Something
that has stuck with me about "The Tempest", the most recent episode
of Christianity Today's The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, is that while Driscoll
has commented in some contexts about how it has seemed as though former elders
at Mars Hill had some kind of script, careful consideration of Mark Driscoll's
statements made during or after crises suggest at least the possibility that
his sensitivity to people feeding him some kind of script might have something
to do with his own propensity to fall back on a core script. For those who have
heard the entire CT series so far you might recall Karen Schaeffer said there
were times when Mark said it felt like his adrenals were shot and then, of
course, later on Driscoll dismissed her from her position as executive
assistant for being some kind of heretic.
Showing posts with label notes on the trial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label notes on the trial. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 23, 2021
Thursday, July 08, 2021
Part 3 of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast has gone up, this part includes a story of a woman who was declared a heretic for suggesting Driscoll surround himself with older, more mature men who would stand toe to toe with him
The story of Karen Schaeffer, former assistant to Mark Driscoll, is the stand-out story from the recent podcast. Her account of suggesting at a dinner that Driscoll surround himself with older, wiser men who could go toe to toe with him and that he'd be surrounded with fewer yes-men is also an account of how, not long after she said these things, she was summoned to meet with Mark Driscoll ad Jamie Munson and then dismissed from her job, and told she was a heretic.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021
Warren Throckmorton has started a postcards from Phoenix series about The Trinity Church, the first from former security director/volunteer Chad Freese on whether a PI was consulted and addressing at whose initiative the consultation was made, reviewing Driscoll's history of firing elders at MHC in `07 where everything seemed mediated by proxies
I would have leaned toward postcards from Scottsdale since that's the location but for the time being "postcards from Phoenix" is the theme.
One of the recent questions that emerged was who allegedly arranged for a private investigator to tail someone who was formerly affiliated with the church.
...
The first one is complex in that it was triggered by a report from an anonymous witness to a recent spirited conversation between Grace Driscoll and another woman after women’s Bible study group. The argument was centered around a woman leaving the church amidst the current upheaval and controversies at The Trinity Church.
As a part of the argument, Grace Driscoll reportedly alleged that former director of security Chad Freese hired the private investigator who surveilled the Manuele family (see here and here for details). The implication was that the church shouldn’t be held responsible for this since Freese did it. This caught my attention for a couple of reasons. One, it demonstrates that recent news reporting is being followed widely in the church. Two, I wondered if there was any truth to the allegation that Chad Freese both instigated the hiring of the PI and then later complained about it.
One of the things that springs to mind about this report is that while it is a report that might need future corroboration or disconfirmation as may happen, there is something that should be kept in mind from Mars Hill history. The report above states that there was a spirited conversation between Grace Driscoll and another woman after a study group in which Driscoll reportedly alleged that the former director of security at The Trinity Church Chad Freese hired the private investigator who surveilled a family.
Wednesday, January 13, 2021
Simply Seattle store broken into early Saturday morning, local coverage, a post-Mars Hill update on things for former executive elder Jamie Munson
from January 9, 2021
an article from September 2019
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/simply-seattle-owner-has-simply-had-it-after-jerseys-stolen/990816912/
It's been a while since there's been news in connection to former executive Mars Hill elder Jamie Munson but there has been some news, break ins at Simply Seattle have been frequent according to reports from KOMO and KIRO from September 2019 and earlier this week. That Munson has purged any traces of his Mars Hill involvement from his LinkedIn would only be obvious to someone who had a Mars Hill connection between its founding and dissolution but it's a point of consideration since this blog, at one point, chronicled a mountain range of stuff about the megachurch.
Downtown Seattle has been boarded up in all sorts of stretches for months. Even CrackDonalds (let the Seattle readers understand) was boarded up and non-operational for months last year. Break-ins have become more frequent, per coverage above. While there's not been a tag for Munson specifically, there is one now, and tags are included at the bottom of the post that cover topics pertinent to Munson's era as legal president of Mars Hill.
Saturday, January 06, 2018
follow up on The Gospel Coalition 2017 article on Acts 29 surviving end of Mars Hill, a cross reference to a Ray Ortlund 2011 post that confirms Scott Thomas (not Driscoll) was president of Acts 29 in the year before Chandler took the reins of A29 presidency
Remember that Gospel Coalition piece about how Acts 29 survived the end of Mars Hill from 2017?
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/how-acts-29-survived-and-thrived-after-the-collapse-of-mars-hill/
...
The trouble with the wild west is, it’s wild.
“There was a kind of looseness that led to some real frustrations that needed to be fixed,” Chandler said. The focus had begun to slip; the “young bucks were more apt to gather around and argue about definitive atonement than they were to plant churches.”
Finances were also loose. Mars Hill didn’t ask for money, instead saying that planters could give when they could. But church planters aren’t raking in cash; given the option, they’ll spend their funding elsewhere. That left Mars Hill footing the bill and feeling frustrated.
And authority ran a little like a rubber band, loosening and tightening in seemingly random ways. “There was a lot of mistrust, even when I became president,” Chandler said. “There was a massive amount of skepticism about what was going to be true.”
Driscoll saw the weaknesses, and knew he wasn’t the person to fix them, Chandler said. Driscoll was also starting to attract more controversy, drawing regular fire over his impulsive language and attitude toward women, and apologizing again and again.
So in the spring of 2012, Driscoll met with Chandler and Acts 29 vice president Darrin Patrick. Patrick had his hands full with health concerns and his growing church, but Chandler was splitting lead pastor responsibilities with a team of two other men, and could add the responsibility. So Driscoll handed the network over to Chandler.
“I was anxious about taking it because I thought it would lead to conflict between Mark and I,” Chandler said. “But Mark was adamant that he was for me, that he was supportive of me, and that he would come behind me. And to his credit, he did that every step of the way.”
...
“We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that it is nothing less than a miracle that Acts 29 did not go down with Mars Hill,” said Acts 29 CEO Steve Timmis.
Driscoll was not only instrumental in “but also the personality of Acts 29,” Kwon said. So when Driscoll’s controversies started piling up, the board “publicly and internally tried to support and give [Driscoll] the benefit of the doubt,” they stated in 2014.
But “based on the totality of the circumstances, we are now asking you to please step down from ministry for an extended time and seek help,” they wrote. “Consequently, we also feel that we have no alternative but to remove you and Mars Hill from membership in Acts 29.”
The Acts 29 brotherhood was hurt and confused, some by Driscoll’s actions, some by the board’s rejection of him. So leaders opened up town hall meetings, telling the people to ask anything they wanted.
