http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2014/09/22/ex-mars-hill-elders-driscoll-said-puffing-book-sales-was-not-his-idea/
Posted on September 22, 2014 | By Joel Connelly
A Watergate-style question hangs over internal investigation of misconduct accusations brought by 21 former Mars Hill Church elders against Senior Pastor Mark Driscoll.
“What did Driscoll know and when did he know it?”, Warren Throckmorton, a college professor who has long probed the Seattle-based mega church, asked on Patheos.
The question revolves around hiring a marketing company called ResultsSource, using church money, to artificially boost sales of Driscoll’s book “Real Marriage” and land it a place on The New York Times bestseller list.
In their complaint, the ex-elders allege:
“May 2104 — Mark told elders that he was not aware of the ResultSource agreement but had chosen to admit knowledge of it for the sake of the team in his letter to the church, and that others had made the decision to work with ResultsSource.
“He claimed that another elder and Mark’s publishers made the decision to work with ResultSource without his knowledge. He insinuated that he had learned about the ResultSource agreement only after the story broke on World magazine.”
So we've established based on public records that Mark and Grace Driscoll set up the financial instrument Future Hope Revocable Living Trust on or by February 7 2011. This was the financial instrument that was used to buy a house for $1,055,888.00 in May 2012. Along the way Mars Hill Church, by way of a contract signed by Sutton Turner in October 2011, made arrangements to ensure that a #1 spot for the book Real Marriage was secured on the NYT best-seller list. This #1 spot that was won for Driscoll by the aforementioned arrangement may or may not have been parlayed into a shift from Thomas Nelson to Tyndale a few years on. That's a matter for some continued discussion and investigation.
By 2013 it transpired that Mark Driscoll was accused by Janet Mefferd of plagiarism on the air. Mefferd was the first to raise the question of possible (or actual) copyright infringement on the air but she noted that Wenatchee The Hatchet had already done a back-to-back comparison of Grace Driscoll's chapter 7 of Real Marriage to chapter 9 of Dan Allender's The Wounded Heart and found a striking overlap of phrases and concepts without any credit given to Allender's work in the first printing of the Driscoll book by the Driscolls, and this in spite of the ease with which it could be established that Grace mentioned Allender as a favorite author circa 2000 and that Mark Driscoll commended Allender's work circa 2006.
By now we already know that Real Marriage became controversial both for the plagiarism controversy as well as the Result Source Inc controversy.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/02/20/mark-driscolls-citation-errors-at-a-glance/
http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/files/2014/02/Driscollgridfinal.pdf
As Warren Throckmorton would establish over the last year there were a number of "citation errors" across Real Marriage that were not restricted to just the work of Dan Allender.
For a list of direct links dealing with just Real Marriage at Throckmorton's blog:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/01/08/kindle-edition-of-mark-driscolls-real-marriage-adds-dan-allender-to-acknowledgments/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/01/09/mark-and-grace-driscolls-real-marriage-compared-to-justin-and-lindsey-holcombs-rid-of-my-disgrace/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/01/21/more-citation-problems-in-mark-driscolls-book-real-marriage/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/01/23/mark-driscolls-real-marriage-and-robert-brannons-male-sex-roles-coincidence-or-something-more/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/01/23/summary-of-new-and-old-citation-problems-in-mark-grace-driscolls-real-marriage/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/01/09/writing-recycling-a-new-wrinkle-in-the-mark-driscoll-plagiarism-controversy/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/01/23/summary-of-new-and-old-citation-problems-in-mark-grace-driscolls-real-marriage/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/02/06/from-martin-luther-to-mark-driscoll-a-literary-version-of-the-telephone-game/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/01/23/summary-of-new-and-old-citation-problems-in-mark-grace-driscolls-real-marriage/
So that's a lot of stuff that could have been cited adequately the first time around. When Driscoll was confronted by Mefferd on the air one of his responses with respect to A Call to Resurgence was "Maybe I made a mistake." Yet perusing Throckmorton's research the citation problems or factual errors in the 2013 pale in comparison to things from the 2012 book. Even if we grant for sake of discussion that maybe Mark Driscoll made a mistake in every single citation problem documented by Throckmorton and others (to say nothing of the fact that chapter 7 is credited to Grace Driscoll, which might necessitate asking whether she wrote what was credited to her or whether the recycling of Allender's concepts may have been imported by way of a recycling of material from Death By Love)--for that matter the fact that by Mark Driscoll's account Death By Love was pretty much done as far back as 2006 hasn't really been a big part of the public discourse about his books, has it?
But having noted all that, if the mistakes and oversights in citation and factual accuracy weren't those of Mark and Grace Driscoll then the editors at Thomas Nelson would bear responsibility and to date very few people are discussing what the plagiarism controversy surrounding Mark Driscoll should have told us about its potential message about the Christian publishing industry at large, that rampant plagiarism that would kill the writing careers of secular writers seems to be okay in Christian publishing, and that sales rigging of the sort that can be tolerated (if barely) for celebrities outside Christian culture seem to also be popular within Christian publishing. If anything we're looking at a bigger question, whether or not (if we assume Mark Driscoll didn't intentionally plagiarize across half a dozen books) the Christian publishing industry has reached a state of corruption and laziness that raises a question about why anyone should buy mainstream Christian published material if this is the stuff that has erupted around Mark Driscoll's books?
And there's still that question, how much did Mark Driscoll know and when did he know it? Does a person set up a financial instrument that will be used to buy a roughly one-million dollar house more than a year later if there's no optimism about the prospects of having a book "pop"? What would that optimism be based on?
And even if we set aside the questions about Result Source Inc and the plagiarism controversy the startling thing is that the narrative within Real Marriage raises at least one question about a nightmare incident that may or may not have been chronologically shifted between a Driscoll book from 2006 and a Driscoll book from 2012.
