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CHURCH
PLANTING IN CORINTH
Part
1 of 1st Corinthians
Pastor
Mark Driscoll | Acts 18:1-18 | January 08, 2006
00:03:34
to 00:06:22
Paul’s
the kind of guy who actually could take a beating. He took quite a few; he’s
pretty tough. And because of that, he becomes a good church planter,and you
have to be that way. When we started this church, man, it was hard; a lot of
hard times. Every time a guy goes to plant a church, a lot of hard times. And
the bottom line is to be the dude who plants a church – and I know some of you
guys wanna be church planters – that’s why I’m saying this. But a lot of you
wanna be church planters because it’s a job indoors, doesn’t require any heavy
lifting, right? You’re not gonna make it, right – you gotta be a dude. And I
still remember one time meeting the least dudely dude of all church planters
that I’ve ever met, and his wife called me and said, “Could you please come
talk to my pastor – my husband” – he was also her pastor. “He’s planting this
church, but he’s really had a hard day.” “Well, what’s he doing?” “He’s
crying.” “Really – what’s that look like, for a guy to cry?”
There’s
no crying in church planting – you can’t cry! You get up, you take your
standing ten-count, you adjust your cup, and you put your hands up and you get
back in the ring, and you take your shots. You don’t cry! So I drive out to his
house, and he’s literally laying – the pastor – laying on the floor in the
fetal position with a blanky – a blanky. And his wife and his two teenage sons
are looking at him, and he’s crying. I said, “What happened?” He said, “They
were mean to me. They didn’t like me. They rejected me.” I’m like, “Maybe they
didn’t respect you. You have a blanky and you cry, and you’re on the floor.
This does not inspire the best men to follow you into war.” You know, this is
not good. So his sons look at me, and I said, “Dude, you gotta get up. You
cannot lay on the ground and cry in front of teenage sons. They’re gonna be on
Dr. Phil talking about this to everybody. You gotta get up!”
So
the boys look at me; they say, “Well, what do we do?” I say, “Dig a hole –
we’re putting your dad in it. He’s no good; we’re done with him, you know. He’s
just no good at all.” If you’re gonna plant a church, Satan, demons, weirdoes,
freaks, nut jobs, heretics, the guys who read the whole Left Behind series –
they’re all gonna show up. You gotta put your hands up, adjust your cup, and
you gotta do your job. That’s Paul – Paul’s that kinda guy. Now so he’s the
dude. Now, to plant his church he’s gonna go to a city. A dude’s gotta go to a
city. After this, Paul left; went to Athens – great city. There he preached on
Mars Hill – Acts 17, Acts 18. He went on to Corinth – dude goes to a city. City
is important; we’re gonna talk a lot about the city. Many of you, when you
think of Christianity you think of, you know, Norman Rockwell paintings,
somebody out in the woods, 50 acres, 27 kids. You know, milking goats and
getting your own eggs from the chicken, making your own clothes, singing the
songs from The Sound of Music, homeschooling, waiting for the Rapture.
Now that’s fairly typical 2006 Driscoll. Let me give you a chance to compare that to the version that’s posted to RealFaith this day of April 22, 2024. I have discussed sermon redaction and editing on the part of Team Driscoll in the past but this provides a new opportunity to show why I believe Jennifer McKinney dropped the ball by not attempting to indicate where in the sermon the passage I just quoted came from where Driscoll makes fun of the church planter in a blanky. Everything I’ve highlighted in red is stuff from the original sermon I heard at the Ballard campus (because I was there for that series) that has been excised from the new Driscoll media library:
https://realfaith.com/sermons/church-planting-in-corinth/
00:02:37
to 00:03:52
Paul’s
the kind of guy who actually could take a beating. He took quite a few; he’s
pretty tough. And because of that, he becomes a good church planter,and you
have to be that way. When we started this church, man, it was hard; a lot of
hard times. Every time a guy goes to plant a church, a lot of hard times. And
the bottom line is to be the dude who plants a church – and I know some of you
guys wanna be church planters – that’s why I’m saying this. But a lot of you
wanna be church planters because it’s a job indoors, doesn’t require any heavy
lifting, right? You’re not gonna make it, right – you gotta be a dude. And I still remember one
time meeting the least dudely dude of all church planters that I’ve ever met,
and his wife called me and said, “Could you please come talk to my pastor – my
husband” – he was also her pastor. “He’s planting this church, but he’s really
had a hard day.” “Well, what’s he doing?” “He’s crying.” “Really – what’s that
look like, for a guy to cry?”