Ah, yes, we had a few things to say about that over at the following blog post
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2017/12/recent-gospel-coalition-piece-discusses.html
One of the most striking things about the Gospel Coalition piece about Acts 29 surviving and thriving after the collapse of Mars Hill was skimming over how Mark Driscoll wasn't even president for most of the 2007-2012 period of Acts 29 leadership. Who was? Well, back in November 2011 Ray Ortlund told the world exactly who was president of Acts 29, Scott Thomas. Despite the above-quoted article in which sources stated that Mark Driscoll's personality defined Acts 29, even within the context of The Gospel Coalition website itself we know perfectly well that Mark Driscoll may have defined Acts 29 by force of personality but neither was he necessarily officially president most of the time between 2007-2012.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/ray-ortlund/i-honor-scott-thomas/
I honor Scott Thomas
November 11, 2011 | Ray Ortlund
Scott is President of Acts 29 and my coach. There are many reasons to honor him. But for starters, here is one.
It is clear to me that the church planters in Acts 29 are not cannon fodder for someone else’s war. To Scott, every man matters. Scott works hard to make sure our network is healthy and sustainable. Church planting is costly. I personally think it is the hardest of all pastoral ministries. As Mark Driscoll has said, “The body count is high.” Fully aware of the price these young men are paying to spread the gospel, Scott works tirelessly to care for them. No one understands the burden he bears. But I have become somewhat aware of his sacrificial labors on behalf of the A29 planters. For this, and much more, I honor Scott.
I think of Acts 29 as the bikers of evangelicalism. Or better, a band of brothers. I honor all these magnificent young men, and their heroic wives, for giving their lives to advance the gospel in our time and beyond. It’s a privilege to be among them.
But in early 2012 ..
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2012/03/phoenix-preacher-matt-chandler-to-take.html
On February 6, 2012 Driscoll explained that Scott Thomas urged him to resume presidency of Acts29
http://www.acts29network.org/acts-29-blog/dear-acts-29-members/
Dear Acts 29 Members,
This letter is intended to provide some clarity about where we are, and Lord willing, where we are going. I hope you find it encouraging, compelling, and unifying.
Under the leadership of Pastor Scott Thomas we just completed our most amazing year of God’s grace yet. In the US alone we are now over 400 churches! This is a wonderful gift of God. I want to sincerely and personally thank Pastor Scott for juggling so many duties so graciously.
...
With Pastor Scott’s encouragement and the board approval, this means I am resuming the presidency of Acts 29. I want to invest every resource and relationship at my disposal to serve our church planters. Consider this primarily the “Prophet” board. This board is not closed and other men may join it in years to come. This board will be meeting soon in California, long before our annual retreat, so that we have a clear battle plan for the next season of Acts 29.
Regarding Scott Thomas:
Scott Thomas is taking this transition as a chance to pursue other opportunities he has before him and will not be making the move to Dallas. Scott and I are on very good terms and had dinner just this past weekend, where he informed me of his deep love for you and the network but felt like God has released him from leading Acts 29. He is excited about what God has next for him.
As for Scott Thomas being president, with help from The Wayback Machine we established that he was at least listed president from the 2010 to 2011 period.
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2012/04/chandler-on-mars-hill-a29-was-so-kind.html
Back when I was a journalism student my journalism professor said that often the most important stories are not the ones that 'everyone" is talking about but the ones that "nobody" is talking about for which there are enough leads to write a story. One of the non-stories in coverage of Mars Hill over the last decade was the abrupt disappearance of Scott Thomas from leadership at both Mars Hill and Acts 29 in a mere two or three month period in early 2012--for those who were at Mars Hill for any number of years it might raise questions about what has happened since, and such as can be documented for the time being. There were announcements, to be sure, but actual explanations were not so clear. Much like the 2005 leadership transition in which David Nicholas stopped getting mentioned as a founder of Acts 29 or a board member the disappearance of Scott Thomas is comparably under-explained. Something happened, obviously, because presidents or founders don't just vanish into the blue for no reason at all, but that the reasons for the change have not even been discussed in an article such as the one that appeared at The Gospel Coalition is just weird. In a way somewhat comparable to an absence of mention of Scott Thomas the TGC article also doesn't mention Darrin Patrick's removal from Acts 29 or why that happened.
Scott Thomas' role in the EIT and the trials of Bent Meyer and Paul Petry have been so thoroughly documented here and elsewhere there's not much need to do more than tag associations with the content. Joyful Exiles has a detailed timeline of documents and correspondence related to the Mars Hill trial of Paul Petry, for instance.
The memo associated with then executive elder Sutton Turner about the financial condition of Mars Hill in earlier 2012 might be the only document shedding any light on behind-the-scenes leadership issues within Mars Hill that might shed more light on what may have been going on. The Gospel Coalition article did indicate there was some resentment on the part of Mars Hill leadership as a whole that they were footing the bill for Acts 29 to function without necessarily seeing member churches kicking in to help fund organizational activity and overhead.
Now for those who don't already know, Scott Thomas was one of the men who signed a letter apologizing to Paul Petry and Bent Meyer for the trial/termination proceedings they were subjected to in 2007. About how that trial could be understood as having an educational role within what was becoming an increasingly authoritarian culture you can read stuff I've written elsewhere at this blog
http://repentantpastor.com/confessions/letter-confession-bent-meyer-paul-petry/
Unfortunately that website is down. But with help from The Wayback Machine you can read the letter.
https://web.archive.org/web/20141107012719/http://repentantpastor.com/confessions/letter-confession-bent-meyer-paul-petry
which has also been preserved here
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2017/03/for-archival-purposes-letter-of.html
Scott Thomas' role in the EIT and the trials of Bent Meyer and Paul Petry have been so thoroughly documented here and elsewhere there's not much need to do more than tag associations with the content. Joyful Exiles has a detailed timeline of documents and correspondence related to the Mars Hill trial of Paul Petry, for instance.
The memo associated with then executive elder Sutton Turner about the financial condition of Mars Hill in earlier 2012 might be the only document shedding any light on behind-the-scenes leadership issues within Mars Hill that might shed more light on what may have been going on. The Gospel Coalition article did indicate there was some resentment on the part of Mars Hill leadership as a whole that they were footing the bill for Acts 29 to function without necessarily seeing member churches kicking in to help fund organizational activity and overhead.
