MARC DRISCOLL "WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM HIS RESIGNATION"

Everyone wants to “chime in” on what we can learn from Mark Driscoll’s resignation from Mars Hill Church in Settle, Wa.  “What we can learn” is the common headline. Well, if we’ve learned anything, is you will never bring the big man down. In the end, Mars Hill Church is the one that has suffered and all they were really trying to do, was right. I’m sure in the mix, as always, there was some mixed motives, but by and large, Mark Driscoll was acting in an unbecoming way towards his congregation. He was not above-reproach to those outside the church and he had greatly compromised in integrity to embellish the sales of his book so it could be on the New York Times Best seller list.  Clearly this is a man who has issues (yes we all have issues) but issues that would disqualify him from Pastoring or at least call upon some disciplinary actions.  Isn’t that what The Board of Elders is there for? Isn’t that why Churches have Church Counsels, to help keep honest men….honest or as Ronald Regan said, “trust, but verify”.  Truth be known, no board of elders, no counsel is powerful enough to bring any man down, that established that board or counsel, to begin with. One thing a counsel or board can and has successfully done many times, is remove a rogue Pastor from his position.  This, Mars Hill’s board of elders successfully accomplished (even if unintentional).  We read years back how Ted Haggard’s Church Counsel also accomplished this.  However, I do think the Church Counsel/Board is really pushing their luck when not only do they want to call the Pastor to account for his actions, but also want to execute disciplinary action on the man who put that board and church in place. That I have never seen work!  Ted Haggard seemed to go along with it, but I believe that’s because of all the media spotlight that was on him at the time. And once the spotlight lifted, Ted removed himself from under the discipline of those men and started another Church. The true story is not necessarily that Mark Driscoll resigned, the true story is he was offered to stay, under disciplinary action; and to that he said, as many before him, “later for that, I’m outta here!” and left a church stranded. It was almost naïve for that board to think he would submit himself under discipline or they were not naïve and wanted him just to leave without being guilty of having forced him out. It was not a week that Mark was out from under Mars Hill that he was speaking at Robert Morris’ Conference at Gateway Church in Dallas, Tx. 

Robert Morris was quoted as saying at the Conference, in reference to Mark, “We could crucify him, but since someone’s already been crucified for him … ” Morris said, his voice trailing off. “It’s very sad that in the church, we’re the only army that shoots at our wounded. And I’d like you to stop it.”  You have any idea how spiritual this comment made Robert Morris look and how mean spirited it made those men at Mars Hill look?!  Mars Hill’s board of elders had no idea what they were stepping into when they sought to bring discipline on the Church’s founder. In the Police force there is a brotherhood, you mess with one you mess with them all. Civilian Citizens always criticize the Police force for sticking up for one another; well what else are they supposed to do? And yes, sometimes they even cover for each other when they know their might have been some wrong doing, but what about all the other times, so they reason. Pastors and Leaders in the Church World have the same brotherhood. For all the times a Pastor does violate a church, it is often, very often, that the church or church members have violated the Pastor, or his wife, or his children or all of the above. Mars Hill is in for a rude awakening when they begin to see all the Evangelical Leaders that will rally around Mark Driscoll and make them look like the unchristian, unsympathetic, evil villain in this saga.  The church in Seattle Washington will never be the same. Families will leave the church, kids whose sole identity with Christ and the Church was all attached to Mars Hill, will now leave Mars Hill and find themselves in another church as strangers, feeling disconnected and many friends will be lost and couples, families who once thought they had the perfect Christian life will now find themselves in a spiritual black hole.  Some will give up on Church all together and claim they don’t believe in the “institutionalized church” anymore, they will just worship from at home (see how long that lasts). Truth is, only the strong, the very strong will survive this and the rest will fall by the waste side. The board of elders at Mars Hill is also in for some very rough times. Many families in the church (and there are many!) will turn against the men and their families that were on the board and blame them for everything. Their children will be ostracized form other children in the church and they will become the black sheep of the church they tried to stand up for. They will never forget the day that they agreed to bring the great Mark Driscoll into account for his actions. It will forever have changed their lives and I am not being melodramatic here. In hindsight, they will wish they had never messed with Marc. They were a group of men that once were honored for the position they held at Mars Hill Church; now they are a group of men that will hate that position for many years to come.  What can we learn about Marc Driscoll’s resignation from Mars Hill Church? What we learn is that you don’t know;  you are stepping into the Lion’s den when you decide to try to discipline a Pastor who built the very Church you serve in and are blessed with, you and your family, every Sunday. You will not win, you will not bring the big man down and in the process many lives will be shattered, families torn apart and some lives lost, at least spiritually speaking. What am I trying to say? Am I trying to say they made a mistake? No, they did the right thing, but sometimes, even in doing the right thing, nobody wins. Mark Driscoll will move on with his family and his Charisma and giftings, he will carry him forward and he will welcomed somewhere else with open arms. Many Leaders of evangelical churches, with Robert Morris leading the way will provide him opportunity. Perhaps in a small church of a couple of hundred people, church discipline may work on a Pastor who still has an ounce of humility left in him, but it is very naïve to think, that a man that has built a mega church, is going to submit himself under the discipline of the very church he founded and the diapers of the very men he changed (metaphorically speaking). The best scenario in this case probably would have been for those families to quietly leave the church and left Mark Driscoll into God’s hands. God would have eventually exposed Mark and judged him, but in a way that would not have left the reproach on those innocent families that were simply trying to do good, at least most of them, I hope.  You look at the way Ted Haggard was taken down, not by the Church, but by a male prostitute sitting in his hotel room watching a Christian Television Network, a man totally disconnected from the Church, he was the villain. Then Ted Haggard incriminated himself publicly to his church and millions, when he denounced these charges. Surely God had his hand in this take down and all the board of his Church had to do is step in and do the obvious. The difference, Ted’s downfall came at the hands of God’s sovereign workings, Mark’s downfall came at the hands of men. One church is destroyed in Seattle, one church still presses on in Colorado. And last we learn that Mark left the Church. Never is the word “people” mentioned anywhere. It’s not “a church” he left as some CEO leaving a Corporation. He left people, with names and faces that will never the same. The problem with the big mega church is it becomes business instead of what it was in the beginning, people, people with names and faces and birthday parties and anniversaries that you attended. Hospital visits, funerals and births. Saying he left the Church sounds so neutral, so “oh well”.  The mega church is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it is the fulfillment of that man and his wife’s dreams a curse because it becomes so large it becomes impersonal and the personnel touch is gone and it begins to be run by so many other hands, laymen and assistant Pastors that eventually it does just become “the church” and when it comes to a situation like this, the Pastor perhaps is literally leaving the Church, because the faces, names and personnel involvement has long been lost in the business of church.