Showing posts with label a house and a contract. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a house and a contract. Show all posts
Monday, September 22, 2014
stories of a house and a contract part 4 the 2013 transfer of the real estate by way of document samples with some help from some reporting by Becky Garrison
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2014/08/20/mark-driscoll-returns-sunday-mars-hill-churchgoers-told-bring-bibles/
In May of 2012, according to Snohomish County records, a 5,529-square-foot, three-bedroom home on a 2-acre lot in Woodway was purchased for $1.05 million by the Future Hope Revocable Living Trust with Driscoll and his wife, Grace, as trustees.
The property was convened in May of 2013 “for consideration of love and affection” to the Downs Family Revocable Living Trust. Its trustee, Melanie Thompson, is a Mars Hill Church member and outspoken defender of Driscoll.
In May of 2012, according to Snohomish County records, a 5,529-square-foot, three-bedroom home on a 2-acre lot in Woodway was purchased for $1.05 million by the Future Hope Revocable Living Trust with Driscoll and his wife, Grace, as trustees.
The property was convened in May of 2013 “for consideration of love and affection” to the Downs Family Revocable Living Trust. Its trustee, Melanie Thompson, is a Mars Hill Church member and outspoken defender of Driscoll.
Wenatchee The Hatchet has discussed this topic before.
http://marshill.com/media/proverbs/men-and-masculinity/ajax_transcript?lang=en
...
We – we didn’t watch Will and Grace and think it was funny. We didn’t – we were – we were a very masculine home. Okay? And I had two sisters and two brothers. My brothers’ names are: Mike and Matt. So, it’s Mike, and Mark, and Matt, and Melanie, and Michelle. That’s our family. I don’t know how that happened, but apparently we got stuck right in the middle of the alphabet. And in my neighborhood, my dad hung drywall every day to provide for the family. If you’ve ever hung drywall, it’s work; it’s significant work. To the point where, a few years ago, my dad broke his back hanging drywall and had to give-up drywall, because he literally severed his back. And my dad, when I was little, I remember him telling me, “This is a rough neighborhood. You look out for your brothers. You look out for your sisters. If I’m gone, you take care of the family.” And you had to in my neighborhood. ...
...
We – we didn’t watch Will and Grace and think it was funny. We didn’t – we were – we were a very masculine home. Okay? And I had two sisters and two brothers. My brothers’ names are: Mike and Matt. So, it’s Mike, and Mark, and Matt, and Melanie, and Michelle. That’s our family. I don’t know how that happened, but apparently we got stuck right in the middle of the alphabet. And in my neighborhood, my dad hung drywall every day to provide for the family. If you’ve ever hung drywall, it’s work; it’s significant work. To the point where, a few years ago, my dad broke his back hanging drywall and had to give-up drywall, because he literally severed his back. And my dad, when I was little, I remember him telling me, “This is a rough neighborhood. You look out for your brothers. You look out for your sisters. If I’m gone, you take care of the family.” And you had to in my neighborhood. ...
Thanks to some sleuthing by Becky Garrison it's now easy to establish that one Melanie J Driscoll married a Leon E Thompson back in 1997. Props to Garrison for spotting and confirming this. It was the last piece in the puzzle Wenatchee The Hatchet was considering for an existing hunch, that the Driscolls had transferred the real estate into the name of one of Mark's younger siblings to better obscure who had bought the house. Garrison's research results can be found at the following link:
Wenatchee The Hatchet has a few extra things to present available with certain county records.
The transfer was finalized by September 2013. It was during the months of June and July 2013 Wenatchee The Hatchet read through Real Marriage and began to notice a few problematic things and so having moved through a few steps in the history of the real estate purchase and the Result Source contract and possible avenues of data mining for orders we can get back a bit to the book itself.
stories of a house and a contract Part 3a mechanical and plumbing permits
http://www.sos.wa.gov/corps/search_detail.aspx?ubi=602713416
Now of interest is the billing address for Future Hope Revocable Living Trust because as previously discussed by Wenatchee The Hatchet over here.
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2014/02/mark-driscoll-in-2009-i-didnt-start.html
the billing address for Future Hope Revocable Living Trust looks the same as ..
http://www.sos.wa.gov/corps/search_detail.aspx?ubi=603258287
ON MISSION, LLC
UBI Number 603258287
Category LLC
Active/Inactive Active
State Of Incorporation CO
WA Filing Date 12/06/2012
Expiration Date 12/31/2014
Inactive Date
Duration Perpetual
Registered Agent Information
Agent Name C T CORPORATION SYSTEM
Address 505 UNION AVE SE STE 120
City OLYMPIA
State WA
ZIP 98501
Governing Persons
Title Name Address
Member
OMCRU INVESTMENTS LLC
23632 HWY 99 STE F441
EDMONDS, WA 98026
Member
LASTING LEGACY LLC
23632 HWY 99 STE F441
EDMONDS, WA 98026
The governing persons were formally Mark Driscoll but the state of incorporation was Colorado, with a registered agent of William Moritz back in 2011.
http://www.sos.state.co.us/biz/ViewImage.do?fileId=20111058965&masterFileId=20111058965
This was e-filed January 28, 2011 at 1:44pm
ID# 20111058965
doc# 2011058965
According to the articles of organization
Article I
The name of the Limited Liability Company is On Mission, LLC
Article II
The term for which this Limited Liability Company is to exist is 50 years
Article III
The Limited Liability Company is organized for profit and the nature of its business or purposes is:
A. To manage book royalties, printing and publishing and all related and derivative activities and
B. To engage in any lawful act or activities for which corporations may be organized under the Colorado Limited Liability Company Act.
Article IV mentions the registered agent in charge is V William Moritz
Article V. lists that the name and mailing address of the manager and organizer of the LLC is as follows:
Mark Driscoll
4570 Hilton Parkway Ste 203
Colorado Springs, CO 80907
Article XI states
Neither the members of the Limited Liability Company nor the manager or officers of the Limited Liability Company are liable under a judgment, decree or order of a court, or in any other manner, for debt, obligation or liability of the Limited Liability Company.