There’s
no crying in church planting – you can’t cry! You get up, you take your
standing ten-count, you adjust your cup, and you put your hands up and you get
back in the ring, and you take your shots. You don’t cry! So I drive out to his
house, and he’s literally laying – the pastor – laying on the floor in the
fetal position with a blanky – a blanky. And his wife and his two teenage sons
are looking at him, and he’s crying. I said, “What happened?” He said, “They
were mean to me. They didn’t like me. They rejected me.” I’m like, “Maybe they
didn’t respect you. You have a blanky and you cry, and you’re on the floor.
This does not inspire the best men to follow you into war.” You know, this is
not good. So his sons look at me, and I said, “Dude, you gotta get up. You
cannot lay on the ground and cry in front of teenage sons. They’re gonna be on
Dr. Phil talking about this to everybody. You gotta get up!”
So the
boys look at me; they say, “Well, what do we do?” I say, “Dig a hole – we’re
putting your dad in it. He’s no good; we’re done with him, you know. He’s just
no good at all.” (00:03:04)
If you’re gonna plant a church, Satan, demons, weirdoes, freaks, nut jobs,
heretics, the guys who read the whole Left Behind series – they’re all gonna
show up. You gotta put your hands up, adjust your cup, and you gotta do your
job. That’s Paul – Paul’s that kinda guy. Now so he’s the dude. Now, to plant
his church he’s gonna go to a city. A dude’s gotta go to a city. After this,
Paul left; went to Athens – great city. There he preached on Mars Hill – Acts
17, Acts 18. He went on to Corinth – dude goes to a city. City is important;
we’re gonna talk a lot about the city. Many of you, when you think of
Christianity you think of, you know, Norman Rockwell paintings, somebody out in
the woods, 50 acres, 27 kids. You know, milking goats and getting your own eggs
from the chicken, making your own clothes, singing the songs from The Sound of
Music, homeschooling,
waiting
for the Rapture. (00:03:52)
Now why Driscoll and
company might think to excise all that material consists of a set of questions
that could, theoretically, be answered by Mark Driscoll Ministries and Real
Faith and all those folks associated with its leadership. Let’s turn, next, to materials Driscoll has
posted this calendar year. Again, this
is the kind of material McKinney could not have possibly had a chance to
quote. However, a point that I have made
about Mark Driscoll over the years is that he has a double standard about
situations and settings where he wants to feel sorry for himself. In other words, consider these next accounts
to be references to a dark season in Driscoll’s life, possibly in the midst of
the 2014 investigation in his final year at Mars Hill and the post-resignation
period before Driscoll had started The Trinity Church. As best as any human being can tell this
seems to be the period Driscoll is alluding to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX1HM9x8cQQ&t=4s
Feb 13, 2024
00:04
I’m
a justice, vengeance, right & wrong black & white guy. Just am, down
the fairway and there are some people and things in my life (that I won’t
name or I won’t even get into) but I felt very attacked, neglected, used,
abused, and sinned against and some of it, for me, is very public.
00:33
And
I was really struggling with anxiety and bitterness and sometimes, if you’re a
man, you can start to fantasize about dark ops. You know what I’m talking
about? Like, “What could I do that the cops wouldn’t find out about?”
00:51
And
so, um, I got a call from somebody, he’s now become a friend, his name is Dr. R.
T. Kendell and he’ll be here to preach in April. He wrote a book called Total
Forgiveness and that would be a great book for you if you struggle with
bitterness.
01:05
And
I went to his house and he and his wife (adorable) were sitting on their couch
(he’s in his 80’s now) and we sat out and had a conversation for hours that
changed my life. And he told me the story of Joseph. …
08:35
And
here’s what my friend R. T. said, the deeper the forgiving the greater the anointing.
Had Joseph not forgiven his brothers and his slave-traders and Potipher’s wife
and the crooked, corrupt court system; and also forgiven the guys who didn’t
get him out of jail when he interpreted their dreams; had he not done all of
that forgiving he wouldn’t have all of that anointing.
08:59
Let
me say this, men, the reason that he could rise to that position is because he
had forgiven for decades. And here’s what R. T. said. He looked at me and he
said, (09:14) “Mark, you can either have
bitterness or anointing but you can’t have both.” And he said, “You’ve got a
decision to make. If you’re going to be bitter you’re will have no anointing. If
you choose to forgive you will have anointing and the deeper the forgiving the
greater the anointing.” Does that make
sense?