While at one level I get how everyone would want to forget the past, "move on", and get back to business as usual I would persist in saying that the nature of business as usual was still how we got to the catastrophic meltdown of Mars Hill when, by dint of journalistic and blogging coverage, some things were uncovered that exposed the nature of what "business as usual" entailed. Recall that when the Mars Hill Board of Advisors and Accountability made a defense of the Result Source Contract gambit to secure a No.1 place on the NYT best seller list for Real Marriage the mea culpa was that it was not unethical or illegal but it was unwise. Blogging done by Warren Throckmorton later showed that not only Team Driscoll made use of RSI but that other Christian writers used it, too. Then after a year or so of controversy the hubbub died down and things were back to normal, whatever normal might be. But it was hard to shake an impression that it was easier for Mark Driscoll to go down for having been caught doing what other celebrity Christians seem to have been able to do before and since Mark Driscoll's own celebrity was at its peak. To that extent that Anglo-American evangelicalism attempts to treat the Driscoll case as an outlier or exception so as to not regard his rise and fall as potentially emblematic of the nature of the Christian media industries there may be no opportunity to learn any "lessons" about how "we" in evangelicalism got "there" back in 2014.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/how-acts-29-survived-and-thrived-after-the-collapse-of-mars-hill/
...
The trouble with the wild west is, it’s wild.
“There was a kind of looseness that led to some real frustrations that needed to be fixed,” Chandler said. The focus had begun to slip; the “young bucks were more apt to gather around and argue about definitive atonement than they were to plant churches.”
Finances were also loose. Mars Hill didn’t ask for money, instead saying that planters could give when they could. But church planters aren’t raking in cash; given the option, they’ll spend their funding elsewhere. That left Mars Hill footing the bill and feeling frustrated.
And authority ran a little like a rubber band, loosening and tightening in seemingly random ways. “There was a lot of mistrust, even when I became president,” Chandler said. “There was a massive amount of skepticism about what was going to be true.”
Driscoll saw the weaknesses, and knew he wasn’t the person to fix them, Chandler said. Driscoll was also starting to attract more controversy, drawing regular fire over his impulsive language and attitude toward women, and apologizing again and again.
So in the spring of 2012, Driscoll met with Chandler and Acts 29 vice president Darrin Patrick. Patrick had his hands full with health concerns and his growing church, but Chandler was splitting lead pastor responsibilities with a team of two other men, and could add the responsibility. So Driscoll handed the network over to Chandler.
“I was anxious about taking it because I thought it would lead to conflict between Mark and I,” Chandler said. “But Mark was adamant that he was for me, that he was supportive of me, and that he would come behind me. And to his credit, he did that every step of the way.”
...
“We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that it is nothing less than a miracle that Acts 29 did not go down with Mars Hill,” said Acts 29 CEO Steve Timmis.
Driscoll was not only instrumental in “but also the personality of Acts 29,” Kwon said. So when Driscoll’s controversies started piling up, the board “publicly and internally tried to support and give [Driscoll] the benefit of the doubt,” they stated in 2014.
But “based on the totality of the circumstances, we are now asking you to please step down from ministry for an extended time and seek help,” they wrote. “Consequently, we also feel that we have no alternative but to remove you and Mars Hill from membership in Acts 29.”
The Acts 29 brotherhood was hurt and confused, some by Driscoll’s actions, some by the board’s rejection of him. So leaders opened up town hall meetings, telling the people to ask anything they wanted.
Ah, yes, we had a few things to say about that over at the following blog post
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2017/12/recent-gospel-coalition-piece-discusses.html
One of the most striking things about the Gospel Coalition piece about Acts 29 surviving and thriving after the collapse of Mars Hill was skimming over how Mark Driscoll wasn't even president for most of the 2007-2012 period of Acts 29 leadership. Who was? Well, back in November 2011 Ray Ortlund told the world exactly who was president of Acts 29, Scott Thomas. Despite the above-quoted article in which sources stated that Mark Driscoll's personality defined Acts 29, even within the context of The Gospel Coalition website itself we know perfectly well that Mark Driscoll may have defined Acts 29 by force of personality but neither was he necessarily officially president most of the time between 2007-2012.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/ray-ortlund/i-honor-scott-thomas/
I honor Scott Thomas
November 11, 2011 | Ray Ortlund
Scott is President of Acts 29 and my coach. There are many reasons to honor him. But for starters, here is one.
It is clear to me that the church planters in Acts 29 are not cannon fodder for someone else’s war. To Scott, every man matters. Scott works hard to make sure our network is healthy and sustainable. Church planting is costly. I personally think it is the hardest of all pastoral ministries. As Mark Driscoll has said, “The body count is high.” Fully aware of the price these young men are paying to spread the gospel, Scott works tirelessly to care for them. No one understands the burden he bears. But I have become somewhat aware of his sacrificial labors on behalf of the A29 planters. For this, and much more, I honor Scott.
I think of Acts 29 as the bikers of evangelicalism. Or better, a band of brothers. I honor all these magnificent young men, and their heroic wives, for giving their lives to advance the gospel in our time and beyond. It’s a privilege to be among them.
But in early 2012 ..
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2012/03/phoenix-preacher-matt-chandler-to-take.html
On February 6, 2012 Driscoll explained that Scott Thomas urged him to resume presidency of Acts29
http://www.acts29network.org/acts-29-blog/dear-acts-29-members/
Dear Acts 29 Members,
This letter is intended to provide some clarity about where we are, and Lord willing, where we are going. I hope you find it encouraging, compelling, and unifying.
Under the leadership of Pastor Scott Thomas we just completed our most amazing year of God’s grace yet. In the US alone we are now over 400 churches! This is a wonderful gift of God. I want to sincerely and personally thank Pastor Scott for juggling so many duties so graciously.
...
With Pastor Scott’s encouragement and the board approval, this means I am resuming the presidency of Acts 29. I want to invest every resource and relationship at my disposal to serve our church planters. Consider this primarily the “Prophet” board. This board is not closed and other men may join it in years to come. This board will be meeting soon in California, long before our annual retreat, so that we have a clear battle plan for the next season of Acts 29.
Regarding Scott Thomas:
Scott Thomas is taking this transition as a chance to pursue other opportunities he has before him and will not be making the move to Dallas. Scott and I are on very good terms and had dinner just this past weekend, where he informed me of his deep love for you and the network but felt like God has released him from leading Acts 29. He is excited about what God has next for him.
As for Scott Thomas being president, with help from The Wayback Machine we established that he was at least listed president from the 2010 to 2011 period.
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2012/04/chandler-on-mars-hill-a29-was-so-kind.html
Back when I was a journalism student my journalism professor said that often the most important stories are not the ones that 'everyone" is talking about but the ones that "nobody" is talking about for which there are enough leads to write a story. One of the non-stories in coverage of Mars Hill over the last decade was the abrupt disappearance of Scott Thomas from leadership at both Mars Hill and Acts 29 in a mere two or three month period in early 2012--for those who were at Mars Hill for any number of years it might raise questions about what has happened since, and such as can be documented for the time being. There were announcements, to be sure, but actual explanations were not so clear. Much like the 2005 leadership transition in which David Nicholas stopped getting mentioned as a founder of Acts 29 or a board member the disappearance of Scott Thomas is comparably under-explained. Something happened, obviously, because presidents or founders don't just vanish into the blue for no reason at all, but that the reasons for the change have not even been discussed in an article such as the one that appeared at The Gospel Coalition is just weird. In a way somewhat comparable to an absence of mention of Scott Thomas the TGC article also doesn't mention Darrin Patrick's removal from Acts 29 or why that happened.