So way back in 2011 Mark Driscoll set up a limited liability company in Colorado explicitly for the purpose of managing the royalties and sales of books.
What about OMCRU Investments, LLC?
http://www.sos.state.co.us/biz/BusinessEntityDetail.do?quitButtonDestination=BusinessEntityResults&fileId=20111552249&masterFileId=20111552249&srchTyp=ENTITY&entityId2=20111552249&nameTyp=ENT
OMCRU Investments, LLC
This would be a document to consult
http://www.sos.state.co.us/biz/ViewImage.do?fileId=20111552249&masterFileId=20111552249
Filed 9-30-2011
Not dissimilar to On Mission, LLC but the articles are worth consulting.
ARTICLE III
The Limited Liability Company is organized for profit and the nature of its business or purposes to be conducted or promoted is:
A. To manage property and investments.
B. To engage in any lawful act or activities for which corporations may be organized under the Colorado Limited Liability Company Act
What property was this company going to be owning? What investments? Well, we'd have to see who the manager and organizer of the LLC is and what does Article V say?
Article V
... The name and mailing address of the manager and organizer of the Limited Liability Company is as follows:
Mark Driscoll
1722 North 122nd St
Seattle, WA 98122 [but obviously no longer]
Thus ...
On Mission, LLC
4570 Hilton Parkway, Ste 203
Colorado Springs, CO 80907
Registered Agent Bill Moritz
stories of a house and a contract part 3 master building and clearing & grading permit application
So .. in the summer of 2012, a bit after that mid-June 2012 financial update and a couple of months after the house was purchased, it started coming up for some remodeling work.
stories of a house and a contract 2b possible avenues of distribution for the bulk orders, the former Mars Hill Military Mission that looks like it was absorbed into Mars Hill Global
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-rsi-contract-with-mars-hill-and.html
material originally published March 9. 2014
To the extent that questions have emerged about where and how Mars Hill Church could have gotten names Warren Throckmorton has speculated that a Real Marriage donation promotion site may have been one possibility.http://marshill.com/2011/11/22/give-25-get-a-copy-of-the-real-marriage-book
However, if the restrictions in the Result Source Inc agreement specify that there can't be more than 350 in a geographic region how can someone control for that? Wouldn't donations tend to cluster to a point where geographic areas would be over-represented? Throckmorton's proposal might founder on the problem of how the program Mars Hill had for getting a copy of the book could eliminate over-representation of regions, unless there's something else that can be discovered.
Throckmorton doesn't seem to mention the bulk orders. A minimum of 90 different addresses with no more than three per state.
This is just speculation but what resources could Mars Hill Church have that could cover the bulk address side of things?
5,000 books on the bulk price category.
90 addresses
no more than 3 per state
Well, what about military units? A company tends to be between 100-200, well within the limits required for a Result Source requirement of less than 350 per geographic area for the individual orders criteria, for instance. Find the addresses of two chaplains at separate addresses each in 45 of the lower 48 would seem to cover the bulk order address requirements easily. Anyone with a modicum of direct marketing or mass mailing coordination experience would at least give this idea a moment's consideration.
So, if we're speculating that military bases and chaplain addresses are at least a brainstorming idea would anyone at Mars Hill Church have access to anything like that information? Let's see ...
Readers may recall that Wenatchee The Hatchet proposed that the Mars Hill Military Mission would be the simplest option for bulk orders from the perspective of data mining. A key function of the ministry was distributing books. It's worth mentioning, however, that the March 17, 2012 memo published by Warren Throckmorton features a singling out of Military Mission as not sustainable. Precisely why never got explained but it's worth highlighting.
http://wp.production.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/files/2014/09/Current-Financial-Situation-March-17-12.pdf
But ... if you were to send one case of books to two chaplains in two different zip codes in each state of the United States the bulk orders would be easily accounted for. Let's just say at one point Wenatchee The Hatchet had a day job that consisted of accounting for stuff like that. Informally a couple of sources have indicated to Wenatchee The Hatchet that Military Mission was involved in the promotion of Real Marriage but no one as yet has been willing to go on the record, however, it seemed clear enough that given Mars Hill's history of financial crisis cycles and infrastructural challenges they were going to want to data mine along the path of least resistance for bulk orders of books. Why not just go with the data pool of a ministry that already had book distribution of Driscoll books within its mission?
But Mars Hill Military Mission was given "a reassignment" in mid-April 2012.
http://marshill.com/2012/04/14/military-mission
... Because of the enormous growth of this ministry, we are needing to make some changes that will allow us to keep up with the great number of orders that are flowing in. The Military Mission will now become part of our new Global Ministries department. Because distribution is a large part of what Mars Hill Military Mission does, this strategic move will allow us to send out more resources at a quicker, less expensive, and more efficient rate. We have also combined Global Ministries and Military Mission’s financial contributions to one account. This will not only simplify our accounting processes but it will enable our ministries to have more of a global impact. Those of you who are currently giving specifically to the Military Mission might ask “Will my donations still be funding the Military Mission?” Our answer would be, “Yes—and then some.”
So the Mars Hill Military Mission looks like it was considered "not sustainable" but it would have naturally had the information useful for data mining bulk order distribution. Two chaplains in two different ZIP codes in every state of the union would have pretty well covered the bulk orders without anyone even having to think too hard about it. Unfortunately since the Mars Hill Military Mission looks like it was simply absorbed into Mars Hill Global the information on whether that may have been how the bulk orders got processed for Real Marriage and where funds came for those orders probably can't be known unless Mars Hill Global books since its inception get opened and examined.
But, all the same, the distribution of books was what Mars Hill Military Ministry had been doing for a while and it seems the simplest, most likely first candidate for the bulk orders ... at least so far as Wenatchee The Hatchet could tell.
