During the 2012 period
there was also a period of reorganizing the governance of Mars Hill and, once
again, the topic of how Mark Driscoll would be held accountable and who would
hold him accountable got addressed. In
the 2012-2013 period there was a new board, a Board of Advisors and Accountability,
that would play a supervisory role.
… Given that Pastor Mark serves as the most visible representative
of Mars Hill Church, we have put in place an accountability structure that includes
both internal accountability and external accountability. Internally, Pastor
Mark is held accountable to every elder at Mars Hill Church, through the
Executive Elder Team, the Full Council of Elders as well as the Board of
Elders. He also has external accountability among church leaders outside of
Mars Hill Church.
In the event that a formal charge and/or accusation is made
against Pastor Mark that, if investigated and found to be true, would
disqualify him from his position as an elder in Mars Hill Church, a group of
five men consisting of both elders within Mars Hill Church and Christian
leaders outside of Mars Hill Church, will investigate the charge or accusation
and determine if it is true. This group currently consists of Jamie Munson,
Dave Bruskas, James MacDonald, Darrin Patrick, and Larry
Osborne. If the charge or accusation is found to be true, this group
can rebuke Pastor Mark or, if warranted, remove him as an elder at Mars Hill
Church. If Pastor Mark is removed as an elder, he automatically ceases to serve
on the Board of Elders, on the Executive Elder Team, and as president of Mars
Hill Church.
What is not clear is
whether Osborne had an advisory role in 2010 or 2011, a critical year in the
history of the now former Mars Hill, the year in which the church contracted with
Result Source to secure a No. 1 place for
Real Marriage on the New York Times bestseller list.
Given how frequently
Osborne’s name has come up in the quoted materials one of the simplest yet most
salient questions is what connection Osborne maintained with Mark Driscoll
between 2004 and 2012. How often were
the men in contact? This is a pertinent
question because if it turns out that Osborne maintained a connection to
Driscoll from before the 2007 re-org up through the controversies Mark Driscoll
was embroiled in in the 2012-2014 period on through and beyond his October 2014
resignation there is reason to ask whether Osborne played any meaningful
advisory role.
For instance, not
everyone who was on the Board of Advisors and Accountability was on said board
for very long and yet … :
Dr. Paul Tripp joins Mars Hill’s Board of Advisors and Accountability
By: Mars Hill Church
Posted:
Nov 23, 2013
... In recent years, the Board of Advisors and Accountability has been an incredible source of wise counsel for which we are very grateful. We are so excited to announce that we have now added our friend Dr. Paul Tripp who has accepted our invitation to join our Board of Advisors and Accountability! He is a great brother and partner in ministry. He preached at Mars Hill last the summer for our Best Sermon Ever series and brought the Word with power. Dr. Tripp has been teaching at Mars Hill for many years in various capacities, and we also greatly appreciate his writing ministry especially, Dangerous Calling.
In regards to his acceptance, Dr. Tripp says, “I have a deep respect and admiration for churches that preach a courageous and liberating gospel into the brokenness of the culture around them. Mars Hill is one of these churches and I am glad to use my gifts and experience to assist it in its gospel mission.”
Dr. Tripp joins the current Board members: Michael Van Skaik, Dr. James MacDonald, Dr. Larry Osborne, Mark Driscoll, Dave Bruskas, and Sutton Turner. This Board of Advisors and Accountability was voted upon and installed by an overwhelmingly supportive vote from the entire eldership, with every single elder who voted doing so in approval.
By 2013 Mark Driscoll
managed to be a member of the BoAA that was supposed to keep him
accountable. The significance of what,
if anything, the BoAA did to advise has to be at least partly understood in
light of the Result Source contract and the formal statement made by the Mars
Hill BoAA in light of that discovery.
...
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. [emphasis
added] 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. ...
Among those on the
Board, as we have seen, was Osborne. As we’ll see, Osborne was on the Mars Hill
BoAA when Mark Driscoll resigned.
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