Scott Thomas' role in the EIT and the trials of Bent Meyer and Paul Petry have been so thoroughly documented here and elsewhere there's not much need to do more than tag associations with the content. Joyful Exiles has a detailed timeline of documents and correspondence related to the Mars Hill trial of Paul Petry, for instance.
The memo associated with then executive elder Sutton Turner about the financial condition of Mars Hill in earlier 2012 might be the only document shedding any light on behind-the-scenes leadership issues within Mars Hill that might shed more light on what may have been going on. The Gospel Coalition article did indicate there was some resentment on the part of Mars Hill leadership as a whole that they were footing the bill for Acts 29 to function without necessarily seeing member churches kicking in to help fund organizational activity and overhead.
Now for those who don't already know, Scott Thomas was one of the men who signed a letter apologizing to Paul Petry and Bent Meyer for the trial/termination proceedings they were subjected to in 2007. About how that trial could be understood as having an educational role within what was becoming an increasingly authoritarian culture you can read stuff I've written elsewhere at this blog
http://repentantpastor.com/confessions/letter-confession-bent-meyer-paul-petry/
Unfortunately that website is down. But with help from The Wayback Machine you can read the letter.
https://web.archive.org/web/20141107012719/http://repentantpastor.com/confessions/letter-confession-bent-meyer-paul-petry
which has also been preserved here
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2017/03/for-archival-purposes-letter-of.html
Scott Thomas' role in the EIT and the trials of Bent Meyer and Paul Petry have been so thoroughly documented here and elsewhere there's not much need to do more than tag associations with the content. Joyful Exiles has a detailed timeline of documents and correspondence related to the Mars Hill trial of Paul Petry, for instance.
The memo associated with then executive elder Sutton Turner about the financial condition of Mars Hill in earlier 2012 might be the only document shedding any light on behind-the-scenes leadership issues within Mars Hill that might shed more light on what may have been going on. The Gospel Coalition article did indicate there was some resentment on the part of Mars Hill leadership as a whole that they were footing the bill for Acts 29 to function without necessarily seeing member churches kicking in to help fund organizational activity and overhead.
While at one level I get how everyone would want to forget the past, "move on", and get back to business as usual I would persist in saying that the nature of business as usual was still how we got to the catastrophic meltdown of Mars Hill when, by dint of journalistic and blogging coverage, some things were uncovered that exposed the nature of what "business as usual" entailed. Recall that when the Mars Hill Board of Advisors and Accountability made a defense of the Result Source Contract gambit to secure a No.1 place on the NYT best seller list for Real Marriage the mea culpa was that it was not unethical or illegal but it was unwise. Blogging done by Warren Throckmorton later showed that not only Team Driscoll made use of RSI but that other Christian writers used it, too. Then after a year or so of controversy the hubbub died down and things were back to normal, whatever normal might be. But it was hard to shake an impression that it was easier for Mark Driscoll to go down for having been caught doing what other celebrity Christians seem to have been able to do before and since Mark Driscoll's own celebrity was at its peak. To that extent that Anglo-American evangelicalism attempts to treat the Driscoll case as an outlier or exception so as to not regard his rise and fall as potentially emblematic of the nature of the Christian media industries there may be no opportunity to learn any "lessons" about how "we" in evangelicalism got "there" back in 2014.
Saturday, September 30, 2017
regarding the 10th anniversary of Mark Driscoll's "Fathers and Fighting"; two firings and their context; and Driscoll's explication of powers and providences published or presented in 2008 in the vein of "I see things" and how distrust of his executive elder team was wrong
On September 30, 2007 Mark Driscoll preached his last sermon in a series going through the book of Nehemiah. The sermon would turn out to be a fateful one in the history of Mark Driscoll's public preaching and teaching career not so much for what he had to say about the biblical text as for the commentary he made within the sermon about the leadership situation at what was then Mars Hill Church.
But in order to appreciate the handful of remarks in the sermon itself we need to go back to earlier in the month. To do this we have to go back to some correspondence and statements about events from that time. We'll start with a passage from a compilation of documents and summaries made by former pastor Bent Meyer. He described the overall context you need to know in order to read the lengthy document disclosed at Joyful Exiles as follows (bold is original emphasis in red is added):
from page 12
In May of 2007, the previous elected Executive Teams nominated and voted in by the entire council of elders were told to resign. They did. When I was informed I was shocked. I had confidence in them, because I believed they represented the rest of the elders. They were accountable to all the elders. Resignation without consulting the rest of the elders was in my mind and betrayal of their representative charge and advise-n-consent.
From the documents we can also read the following:
From page
19
[Se]nt: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 4:13 PM
To: Pastor Jamie Munson
Cc: Pastor Bill Clem
Subject: Mars Hill Church - Bylaws - Final - 2-11-06.doc
I have made comments to the only copy of the Bylaws I have. If yours is substantially different, please send me the official one. You will notice I have included Bill in this communication, since I have been instructed that Bill would be my attitude check. I have chosen not to let Mike know my thoughts, though he is my supervisor, since I am responsibly for them and his situation warrants him being outside potential controversy.
I am very concerned about eroding any more authority from the Council of Elders. I will speak to this in more detail during the upcoming elders meeting. I am also concerned that the more complicated the organized become, the more authoritarian in style and content communication becomes i.e. the Communications Directive. This creates silent contention. None of the elder entertain contention in my hearing. In fact, every effort is make to be objective.
You know through the Whistler feedback, that I am very concerned about the way (the process) Mike was disciplined. I have voiced my concern, been given assurance that I would not have to pull the trigger on Article VII, Section A, giving any elder the right to voice an objection and it be brought before the elders for a potential vote to override the decision, because it would be reconsidered. I have heard nothing. No official communication has been forthcoming, unless it's in one of the EE elder’s minute and I have missed it. The bylaws state there to be a 30 day window for exercising that right. It is not clear whether it is from the time of the decision or the communication of the decision. It is from the time of communication, the window is still open. If something needs to clarity it is this issue. The elders must receive disclosure of all matter related to the misconduct of elders of the church to govern. Scott, and AJ informed me (anecdotal) there was more to the issue than what appeared on the surface, yet we are not informed officially. A significant part of the matter took place in our presence. It's still not clear to me if this falls under the council of elder’s jurisdiction or the exec elders or lead elder, since we don't know the facts. This event and some others has eroded trust and put a heavy handed spin on the whole bylaw issue.