Now that the potential distribution avenues for the 11,000 have been considered we can get back to things more domestic because in 2013 there seems to have been a process under way whereby the house in Snohomish county was going to get a bit of remodeling.
material originally published March 9. 2014
To the extent that questions have emerged about where and how Mars Hill Church could have gotten names Warren Throckmorton has speculated that a Real Marriage donation promotion site may have been one possibility.http://marshill.com/2011/11/22/give-25-get-a-copy-of-the-real-marriage-book
However, if the restrictions in the Result Source Inc agreement specify that there can't be more than 350 in a geographic region how can someone control for that? Wouldn't donations tend to cluster to a point where geographic areas would be over-represented? Throckmorton's proposal might founder on the problem of how the program Mars Hill had for getting a copy of the book could eliminate over-representation of regions, unless there's something else that can be discovered.
Throckmorton doesn't seem to mention the bulk orders. A minimum of 90 different addresses with no more than three per state.
This is just speculation but what resources could Mars Hill Church have that could cover the bulk address side of things?
5,000 books on the bulk price category.
90 addresses
no more than 3 per state
Well, what about military units? A company tends to be between 100-200, well within the limits required for a Result Source requirement of less than 350 per geographic area for the individual orders criteria, for instance. Find the addresses of two chaplains at separate addresses each in 45 of the lower 48 would seem to cover the bulk order address requirements easily. Anyone with a modicum of direct marketing or mass mailing coordination experience would at least give this idea a moment's consideration.
So, if we're speculating that military bases and chaplain addresses are at least a brainstorming idea would anyone at Mars Hill Church have access to anything like that information? Let's see ...
Readers may recall that Wenatchee The Hatchet proposed that the Mars Hill Military Mission would be the simplest option for bulk orders from the perspective of data mining. A key function of the ministry was distributing books. It's worth mentioning, however, that the March 17, 2012 memo published by Warren Throckmorton features a singling out of Military Mission as not sustainable. Precisely why never got explained but it's worth highlighting.
http://wp.production.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/files/2014/09/Current-Financial-Situation-March-17-12.pdf
16. Having ministries like Film and Theology and Military Missions is not sustainable. [emphasis added]
But ... if you were to send one case of books to two chaplains in two different zip codes in each state of the United States the bulk orders would be easily accounted for. Let's just say at one point Wenatchee The Hatchet had a day job that consisted of accounting for stuff like that. Informally a couple of sources have indicated to Wenatchee The Hatchet that Military Mission was involved in the promotion of Real Marriage but no one as yet has been willing to go on the record, however, it seemed clear enough that given Mars Hill's history of financial crisis cycles and infrastructural challenges they were going to want to data mine along the path of least resistance for bulk orders of books. Why not just go with the data pool of a ministry that already had book distribution of Driscoll books within its mission?
But Mars Hill Military Mission was given "a reassignment" in mid-April 2012.
http://marshill.com/2012/04/14/military-mission
... Because of the enormous growth of this ministry, we are needing to make some changes that will allow us to keep up with the great number of orders that are flowing in. The Military Mission will now become part of our new Global Ministries department. Because distribution is a large part of what Mars Hill Military Mission does, this strategic move will allow us to send out more resources at a quicker, less expensive, and more efficient rate. We have also combined Global Ministries and Military Mission’s financial contributions to one account. This will not only simplify our accounting processes but it will enable our ministries to have more of a global impact. Those of you who are currently giving specifically to the Military Mission might ask “Will my donations still be funding the Military Mission?” Our answer would be, “Yes—and then some.”
So the Mars Hill Military Mission looks like it was considered "not sustainable" but it would have naturally had the information useful for data mining bulk order distribution. Two chaplains in two different ZIP codes in every state of the union would have pretty well covered the bulk orders without anyone even having to think too hard about it. Unfortunately since the Mars Hill Military Mission looks like it was simply absorbed into Mars Hill Global the information on whether that may have been how the bulk orders got processed for Real Marriage and where funds came for those orders probably can't be known unless Mars Hill Global books since its inception get opened and examined.
But, all the same, the distribution of books was what Mars Hill Military Ministry had been doing for a while and it seems the simplest, most likely first candidate for the bulk orders ... at least so far as Wenatchee The Hatchet could tell.
Now that the potential distribution avenues for the 11,000 have been considered we can get back to things more domestic because in 2013 there seems to have been a process under way whereby the house in Snohomish county was going to get a bit of remodeling.
stories of a house and a contract 2a the individual orders and a fundraiser?
First, we must get to who was invoiced for the Result Source Inc. contract
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/05/27/who-at-mars-hill-church-authorized-church-funds-to-buy-a-place-for-mark-driscolls-real-marriage-on-the-nyt-best-seller-list/
Warren Throckmorton fielded that quite well.
So Mark Driscoll was the person named on the invoices.
Warren Throckmorton has preserved evidence of the fundraising/giving avenue through which donations of $25 or more would yield a free copy of Real Marriage.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/09/22/realmarriagememo/
James Duncan proposed that having community group leaders push Real Marriage locally could have played a role in meeting the numbers necessitated by the agreement with Result Source meeting the requirements for the #1 placement
http://www.pajamapages.com/mark-driscoll-prepared-hundreds-of-mars-hill-leaders-to-push-push-push-his-book/
http://pastormark.tv/2011/12/07/inside-look-at-real-marriage
http://vimeo.com/32684535
It looks like Duncan's guess was the apparatus and process described by Driscoll might involve using churches for the bulk orders but it would seem that individual orders were getting covered by the fundraising webpage and community group leaders could cover individual purchases. Bulk orders, however, had some pretty significant restrictions in terms of geography and those restrictions warrant discussion in a separate post.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/05/27/who-at-mars-hill-church-authorized-church-funds-to-buy-a-place-for-mark-driscolls-real-marriage-on-the-nyt-best-seller-list/
Warren Throckmorton fielded that quite well.