(09:29)
I
love you guys and I think that the thing that is haunting you and is halting
your anointing, for many of you, is bitterness and unforgiveness, okay,
and I want to get that out of the way so
that the spirit of God can flow freely in your life. (09:47)
So
the greater the forgiveness you extend to people the greater your anointing
will be. Anointing for what? Driscoll doesn’t say in the clip. What he
doesn’t address is the question of how Joseph’s capacity to forgive might have
been connected to his gifts as a seer and interpreter of dreams. Esther Hamori has written about dream
divination and prophetic disciplines in Judaism you can go dig up at your leisure
but the history of men in the Jewish traditions gifted with dream
interpretation is a small but robust tradition.
Perchance to Dream is a Society of Biblical Literature monograph
she helped edit that I commend to your attention.
So it seemed R. T. Kendell urged Driscoll that he was a man who could either choose to be bitter or to have anointing. Driscoll, implicitly, would have his audience understand that he chose to forgive so as to keep his anointing. In case anyone doubts he has an anointing there is another story he shares in which he claimed God the Father directly spoke to him and confirmed Mark Driscoll was/is anointed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQBDmNjnYX4&t=686s
How to Win When the Odds Are Stacked
Against You !
Streamed live on Mar 2, 2024
11:36
I don’t know about you but I like strong
not weak. I like winning not losing. All the verses about being humble and
enduring suffering? I believe in them but I’m not particularly fond of them if
I’m very honest with you. Um, and I’m a
guy, in my life, I, um, I am built for fighting and war. I just am.
11:59
And so, for me I've been knocked down a
lot of times but, uh, it wasn't until about a decade ago I got really knocked
out. First time. Life just sort of defeated me and kicked my teeth down my
throat. Previously I'd been knocked down but I always get up and I'm back in
the fight. I'm kind of built for war. I lead with the chin, and I don't mind
conflict and I'm willing to work and I have a high pain tolerance and I'll
fight my way through it.
And about ten years ago I got knocked
down and I couldn't get up. First time in my whole life. I remember getting
knocked down and not getting knocked up--and not being able to get back up. Got
cancelled, overwhelmed, discouraged, anxious, threats to my safety and my
family and our future and it was just overwhelming. And it was kind of like a
boxing match where you take a knee but you get up, you take a knee but you get
up, you take a knee and you realize "I can't get back up".
And it was at that moment that it felt
like the Lord just threw the towel in the ring cuz He could see his son wasn't
getting back up. And it was the first time I really experienced profound,
devastating loss in my life, something i couldn't fight through. It was over.
There was no more rounds, it was time to go home.
13:09
So like Gideon I withdrew. And then it
says that the Holy Spirit CLOTHED Gideon and then I felt the anointing power
and presence of the Holy Spirit. And I remember the Father spoke to me and I
remember was really broken one day and I was like, "What am I gonna do? I
got no house. You know we're moving and I don't know where we're gonna live and
I don't have a job and I don't have a church, I'm unemployed and I've got five
kids. You know we're under attack. What happens now?"
13:25
… I was just in a season where I couldn’t
handle anymore. And there was one day I was putting my clothes on and a button
fell off, and I started crying. I’ll just be honest with you, usually, I
have just enough resilience that I can make it through a button situation,
right? All of a sudden I was crying and
I was, like, “My button’s gone!” You know? And it dawned on me, “I’m not doing
very well.” You know the straw that broke the camel’s back? Well, this was the
button that broke the pastor’s back. …
15:07
... and Jesus showed up and He met with
me.
15:32
And all I remember is the Father just
saying "You've lost everything but my anointing and that's all you need.
It'll go with you." And I was like, "Great, you know, like,
will Chase Bank take that?" Like, I don't know, I mean, that's what I was
thinking if I'm being honest with you.
We’ll get to the
anointing element after we deal with the button.
A button fell off an
article of clothing and Mark Driscoll started crying, he tells us. This is the same man who shared a humorous anecdote
about how he told the sons of a church planter to dig a hole and put their dad
in it. When the man who’s crying because
he’s reached his limit wasn’t Mark Driscoll, well, Mark Driscoll has said on
the record for who knows how many people what he thought about that guy. But
for Real Men? The story is different,
implicitly. Driscoll reached his limit
in a difficult time of his life and he assures his audience that God the Father
told him “You’ve lost everything but my anointing and that’s all you need.”
Since Driscoll’s
launching into a sermon series discussing Samson let’s ask whether Samson was
even aware the spirit of the Lord had departed from him after he had his hair
cut while he slept? Anyone who’s read
the Book of Judges knows the answer to that.
But when Samson allowed
his hair to be cut the spirit of the Lord departed from him and he didn’t
realize it.