Later in that month, Meyer wrote about concerns he had about the bylaws that were being proposed. We'll look at an extensive excerpt from that correspondence:
The audio for "The Man", a presentation that Driscoll gave at an Acts 29 session in Raleigh, NC in 2007, was excised. For a discussion of how and why that redaction seemed important go back to a post here at Wenatchee The Hatchet from 2012 called "Has Mark Driscoll's "The Man" been circumcised? "
What was removed, as best can be ascertained, was preserved at the following wordpress blog post.
Paragraphing, not provided in the original post, is supplemental.
Mark Driscoll TRAINING PASTORS at an Acts 29 session in Raleigh NC, September 20, 2007:
“…not contentious. You ever meet a guy, it doesn’t matter what the issue is, he’s always gonna play the other side. Those guys are the worst elders in the history of the world. And it doesn’t matter what you’re talk,
I had a guy like that; I recently put him in the wood chipper in my church. Seriously. I could say hey, we’re all going to get suckers. He’s be like, what flavor? Whatever flavor you want. Is it sugar free? If you would like. Well, I didn’t say I wanted a sucker. You, you know, you need to die. You know.[emphasis added] He just was the guy, he just, he had to nitpick at everything; he had to resist everything, he to look at the other side, if everyone was for something he felt obligated to be the e-brake pulling everything. And you’d ask him why, he’d be like, well, I just wanted to make sure we’ve looked at everything and everybody is considering all the angles. Its like, dude, you’re playing the devils advocate, which is not good. I don’t want anybody for the devil on my team. You know? But there’s some guys like that. It just, they’re contentious, it doesn’t, they’re always fighting, always arguing.
There’s, I’ve had guys in eldership, where, in the meeting, everything’s going fine, and they’ll say, I got something, I got something I need to say. And everybody’s head does this; everybody looks like they just got kicked in the sack. You know, I mean literally, they just the air comes out of their body, they just fold in half, because you know, here he goes again, here he freaking goes again. You know. That guy on an elder board, robs the board of any joy at all, and you already got enough criticism and people and work, when you get together with your elders, you don’t all men to be yes men, but at the same time, somebody who’s just contentious, and a neatnick and e-brake puller, I mean those guys, I mean all of a sudden you despise your elder’s meetings, and I’ll tell you what, when you despise your elders, at that point you have no safe place in the world from which to do ministry. Elders meetings stink, people are shooting me, everything’s hard, and I go to meet with the guys, and there’s always one guy there who just, he’s just like a fart in an elevator, and its just, you know, I’m just counting the minutes till I can get away from this guy. You can pray for me, you may say, it seems like he’s dealing with this right now, yes, I am. I’m thinking of certain people. If it weren’t for Jesus I would be violent.” [emphases added]
Why this was redacted from "The Man" back in 2012 was not clear but Wenatchee The Hatchet was able to confirm that this content was transcribed from the presentation. It is, in the larger scope of things, a relatively unimportant anecdote compared to what else is available but it helps to illuminate the earlier remarks shared by Bent Meyer we've reviewed.
There were also concerns and meetings amongst Mars Hill elders about whether Bent Meyer and Paul Petry were on board with the proposed bylaws in 2007. Since so much material is available at Joyful Exiles there's little need to rehearse much more of that material as background. We're ready to get to the sermon that was preached, mentioned at the beginning.
Yes, he actually put it like that. Had Nehemiah not gone back to Jerusalem to fight in the way Driscoll described him as having fought, the contention Driscoll made was that none of us who call ourselves Christians might have been able to do so ... as though everything about the prophesied coming of Christ that Christians over the last two millenia understood to have been foreordained by God ever got written down. For a guy in 2007 who described himself as a Calvinist Driscoll sure seemed to use rhetoric that indicated that a lot about the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Christ ... somehow, depended on Nehemiah going back to Jerusalem to kick some tail.
At 8:00 Nehemiah, Driscoll said, was very angry about the state of the Israelite marriages and families. Everything would rise and fall on the basis of the family.
Driscoll talked for a while about marriage and spiritual authority and federal headship and a few things like that. When discussing the need to submit to spiritual authority he remarked:
So it was clear Driscoll was saying that if there were leaders in the church that were not acting in accordance with Scripture it was possible to discipline them. This would culminate in the following commentary Driscoll gave about one of the things Nehemiah wrote of doing:
...
31:17
You either enjoy confrontation or you enjoy sin. You get to pick one or the other. If people sin and there's not confrontation then you better enjoy sin because that's what's going to happen.
"Then I confronted them and I cursed them"
He's just cussing guys out.
"and beat some of them." I'll read that again, "and beat SOME of them."
31:44
32:45
I'm not saying it's okay to beat people up, but I understand.
for a more condensed version ...
Back in 2007 there were questions as to what this was supposed to mean. Who were these guys Driscoll wanted to "go Old Testament" on? Since the dissolution of Mars Hill a few things came to light and we'll be brief about them here since so much is available at this blog for further reading: In short, the intended second Ballard campus Mark Driscoll talked about in Confessions of a Reformission Rev was a boondoggle. The property could not be refitted to serve as a second church campus and was not zoned for such. The elders decided to pursue a multisite approach and Driscoll began to consult toward making a structure that would handle that. Real estate began to get purchased. As the elders explained things in later 2007, the elder board was not conducive to being "nimble" and a number of campus sites were being opened. The newer bylaws were supposed to make it easier to make key decisions. Meyer and Petry voiced objections to the changes that would consolidate a great deal of practical power to a small self-selected group of executive elders. As noted above, Meyer expressed concern that if Driscoll ever left Mars Hill for whatever reason the church would possibly not be able to withstand or survive that departure. So that's the short version.
After Driscoll preached his last sermon on September 30, 2015 there was a meeting of some kind. The meeting can be attested by preservation of an email Paul Petry received from then Lead Pastor Jamie Munson:
https://joyfulexiles.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/joyful-exiles-email-from-pastor-jamie-munson-re-mandatory-meeting-9-30-2008-3.pdf
From:
Pastor Jamie Munson
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2007 5:41 PM
To: Pastor Paul Petry
Subject: meeting tonight
Importance: High
Jamie Munson
Lead Pastor
Mars Hill Church
1401 NW Leary Way, Seattle, WA 98107
o: 206.816.3773
e: jamie@marshillchurch.org
w: www.marshillchurch.org
As documented in 2012 by both Joyful Exiles and Chris Rosebrough at Fighting for the Faith/Pirate Christian Radio, on October 1, 2007 Mark Driscoll was discussing preaching and church planting at an Acts 29 leadership event.
They’re never going to. At the very most you’ll give ’em a job to do and they’ll serve somewhere and help out in a minimal way. If someone can sit in a place that hasn’t been on mission for a really long time they are by definition not a leader. And, so they’re never going to lead.