Warren Throckmorton has preserved evidence of the fundraising/giving avenue through which donations of $25 or more would yield a free copy of Real Marriage.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/09/22/realmarriagememo/
James Duncan proposed that having community group leaders push Real Marriage locally could have played a role in meeting the numbers necessitated by the agreement with Result Source meeting the requirements for the #1 placement
http://www.pajamapages.com/mark-driscoll-prepared-hundreds-of-mars-hill-leaders-to-push-push-push-his-book/
http://pastormark.tv/2011/12/07/inside-look-at-real-marriage
http://vimeo.com/32684535
It looks like Duncan's guess was the apparatus and process described by Driscoll might involve using churches for the bulk orders but it would seem that individual orders were getting covered by the fundraising webpage and community group leaders could cover individual purchases. Bulk orders, however, had some pretty significant restrictions in terms of geography and those restrictions warrant discussion in a separate post.
stories of a house and a contract part 2 the historical setting in which the house was bought--Mars Hill dealing with a systemic deficit problem while a million-dollar house in Snohomish county got bought
It would be difficult at this stage to do more than summarize what has been published before.
There's new material that has come to light, such as the Marcy 17, 2012 memo in which it was noted what a dire financial situation Mars Hill got itself into by launching half a dozen campuses that were new or relaunches in half a year while simultaneously promoting Real Marriage. But the rest presented here, though old, is worth reviewing. It's worth seeing that by June 2012 Mark Driscoll was informing the church they had embraced a financial model that was not suitable for its long-term future.
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2013/09/mars-hill-church-in-may-and-june-of.html
We'll just start with some numbers because these numbers tell a story.
http://marshill.com/2012/05/31/an-update-on-mars-hill-church-from-pastor-mark-may-2012
From the May 2012 update
[since that link above is probably still dead go over here for a breakdown of where the same material should still be available that discusses the numbers quoted below]
FINANCIAL UPDATE
April vs March 2012
Adults that give weekly giving per A. Giving Households Weekly attendance
April 42% $29.13 5,490 14,059
March 41% $32.79 4838 13,125
http://marshill.com/2012/06/13/an-update-on-the-church-from-pastor-mark-june-2012
The June 2012 budget update included the following
PAST PRESENT FUTURE
Weekly giving per adult $20.25 $30.25 $35.00
church costs -$14.20 -$11.82 -$10.00
facilities costs -$12.37 -$8.81 -$10.00
central costs -$22.69 -$16.07 -$10.00
projects/investments -$3.60 -$0.99 -$3.50
expansion
Margin/Loss -$22.61 -$7.44 $1.50
presents list of weekly deficits per campus, we'll add corresponding percentages of givers per campus into this list since Driscoll went to that stat set next
wkly deficit % adults that gave
Rainer Valley -$3.39 27%
Portland -$3.74 42%
Federal Way -$4.71 42%
Ballard -$4.81 41%
Everett -$5.73 45%
Bellevue -$6.14 54%
Albuquerque -$7.16 38%
Downtown -$8.29 24%
Olympia -$8.35 59%
Orange County -$8.65 32%
Sammamish -$9.75 64%
West Seattle -$11.55 66%
U-district -$11.82 29%
Shoreline -$18.02 67%
So after a few years of every year being best-year-ever by the summer of 2012 Driscoll was sharing that every campus was running systemic deficits. He also alluded to what seemed to have been a mass layoff or termination process of some kind.
So if you hear, "Hey, Mars Hill's canceled a few programs. The staff is shrinking a little bit. They're making some transitions," it's not that anybody has sinned, or done anything wrong, or is in touble, it's just that we had an economic model that wasn't sustainable for our future.
Nobody sinned but there were systemic deficits? What happened to financial stewardship? Who was falling short of the best they could do? There's an explanation Driscoll would proffer elsewhere in the June 2012 update but let's take a little detour into real estate that probably wouldn't qualify as a Mars Hill campus.
In late May of 2012 the following real estate transaction was listed in Snohomish county records
https://www.snoco.org/proptax/(x5uewe45hikjyf55g2guwo3l)/search.aspx?parcel_number=00704300000600
The sales price was $1,055,888.00 and sold to a grantee/buyer that had its base at the physical address of the corporate headquarters of Mars Hill Church, namely
1411 NW 50TH ST, SEATTLE, WA 98107
So however lean and difficult the financial season at Mars Hill was in June of 2012, as Mark Driscoll explained things, there was still someone who 1) had some affiliation with the Mars Hill corporate headquarters address 2) and had enough money to buy a roughly one-million dollar home in the previous month. For people with a background in fundraising in non-profit settings the address (which we're not going to actually publish here) is nested in what might be called a "prestige ZIP code". It's sexier to say you live in X than, say, Edmonds.
And, let's face it, while the exact person(s) party to the transaction may not be listed, in the lean season Driscoll said Mars Hill was going through last year, there weren't exactly a whole lot of people affiliated with 1411 NW 50th St in Seattle, WA 98107 that were going to be in a position to buy a house that cost a million in the midst of what Driscoll called one of the tougher financial seasons of the church.
And because government websites tend to make things available to the public, it's no secret that by later 2012 Mark Driscoll was listed as Manager for a couple of LLCs that are registered with Washington state but incorporated in Colorado.
OMCRU INVESTMENTS, LLC
http://www.sos.wa.gov/corps/search_detail.aspx?ubi=603258278
UBI Number 603258278
Category LLC
Active/Inactive Active
State Of Incorporation CO
WA Filing Date 12/06/2012
Expiration Date 12/31/2013
Inactive Date
Duration Perpetual
Registered Agent Information
Agent Name C T Corporation System
Address 505 Union Ave Se Ste 120
Olympia, WA 98501
For governing persons the title, name and address are as follows:
Manager
DRISCOLL, MARK
1411 NW 50TH ST
SEATTLE, WA 98107
Then there's ON MISSION, LLC, the owner of the copyright in Mark and Grace Driscoll's book Real Marriage:
http://www.sos.wa.gov/corps/search_detail.aspx?ubi=603258287
UBI Number 603258287
Category LLC
Active/Inactive Active
State Of Incorporation CO
WA Filing Date 12/06/2012
Expiration Date 12/31/2013
Inactive Date
Duration Perpetual
Registered Agent Information
Agent Name C T Corporation System
Address 505 Union Ave Se Ste 120
Olympia, WA 98501
Governing Persons
Once again, the title, name and address turn out to be
Manager
DRISCOLL, MARK
1411 NW 50TH ST
SEATTLE, WA 98107
Now, in a way, whose million-dollar house in Snohomish County it is that has some affiliation with the corporate headquarters of Mars Hill is not particularly important. An author can sell tens of thousands of books and can have earned the revenue to live in a spendy house in a prestige ZIP code.
