
And best wishes to Rev. Driscoll and his poor wife. A man that focused on genitalia needs help. I hope he finds it.
The shut-down Mars Hill congregation in Arizona has already reconstituted itself as the Phoenix Bible Church. Two laid-off Mars Hill pastors in Seattle have recently created a “Gospel-centered and grace-driven” Redemption Church in North Seattle.
Sounds like, during their tenure at Mars Hill, their allegiance was made to a person and not to previously-believed statement of faith.
The main problem I see is that he was a stern Calvinists.
A small group from the downtown Seattle Mars Hill Church has already broken away. The minister there had left about a year ago with a group and started his own church, ‘The Seattle Church’. They are renting space from the Queen Anne First Methodist Church. For some reason, probably management problems, they have been working out plans to merge with our church, the First Presbyterian Church off Madison Ave. downtown. Negotiations are still being worked out but this would increase the size of our congregation which might be an advantage for both of us if we don’t face problems in the teaching of the Bible. The final decision will be made by the controlling body of the Presbyterian Churches USA.
Sounds like they are taking the right actions.
Sad when a church trying to fall ever more in love with Christ focuses too much on an individual, always a sinner, and not the community relationship with Christ. Catholic priest screws up - replace him and keep the eye on the prize. No man is a church. Even a bad pope. People fall and need forgiveness - that doesn’t mean they ought still run things - but to divide further....sad. The Catholic Church has its problems, but it fixes them, eventually, and continues, rather than fragmenting. It weeps over fragmenting.
With some 30,000 protestant denominations, surely there cannot be that many differences between lovers of Christ? Pride? Humiliation brings humility - something the Catholic Church gets loads of from time to time, because it is necessary, and it is very good for the soul. You fix the sinful problems and you continue on the same true path.
I can see where teaching the Bible could be a problem in the PCUSA.
And best wishes to Rev. Driscoll and his poor wife. A man that focused on genitalia needs help. I hope he finds it.
This, to my mind, is not a good sign:
As well, Driscoll pledged to “reset my life” and cease making provocative statements on his Twitter account. Driscoll told the faithful that his “angry young prophet days are over to be replaced by a Bible-teaching spiritual father.”
He needs to be something else than a pastor, at least for a while.
“The main problem I see is that he was a stern Calvinist”
There’s another kind?
The “30,000 Protestant denominations” concept reminds me of Apple’s App Store and its “million-plus” apps. There is a lot of duplication and overlap, and the useable number is WAY smaller.
I agree. This is not a situation of people's having civil disagreements over administration. He's just not the right person to lead a Christian community, at least not now. A pledge to "reset my life" means nothing.
One of the Mars Hill pastors was on the local news - said something to the effect of “Instead of focusing on a man, or on a group of us men, the church needs to focus on Jesus.”
Hopefully they will find there way back to the root of their faith - and what probably got them started in the beginning and growing from a living room to a “mega-church”.
While it sounds like the pastor had his problems, I am guessing that the Biblical teachings and conservative views are what caused the church to grow. As compared to the shrinking populations of mainstream, wishy-washy churches.
I don't know if they rent or own their property.
If they rent, I guarantee most of their donations go straight to the landlord.
If they own, they have made a very lucrative investment.
You are so right. I am so tired of seeing stern Calvinists - they are literally EVERYWHERE!
Here's what we gotta do, we gotta get Calvinists to be happier.
(Do I really need to include a \sarc ?)
As far as I am concerned he is right, we DO live a pussified nation! Many Church leaders do reflect this politically correct slant. I don't know what he said about Dobson, but I know Dobson isn't perfect either. I am not sure why he pointed out Dobson with this comment. I would have to know what he said about Dobson and why before I can say it was uncalled for.
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