You need to gather a whole new court. I’ll tell you guys what, too. You don’t do this just for your church planting or replanting. I’m doin’ it right now. I’m doin’ it right now. We just took certain guys and rearranged the seats on the bus.
Yesterday we fired two elders for the first time in the history of Mars Hill last night. They’re off the bus, under the bus. They were off mission so now they’re unemployed. I mean (pause) you—this will be the defining issue as to whether or not you succeed or fail. I've read enough of the New Testament to know that occasionally Paul put someone in the woodchipper, y'know? [emphasis added]
Ironically two of the men Mark Driscoll and designated surrogates may have put through the proverbial woodchipper were men who were tasked with running the counseling ministries. By Driscoll's own account he approached Bent Meyer to take over the counseling load he had been doing:
Confessions of a Reformission Rev
Mark Driscoll, Zondervan 2006
copyright 2006 by Mark Driscoll
ISBN-13: 978-0-310-27016-4
ISBN-10:0-310-2-7016-2
page 151
To make these transitions, I needed to hand much of my work load to my elders and deacons so that I could continue to concentrate on the future of expansion of our church. In some ways I longed for this day because it meant the weight of the church would be off my shoulders and shared with many leaders. In other ways I lamented not being able to invest in every young couple, experience the joy of officiating at so many weddings, or know everything that was going on in the church.
I asked our newest and oldest elder, Bent, to take over the counseling load that I had been carrying. [emphasis added] He was the first person to join our church who had gray hair, and he and Filipino wife, Joanne, were lock rock stars with groupies since all the young people wanted to hang out with these grandparents that loved Jesus. My problem was I loved our people so much that if I got deeply involved in the pain of too many people's lives, it emotionally killed me, and I needed to do less counseling.
pages 156-157
Pastor Bent has launched a number of care and recovery groups for such things as sexual abuse, sexual addiction, and alcoholism. He is also training new elders to help shoulder this burden with him. Among them is Phil, who was the first father to show up in our church when we had less than forty people and who has risen up to become a pastor [most likely Phil Smidt, Jamie Munson's brother-law and currently a biblical counseling pastor at Mars Hill Ballard, WtH]
Paul Petry also had a role in pastoral counseling at Mars Hill in 2007, too. It's possible that the two older men in eldership who were run through the proverbial woodchipper had at some point been recruited by Driscoll himself to consider eldership. Whether that's the case or not would be for the men themselves to confirm or disconfirm however they wish to.
Altogether it now appears that Mark Driscoll was putting a number of guys through that proverbial woodchipper. That was 2007.
2008 began with a series or two of sermons, Ask Mark Anything followed up, if memory serves, by Doctrine. Behind the scenes there were teaching sessions, one of which was a multi-hour marathon in which Mark Driscoll discussed spiritual warfare. This was the session in which Mark Driscoll's "I see things" would eventually become fodder for discussion years later. In the context of early 2008, in the wake of the controversies surrounding governance and firings and trials, the significance of the spiritual warfare teaching may be understood, among other things, as a kind of intra elder manifesto on Mark Driscoll's part. In Part 1, for instance, Mark Driscoll made it clear that he regarded any thought that the executive elders, whether himself or Scott Thomas or Jamie Munson or the others, didn't really love the church was a demonic lie:
33.22
What is striking about the above passage is that when Driscoll described all the stuff that he would see it was sexual abuse or physical abuse. The sins were sexy sins, so to speak. Whether Driscoll in his visionary moments saw stuff like wire fraud or embezzlement or ... plagiarism ... we'll never know. But what we do know is that in 2008 Mark Driscoll said that the belief that the executive elders didn't really love the people of Mars Hill was a demonic lie. Of course for the many who left Mars Hill in the 2007-2008 period the question was not really so much "do the executive elders of Mars Hill Church love the people of Mars Hill Church?" because even abusers think they love they people they abuse in many cases. The question was whether or not the level of power that had been consolidated to the executive elders during the controversial course of events in 2007 was proper was the question. It would eventually transpire that the executive eldership team was not, taken as a whole, necessarily being very honest or truthful about the nature of what happened in 2007.
At this point it will be useful to quote earlier writing.
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2012/03/scott-thomas-depature-from-acts-29-in.html
http://joyfulexiles.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/10-01-2007-email-from-scott-thomas-re-eit.pdf
Scott Thomas informed Petry "This is not a witch hunt." He also wrote, "For some reason, unknown clearly at this time, we are to undergo a painful pruning of the eldership to achieve more Christ-like fruit in our lives."
http://joyfulexiles.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/10-01-2007-termination-ltr-jamie-munson.pdf
Munson informed Paul Petry that a task force headed by Scott Thomas would be conducting the investigation on 10/02/2007:
http://joyfulexiles.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/10-02-2007-important-message-from-the-lead-pastor.pdf
Munson formally announced the firings of Petry and Meyer. Munson stated that the firings were not based on any sexual or moral impropriety. No discussion of the firings was permitted on the members forums and speculation and gossip was discouraged.
http://joyfulexiles.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/scott-thomas-10-10-2007-no-show-for-trial.pdf
On 10/10/2007 Scott Thomas explained that the trial date had been moved to 10/15/2007. Vote would be by a show of hands. Thomas declared that all four members of the EIT had adequately heard Petry's response to the charges and that Petry's presence at his trial would not be necessary.
Sometimes in life you have these strange moments of dumb luck. Somebody happens to know someone who never got rid of an email Scott Thomas sent to a member about the firings. That someone managed to get said email to some blogger of no particular significance. On 10/12/2007 Scott Thomas replied to a member enquiry. The member enquiry read as follows and was sent 10/10/2007:
I read Pastor Jamie's announcement last week with some sadness and confusion. I understand the need for courtesy and respect of privacy but as I attempt to understand the following:
1) firing two pastors and announcing this to the church body,
2) the by-laws say a pastor can be suspended on credible charges of moral or doctrinal wrong
3) 1 Timothy 5:19-20 says to not accept accusations against elders without two or three witnesses
4) and says that spiritual leaders rebuker sinners publicly so that the rest may also fear
5) Pastor Jamie has said the fired pastors have not been accused of any moral or doctrinal error at all
This seems to create more rather than less confusion and presents a precedent that confuses me. It seems that firing two pastors; barring them from service in ministry and voting on church issues; and publicly announcing this to the body seem necessary and good if the pastors are guilty of moral or doctrinal error, are not repentant, and an investigation has already been completed establishing their guilt. It seems baffling if they have not been accused of anything but their firing has simply been announced prior to an actual investigation.