Mark Driscoll also owns or co-owns the copyright for most published things with his name on it (that Driscoll owns the copyright and not the church is another topic for discussion at some other time). Driscoll can sell as many books as he likes and put that revenue to whatever use he sees fit, and "if" he bought an expensive house in Snohomish county he can do that.
And Snohomish county publicized that information for anyone to consult as government registers have a habit of doing. And as for search tools, Google is pretty popular. It's just a matter of popping in the MH-HQ address alongside "Snohomish County" and it's the first result that pops up. Anyone can do that. Simple as that.
This real estate transaction, whatever its connection to parties at Mars Hill, retroactively sheds some new light on an older post at Wenatchee The Hatchet. Namely the one posted here about how Mark Driscoll told Mars Hill "We're not a wealthy church." However not-wealthy Mars Hill Church was someone felt confident enough in their revenue stream to buy a house, a million-dollar house, at a time that Driscoll described as one of the tougher financial seasons in the history of Mars Hill.
Yes, in June 2012 Mark Driscoll was explaining the systemic deficits Mars Hill Church was running at each and every campus and explained that nobody sinned, MHC just had a financial model that wasn't sustainable for the long-term future. Apparently systemic deficits don't indicate even the possibility of any kind of sin within Mars Hill. Well, maybe giving needed to improve alongside scaling back staff and programs and, meanwhile, the month before Driscoll would share about systemic deficits someone with an affiliation to the corporate headquarters of Mars Hill bought a roughly million-dollar house in Snohomish county.
Who bought that house? Well, in a way it's not very important, is it? People can buy real estate if they can afford it. But we're on the other side of a housing bubble, aren't we? And who bought that house is, in another way, obviously the point anyone would be likely to care about when the topic is Mars Hill and at ... some blog. We're not going to bother explicating that, because it's not 100% certain through primary documentation (at this point) who bought the house. We do not necessarily provide answers (most of the time) so much as raise questions. [Edit. If you want to plug the parcel number into a county auditor's index of public records ... you're free to do that. The answer is not exactly a great big shock.]
So let's let the question float around a little for consideration as we close with Mark Driscoll's dry aside from his sermon about the church in Philadelphia. In discussing the sytemic deficits and how things would improve going forward Mark Driscoll would publicly explain to Mars Hill Church what myth pervades the church when it comes to finances (sermon transcript):
Now, you look at this, you say, “Fourteen churches.” See, this is the myth at Mars Hill: “There’s a money fairy somewhere and the money fairy takes care of it.” Okay. You’re the money fairy. Okay.
Now that we've strolled down memory lane on that issue we can proceed further by going back to questions of distribution for the Result Source Inc contract.
There's new material that has come to light, such as the Marcy 17, 2012 memo in which it was noted what a dire financial situation Mars Hill got itself into by launching half a dozen campuses that were new or relaunches in half a year while simultaneously promoting Real Marriage. But the rest presented here, though old, is worth reviewing. It's worth seeing that by June 2012 Mark Driscoll was informing the church they had embraced a financial model that was not suitable for its long-term future.
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2013/09/mars-hill-church-in-may-and-june-of.html
We'll just start with some numbers because these numbers tell a story.
http://marshill.com/2012/05/31/an-update-on-mars-hill-church-from-pastor-mark-may-2012
From the May 2012 update
[since that link above is probably still dead go over here for a breakdown of where the same material should still be available that discusses the numbers quoted below]
FINANCIAL UPDATE
April vs March 2012
Adults that give weekly giving per A. Giving Households Weekly attendance
April 42% $29.13 5,490 14,059
March 41% $32.79 4838 13,125
http://marshill.com/2012/06/13/an-update-on-the-church-from-pastor-mark-june-2012
The June 2012 budget update included the following
PAST PRESENT FUTURE
Weekly giving per adult $20.25 $30.25 $35.00
church costs -$14.20 -$11.82 -$10.00
facilities costs -$12.37 -$8.81 -$10.00
central costs -$22.69 -$16.07 -$10.00
projects/investments -$3.60 -$0.99 -$3.50
expansion
Margin/Loss -$22.61 -$7.44 $1.50
presents list of weekly deficits per campus, we'll add corresponding percentages of givers per campus into this list since Driscoll went to that stat set next
wkly deficit % adults that gave
Rainer Valley -$3.39 27%
Portland -$3.74 42%
Federal Way -$4.71 42%
Ballard -$4.81 41%
Everett -$5.73 45%
Bellevue -$6.14 54%
Albuquerque -$7.16 38%
Downtown -$8.29 24%
Olympia -$8.35 59%
Orange County -$8.65 32%
Sammamish -$9.75 64%
West Seattle -$11.55 66%
U-district -$11.82 29%
Shoreline -$18.02 67%
So after a few years of every year being best-year-ever by the summer of 2012 Driscoll was sharing that every campus was running systemic deficits. He also alluded to what seemed to have been a mass layoff or termination process of some kind.
So if you hear, "Hey, Mars Hill's canceled a few programs. The staff is shrinking a little bit. They're making some transitions," it's not that anybody has sinned, or done anything wrong, or is in touble, it's just that we had an economic model that wasn't sustainable for our future.
Nobody sinned but there were systemic deficits? What happened to financial stewardship? Who was falling short of the best they could do? There's an explanation Driscoll would proffer elsewhere in the June 2012 update but let's take a little detour into real estate that probably wouldn't qualify as a Mars Hill campus.