The trouble with wanting
to keep an anointing is we’ve got a story about a man who was upset that the
spirit of the Lord departed from and was replaced by a harmful spirit, King
Saul. King Saul had, it could be argued,
at least one or two potent “anointing” experiences, the kind that can
temporarily change a man who is, in the long run, not ultimately changed by
those “power encounters”. King Saul’s
encounter with the guild of musical prophets springs to mind. What is more, since in the Book of Judges
there’s a Jephthah Barry Webb pointed out that the spirit of the Lord coming upon
Jephthah did not mean that the man lost all agency. He was still who he was and his vow was his
vow. Anthropological research into
spirit possession states in African and South American settings (and elsewhere)
have established that the canard that “possession” is all or nothing is
obviously a defunct category.
Which is to say that
whatever an anointing may be a person is still who they are with all their
vices and virtues. Few people in the
biblical literature are as vindictive and petty and stupid as Samson and yet,
by the biblical account he kept his naziritically-preserved strength despite
breaching nearly every standard of conduct a Nazirite was supposed to abide by.
Or as an old Pentecostal
preacher once put it years ago, the anointing by itself says absolutely nothing
about your moral character or doctrine and you can have a powerful anointing
and still, ultimately, bring a lot of trouble on yourself. Mark Driscoll, so far as I can tell, has not
hung out with those kinds of Pentecostal preachers.
Man wraps himself in a
blanky and in 2006 Driscoll mocks the man from the pulpit, in 2024 Mark
Driscoll shares about how a button fell off an article of clothing and he
started crying.
What does anyone think
the Mark Driscoll of 2006 would’ve likely said in reply?
I have implicitly made
this argument by extravagant quotation and narrative over the years but now I’m
going to explicitly make this point—Mark Driscoll alienated many formerly loyal
followers, attenders and fellow leaders within the history of the former Mars
Hill Church when it became apparent how wide and deep and entrenched his double
standards were regarding what was tolerable for himself but not in others. If he spent years having a privately
miserable marriage with Grace that didn’t disqualify him from pastoral ministry
even though meeting Christian counselors who he thought had marriages at least
as bad as his meant they were not fit to counsel him.
For those who never read
it …
Real
Marriage: the truth about sex, friendship and life together
Mark and
Grace Driscoll
copyright
2012 by On Mission, LLC
ISBN 978-1-4041-8352-0
page 14
We
didn't know how to talk through these extremely hard issues without hurting
each other even more, so we didn't talk about them at all. I just got more
bitter, and Grace just felt more condemned and broken, like a failure.
Occasionally we'd meet a Christian pastor or counselor who was supposed to be
an expert in these areas, but we never spoke with them in much detail, because
in time we found out they either had marriages as bad as ours or they had been
committing adultery and were disqualified for ministry. We felt very alone and
stuck.
So if your marriage was
as bad as Mark Driscoll thought his own marriage to Grace was you were not fit
to counsel him but he didn’t stop giving marital counsel during his entire run
as a pastor at Mars Hill, did he? That, dear readers, is the apotheosis of the
double standard.
Just like it’s a double
standard for Driscoll to talk about how he got knocked down and couldn’t get
back up again and appreciated wise counsel talking to him about forgiveness and
how to retain his anointing. What did he
say about the least dudely dude church planter to the man’s sons?
Dig
a hole – we’re putting your dad in it. He’s no good; we’re done with him, you know.
He’s just no good at all.
It’s not like John
Lindell couldn’t look up the sermon from 2006 as it was originally preached but,
for those who have read Wenatchee The Hatchet over the last ten years I was
busy week after week in the 2013 to 2014 era chronicle how much purging Mars
Hill was doing of Mark Driscoll’s sermons from their media library. So, not personally knowing or much caring
about John Lindell the man or pastor, I don’t wish to assume he had to have
known “everything” all this time about Mark Driscoll. Driscoll is a man who seems to relish having
the secrets of others while preserving his own.
To put this in more
colloquial terms, as a friend of mine from the Mars Hill years put it, Mark is
the kind of man who can dish out barrels of criticism but can’t take any
criticism at all.
Back around 2013 Mark
Driscoll’s art
of the sob story focused far more intensely on his wife and children (and
there’s every reason to feel bad for the things he has likely-or-definitely put
them through) but in the current year, 2024, as the tenth anniversary of his Richard
Nixon moment among megachurch pastors approacheth, he has felt comfortable
telling sob stories about himself.
Straight, no chaser.
Didn’t Jesus utter a beatitude
in the synoptic gospels about “blessed are the merciful for they will be shown
mercy”?
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