It is particularly confounding for me in light of the precedent established by the pastoral announcement about Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx two years ago. She was found to be in unrepentant sin, was determined to have never been a Christian, and was allowed to leave the church with an admonition to the Mars Hill body to not ostracize but welcome her back if she chose to return. I trust that once the investigation and disciplinary process is complete we'll hear from the pastors but I wonder if Pastor Jamie's announcement is having the unintended effect of fueling rather than stifling speculation. I will keep praying that the Lord's will be done and that He will guide the church where He wishes and that the Enemy will not sow discord.
Scott Thomas' reply on 10/12/2007 was as follows:
I appreciate your love and concern for these men. My heart is heavy right now as well. A team of elders just concluded a conciliatory process with these two men. [emphasis added] Be patient, trust Jesus and rest in the fact that this is His church. I do not expect you to understand the gravity of the situation with limited information. This is a legal proceeding, is supervised by our lawyer and as a result, is not a familial discussion. It was what Paul and Bent specifically requested. However, we are bound by our own judiciary system to act justly. After due process, the elders will rule according to Bylaw procedure and the members will be informed. This takes the church through a sanctification process—elders and members. It is more painful but at the last bears the needed fruit. You have to endure as well. You have to trust Jesus and His under shepherds to complete the task assigned in the time allotted (Oct 15).
Thanks,
Pastor Scott
Let's recall that as of October 1, 2007 Mark Driscoll had said there were two guys who weren't on mission so they were unemployed and that sometimes you have to put people through the woodchipper. So despite Mark Driscoll's early 2008 insistence that it was a demonic lie to have doubts about the honesty or credibility of the executive leadership it seems like now, here a few years after the collapse and dissolution of Mars Hill Church, that maybe those concerns were more substantial than Driscoll and the other executive elders of 2007 may have wished to believe.
But were are not, in fact, entirely done with a survey of statements published or said by Mark Driscoll in 2008 in the wake of the firings. Back in 2006 Driscoll said he was nearly done with a book that would be called Death By Love. It ended up being published as co-authored with Gerry Breshears, whose contribution to the book was comparatively small, even somewhat an after thought in terms of volume. But it's worth quoting because while completed in 2006 it was published in 2008 and so it presents material from Mark Driscoll worth reading in connection to the February 2008 teaching marathon that included a denunciation of distrust of the executive eldership with Mars Hill and the "I see things" discussion.
Death by Love: Letters from the Cross
Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears
Copyright (c) 2008 by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears
Published by Crossway
ISBN 978-1-4335-3533-8
PDF ISBN 978-1-4335-0423-5
Mobipocket ISBN 978-1-4335-0424-3
ePub ISBN 978-1-4335-2121-8
... For example, I once met with a young man whose father, a pastor, suddenly left his ministry, wife, and teenage sons to have a homosexual affair with a man he had met on the Internet. He told his teenage sons that there is no God, Jesus did not rise from death, and that there is no such thing as punishment for sin. His sons experienced a profound crisis of faith, and since their dad kept saying that he was happy for the first time in his life, they wondered if God existed, and if he did, whether he cared. To make matters worse, the entire church he had been pastoring was experiencing the same sort of faith crisis. I prayed with one of the sons, asking God to either bring their father to repentance or pour out his wrath on the man as an example. Within days, the father died of an unexplainable, sudden explosion of his heart. [emphases added]
While we can't make a definitive connection of this timely death to the wrath of God, it is in keeping with what we see in instances like Genesis 38 where God kills the two sons of Judah because of their wickedness.
Driscoll, so far as can be ascertained, never seems to have ever named this now dead man. So who was it? Why even mention the story at all if it's not possible to make a definitive connection between Mark Driscoll's prayer and the anonymous man's death? Taken together with other statements Driscoll made in early 2008 it's possible to infer that Driscoll had indicated in a number of ways that he had been given spiritual super-powers, more or less, and that when he prayed that people he regarded as in rebellion against God would be objects of God's wrath it was possible they could just straight up die.
http://download.marshill.se/files/MH%20Vodcast%20Video/2008/20080205_introduction-to-spiritual-warfare_vodcast.m4v
SPIRITUAL WARFARE PART 1
February 05, 2008
11:08 or so
Had other people with night terrors. I had people seeing things. I had people that are clairvoyant. I had people that are hearing things. I start getting prophetic dreams, God's showing me the future. A gift of discernment kinda comes to the fore for me. Not all the time but I can see somebody and I just know their story. I remember walking up to people and, one woman, telling her: "You know, last night, did your husband grab you by the throat, throw you up against the wall, threaten you, and tell you that if you told me that he would kill you?" She's crying, she said, "How did YOU know?" I said, "I don't know. I see it. I see it, like a film." [emphasis added]
Go up to another a person and I say, "Hey, I believe that you were sexually abused when you were young. Did so-and-so do this to you, when you were this age? And did a comforting spirit come to you at that point, a demon masquerading as an angel of light?" And they say, "Yeah. How did you know?" I was like, "I saw it."
I started having dreams. I started seeing things. I start reading people's proverbial mail. [emphasis added] I did not know what to do with any of this because, in my theology, I'm a cessationist. That means I believe that the supernatural essentially ceased in the early Church so we don't have charismatic gifts today, and the demonic activity isn't real, especially for believers. So I needed to know what to do, so I remembered the pastor and I asked him, I said, "What do I do with all of this?" He said, "That's not for today. That was only in the early church." I said, "Why in the early church?" He said, "Well, you know, there was more demonic opposition and there was more spiritual gifts of the divine, supernatural in the early Church to get it started, to get it going." I said, "Well, I'm planting a church. I'm getting it started. I'm getting it going." It's just as pagan as anything in the New Testament." Seattle is so completely dark and completely unchurched, I said, "How could it not be that the same resistance they had in the planting of the early church that I'm experiencing in the planting of this church?" He said, "Naw, don't worry about it. It's not a big deal, it'll be fine."
Well things got worse. I didn't know what to do.
We've covered a lot of material here from roughly ten years ago. We've looked at how by Mark Driscoll's own account guys in leadership who were not on board with his vision needed to be put through the proverbial woodchipper. The termination and trials of Paul Petry and Bent Meyer, documented over at Joyful Exiles, are a testament as to what that "woodchipper" treatment could look like. In the wake of the trials Mark Driscoll spent some time instructing the leadership of Mars Hill on spiritual warfare and explained that distrust of the executive elders constituted a demonic mindset; that he had been given discernment and spiritual insight so as to be able to see terrible things that happened to or that were done by people; that he was able to read people's proverbial mail. Keeping all this in mind and the published story of praying that a guy might be an object of God's wrath being met, apparently, with the answer of the man's death, and it sets the stage for the controversies that would erupt from the 2012 through 2014 period.