In late May of 2012 the following real estate transaction was listed in Snohomish county records
https://www.snoco.org/proptax/(x5uewe45hikjyf55g2guwo3l)/search.aspx?parcel_number=00704300000600
The sales price was $1,055,888.00 and sold to a grantee/buyer that had its base at the physical address of the corporate headquarters of Mars Hill Church, namely
1411 NW 50TH ST, SEATTLE, WA 98107
So however lean and difficult the financial season at Mars Hill was in June of 2012, as Mark Driscoll explained things, there was still someone who 1) had some affiliation with the Mars Hill corporate headquarters address 2) and had enough money to buy a roughly one-million dollar home in the previous month. For people with a background in fundraising in non-profit settings the address (which we're not going to actually publish here) is nested in what might be called a "prestige ZIP code". It's sexier to say you live in X than, say, Edmonds.
And, let's face it, while the exact person(s) party to the transaction may not be listed, in the lean season Driscoll said Mars Hill was going through last year, there weren't exactly a whole lot of people affiliated with 1411 NW 50th St in Seattle, WA 98107 that were going to be in a position to buy a house that cost a million in the midst of what Driscoll called one of the tougher financial seasons of the church.
And because government websites tend to make things available to the public, it's no secret that by later 2012 Mark Driscoll was listed as Manager for a couple of LLCs that are registered with Washington state but incorporated in Colorado.
OMCRU INVESTMENTS, LLC
http://www.sos.wa.gov/corps/search_detail.aspx?ubi=603258278
UBI Number 603258278
Category LLC
Active/Inactive Active
State Of Incorporation CO
WA Filing Date 12/06/2012
Expiration Date 12/31/2013
Inactive Date
Duration Perpetual
Registered Agent Information
Agent Name C T Corporation System
Address 505 Union Ave Se Ste 120
Olympia, WA 98501
For governing persons the title, name and address are as follows:
Manager
DRISCOLL, MARK
1411 NW 50TH ST
SEATTLE, WA 98107
Then there's ON MISSION, LLC, the owner of the copyright in Mark and Grace Driscoll's book Real Marriage:
http://www.sos.wa.gov/corps/search_detail.aspx?ubi=603258287
UBI Number 603258287
Category LLC
Active/Inactive Active
State Of Incorporation CO
WA Filing Date 12/06/2012
Expiration Date 12/31/2013
Inactive Date
Duration Perpetual
Registered Agent Information
Agent Name C T Corporation System
Address 505 Union Ave Se Ste 120
Olympia, WA 98501
Governing Persons
Once again, the title, name and address turn out to be
Manager
DRISCOLL, MARK
1411 NW 50TH ST
SEATTLE, WA 98107
Now, in a way, whose million-dollar house in Snohomish County it is that has some affiliation with the corporate headquarters of Mars Hill is not particularly important. An author can sell tens of thousands of books and can have earned the revenue to live in a spendy house in a prestige ZIP code.
Mark Driscoll also owns or co-owns the copyright for most published things with his name on it (that Driscoll owns the copyright and not the church is another topic for discussion at some other time). Driscoll can sell as many books as he likes and put that revenue to whatever use he sees fit, and "if" he bought an expensive house in Snohomish county he can do that.
And Snohomish county publicized that information for anyone to consult as government registers have a habit of doing. And as for search tools, Google is pretty popular. It's just a matter of popping in the MH-HQ address alongside "Snohomish County" and it's the first result that pops up. Anyone can do that. Simple as that.
This real estate transaction, whatever its connection to parties at Mars Hill, retroactively sheds some new light on an older post at Wenatchee The Hatchet. Namely the one posted here about how Mark Driscoll told Mars Hill "We're not a wealthy church." However not-wealthy Mars Hill Church was someone felt confident enough in their revenue stream to buy a house, a million-dollar house, at a time that Driscoll described as one of the tougher financial seasons in the history of Mars Hill.
Yes, in June 2012 Mark Driscoll was explaining the systemic deficits Mars Hill Church was running at each and every campus and explained that nobody sinned, MHC just had a financial model that wasn't sustainable for the long-term future. Apparently systemic deficits don't indicate even the possibility of any kind of sin within Mars Hill. Well, maybe giving needed to improve alongside scaling back staff and programs and, meanwhile, the month before Driscoll would share about systemic deficits someone with an affiliation to the corporate headquarters of Mars Hill bought a roughly million-dollar house in Snohomish county.
Who bought that house? Well, in a way it's not very important, is it? People can buy real estate if they can afford it. But we're on the other side of a housing bubble, aren't we? And who bought that house is, in another way, obviously the point anyone would be likely to care about when the topic is Mars Hill and at ... some blog. We're not going to bother explicating that, because it's not 100% certain through primary documentation (at this point) who bought the house. We do not necessarily provide answers (most of the time) so much as raise questions. [Edit. If you want to plug the parcel number into a county auditor's index of public records ... you're free to do that. The answer is not exactly a great big shock.]
So let's let the question float around a little for consideration as we close with Mark Driscoll's dry aside from his sermon about the church in Philadelphia. In discussing the sytemic deficits and how things would improve going forward Mark Driscoll would publicly explain to Mars Hill Church what myth pervades the church when it comes to finances (sermon transcript):
Now, you look at this, you say, “Fourteen churches.” See, this is the myth at Mars Hill: “There’s a money fairy somewhere and the money fairy takes care of it.” Okay. You’re the money fairy. Okay.
Now that we've strolled down memory lane on that issue we can proceed further by going back to questions of distribution for the Result Source Inc contract.
stories of a house and a contract Part 1b the Result Source Inc contract proper
Presented by way of a link without much comment. We already know Sutton Turner signed the contract around October 2011. And thanks to Warren Throckmorton's reporting we know there were reservations expressed within Mars Hill about the nature and aims of the arrangement.
http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/files/2014/03/RSIMHCContract.png
What remains to be answered is when the "outside counsel" with respect to Result Source Inc. was given because as we've seen the financial instrument Future Hope Revocable Living Trust was set up pretty early in 2011 and the aim toward which it seems to have been set up was buying a house and to that house we return. We'll set aside questions about the On Mission Charitable Remainder Unitrust and return to things related to future hope(s).
http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/files/2014/03/RSIMHCContract.png
What remains to be answered is when the "outside counsel" with respect to Result Source Inc. was given because as we've seen the financial instrument Future Hope Revocable Living Trust was set up pretty early in 2011 and the aim toward which it seems to have been set up was buying a house and to that house we return. We'll set aside questions about the On Mission Charitable Remainder Unitrust and return to things related to future hope(s).
stories of a house and a contract Part 1a an idea and a worry
https://marshill.com/2014/03/07/a-note-from-our-board-of-advisors-accountability
Result Source
Result Source
In 2011, outside counsel advised our marketing team to use Result Source to market the Real Marriage book and attain placement on the New York Times Bestseller list. While not uncommon or illegal, this unwise strategy is not one we had used before or since, and not one we will use again. The true cost of this endeavor was much less than what has been reported, and to be clear, all of the books purchased through this campaign have been given away or sold through normal channels. All monies from the sale of Pastor Mark’s books at Mars Hill bookstores have always gone to the church and Pastor Mark did not profit from the Real Marriage books sold either at the church or through the Result Source marketing campaign.
To correct a statement in a recent article, Pastor Sutton Turner was the General Manager, not the Executive Pastor or Executive Elder as reported, at the time he signed with the referenced agreement with Result Source. In the time since this campaign we have established a new Executive Elder team, new Board of Advisors and Accountability, as well as a new marketing team.
Mars Hill's Board of Advisors and Accountability has not yet revealed who the "outside counsel" was that advised the Mars Hill marketing team to use Result Source.
Driscoll had at the time embarked into a partnership with Thomas Nelson
Driscoll was also being represented by Yates and Yates
but we're getting ahead of ourselves there. Precisely who came up with the idea for Mars Hill/Mark Driscoll to use Result Source Inc. has not yet been established. Nobody at Yates & Yates seems to have been game to talk much about Driscoll in 2014 and they dropped him from their line-up. Meanwhile, Warren Throckmorton's question at the link above has not been answered yet.
It turns out, available via Warren Throckmorton as of tonight, that a September 2011 memo expressed several concerns about the idea of using Result Source Inc. to promote a Mark Driscoll book.
...
QUESTIONS:
IS IT OKAY FOR MARS HILL TO TAKE A FINANCIAL RISK WITH THE GIVING CAMPAIGN?
- If we decide to go full bore on the NYT campaign it would mean committing to 11,000 copies of the book. Of that at least 4,000 must be in bulk purchases, which we would have to sell through or bookstores or find organizations that would buy in bulk.
- If we do a less ambitious campaign the only risk we'd have to take on is not recouping the $30,000 consulting fee from result source (This is assuming that we have a minimum donation of >$20). The maximum loss on this would be only $30,000.
- For context of the effectiveness of the giving campaign: if we were able to have a huge success and 11,000 people gave an average of $25 Mars Hill would only have a profit of $17,300 out of a total of $275,00 brought in.
IS IT ACCEPTABLE FOR MARS HILL TO PAY $20 FOR A BOOK WHEN ON MISSION IS PURCHASING THEM FOR $7 FOR THE REAL MARRIAGE EVENTS?
- If this information was ever made public it could be viewed by the IRS or someone muckraking that a large giving campaign was set up for the personal profit of Mark Driscoll.
- As a result of this giving campaign you will make a royalty of everyone of the books that is given away. So in a sense it could be conjetured that you're making money directly off of a Mars Hill fundraiser.
Fair questions. Something to note "$275,00" looks like it could have been intended to be $275,000. Since 11,000x25 is 275,000 Wenatchee is guessing the number is a typo from the document made available by Warren Throckmorton. But what's clear is that if the book were bought at $25 that even in the best case scenario of 11,000 people giving an average of $25 the profit would be 17.3k compared to a 275k "brought in".
Note particularly the concern about how of the 11,000 that 4,000 have to be bulk purchases. There was clearly a question about where to find bookstores to sell or where to find an organization that would/could buy in bulk. And by organization Wenatchee The Hatchet suggests we're looking at an information/infrastructural question but we'll get to that later.
Now that we've set the stage for a financial instrument and the idea of a contract we can proceed to ...
stories of a house and a contract Part 1, a financial instrument
It will be advisable to pay careful attention to where the financial instrument is based as this sequence moves forward. In earlier snoco listings Future Hope Revocable Living Trust was described as based at what was Mars Hill corporate headquarters
https://www.snoco.org/proptax/(x5uewe45hikjyf55g2guwo3l)/search.aspx?parcel_number=00704300000600
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2013/09/mars-hill-church-in-may-and-june-of.html?showComment=1381091090660#c9150088969919421441
Wenatchee the Hatchet said...
Shows now that on September 5, 2013 the real estate was transferred from Future Hope Revocable Living Trust to Downs Family Revocable Living Trust for a price of $0. The Downs Family Revocable Living Trust has a mailing address of
1402 LAKE TAPPS PKWY E STE 104 #307, AUBURN, WA 98092-8157
Pretty obviously a UPS Store type set-up where a private mailbox is set up that gives no clear indication of the physical addresses to which it may correspond. Future Hope Revocable Living Trust was located at the Mars Hill corporate headquarters at 1411 NW 50TH ST, SEATTLE, WA 98107.
So the most recently listed transfer as of the date this post was published looks like a simple paper transfer that likely does not change anything about who resides at the estate.
But we'll see that the address for the trust changed, and we'll keep seeing the trust showing up in relationship to the house for obvious reasons. But for now we'll switch tracks to another kind of contract, or the idea of it.
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