Because when so much of what has been quoted here from the 2007 to 2008 period remained in the collective memory of people who attended and served at Mars Hill was remembered in light of the plagiarism controversy that erupted after Janet Mefferd interview Mark Driscoll in late 2013; when this was all remembered in light of the early 2014 news that Mars Hill had contracted Result Source to secure a place for Real Marriage in the New York Times bestseller list; and when the ways the executive leadership really handled the 2007 firings began to be known; all of this suggests that Mark Driscoll might have been dissembling a bit when he was interviewed by Sheila Walsh and Randy Robison earlier this 2017.
http://lifetoday.org/assets/files/4-6-17e-SWRR-wDriscoll.pdf
from page 3
Randy: Why are they so mad at you?
Mark: Well, it was from one of the police officers, I don't know if he was at Seattle S.P.D. but for high alert Sundays where there was protest or there was danger. And the kids knew on those days come in and out with police escort.
Randy: Why? Why were they so mad at you?
Mark: You know I'm a really lovely guy so I just don't know.
If joking about putting men through proverbial woodchippers; if literally and figuratively demonizing the possibility of dissent against his executive elder team; and invoking God-given spiritual superpowers ranging from clairvoyance to the ability to pray that people he regarded as in defiance of God would be punished and sharing a story of how, one time, God might have killed a man in response to his prayer is evidence of a man's loveliness then maybe somebody needs a new definition of what loveliness entails.
And here we are, ten years from the day that Mark Driscoll preached "Fathers and Fighting" and there is no Mars Hill Church. In the end it may turn out that for all the threats Mark Driscoll and executive elders perceived in others the most grave threats to the health and existence of Mars Hill existed inside the lives and actions of the executive leadership team itself, starting at the top.
But in order to appreciate the handful of remarks in the sermon itself we need to go back to earlier in the month. To do this we have to go back to some correspondence and statements about events from that time. We'll start with a passage from a compilation of documents and summaries made by former pastor Bent Meyer. He described the overall context you need to know in order to read the lengthy document disclosed at Joyful Exiles as follows (bold is original emphasis in red is added):
from page 12
Context Narrative
In May of 2007, the previous elected Executive Teams nominated and voted in by the entire council of elders were told to resign. They did. When I was informed I was shocked. I had confidence in them, because I believed they represented the rest of the elders. They were accountable to all the elders. Resignation without consulting the rest of the elders was in my mind and betrayal of their representative charge and advise-n-consent.
When all the elders were confronted
with the question of how this happened. I look over at Mark Driscoll and asked him if he had
engineer this, so we (the elders) would be forced to vote in new candidate specifically selected by the
then executives comprised of Mark and Jamie Munson. His reply was “Yes.”
This is one of the actions that
unfolded that demonstrated the "unilateral decree tactic" without greater elder discussion or consent
Mark would increasingly employ with impunity. During this meeting Mike Wilkerson,
who had been one of the elected executive team members, was unclear that he had resigned. He
was under the impression it was under consideration. So, he voiced that understanding and confusion.
It annoyed Mark. He called for anyone
of the other elders to volunteer to be on a new Executive Team. No one did apparently for fear.
Paul Petry stood up and tried to nominate me to be part of the team. I declined, since it was
outside what, I rationalize; God had called me to do at Mars Hill Church. In reality, I was fearful.
Also the hours required would cut into what I could make available for people, and I didn't want to do
more administrative work. I was certainly not looking for power or authority beyond what I had
inherently in being an elder.
The following executive team minutes
reflect the already assumed self governance these men took upon themselves. The elders were
being marginalized in practice. And, foremost, the existing bylaws were not being followed.
I was particularly concerned by the
sanitizing of elder discussions to bullet points only in future meeting minutes. I saw no reason to
obscure deliberation language from the minutes, since these men were accountable to the elders and
interested members, yet that is what they determined to do. The minutes were reduced to bullet
points, which did not represent process, deliberation, debate or compromise.
You will see a statement related to
risk management. This is important to consider it provides clues to how the governing board would
conduct itself. It also exposes how future cover for wrong doing would be obscured.
It was also during this time period
that Mike Wilkerson voice a specific concern related to Mark Driscoll’s character, which resulted
in him being disciplined and having his salary docked. This was another infraction of the bylaws,
since this action could not be executed without elder knowledge, review and consent. It was
done impulsively and unilaterally. This telegraphed increasing unilateral behavior form
Mark.
I and other elders were outraged by
the action, since the event happened during an elders meeting and should have been discussed
and adjudicated by all the elders. Instead, Mark and Jamie Munson said it was an employee
action, meaning it was outside the jurisdiction of the elders. This was a clear overstepping
of the bylaw boundaries. This did not sit well with the elders and became a major topic of complaint
at the Elders Whistler Retreat. As far as I was concerned all matters of church governance was
elder business, Mark and Jamie had determined it was
theirs exclusively right.
I was prepared to pull the nuclear clause in the then bylaw rules, which permitted any elder to call an all elders meeting to address an action or decision executed by any other elders for review and possible overturn. met with Scott Thomas and AJ Hamilton. Scott admitted he was not party to what lead up to Mike’s discipline, while defend Marks authority and right in doing so. Scott was likely not familiar with the boundaries of the bylaws. AJ told me 4 people had Counceled Mike not to bring the matter up before the elders. This was new information and made me pause and relent from calling the elders together.
I was prepared to pull the nuclear clause in the then bylaw rules, which permitted any elder to call an all elders meeting to address an action or decision executed by any other elders for review and possible overturn. met with Scott Thomas and AJ Hamilton. Scott admitted he was not party to what lead up to Mike’s discipline, while defend Marks authority and right in doing so. Scott was likely not familiar with the boundaries of the bylaws. AJ told me 4 people had Counceled Mike not to bring the matter up before the elders. This was new information and made me pause and relent from calling the elders together.
I had occasion to talk to Mike later,
at which time I mention AJ’s statement to him. He was visibly shaken and told me he had only talked
to one person about the matter and that person had not Counceled him either way. I don’t
believe AJ intentionally lied, but I do believe whoever gave himthat information was fabricating a
false story.
I spoke to Jamie Munson directly to
appeal to him that an explanation to the elders was paramount. They needed to know what
the justification for the action was. Jamie persuaded Mark to explain,
however, Mark did it in a completely inappropriate way. He stood before the elders, pulled out a
hand written note of charges against Mike and ended by say “this is the end of the matter, there
will be no further discussion.” The question ran immediately through my head, who is accountable to
whom? Yet, knowing full well that if I challenged that pronouncement I would be out of a job.
It was more than intimidation, it was a certainty. I talked to Mike later to understand how he was
responding to what he experienced. He was speechless. He had prepared a statement of his own,
but wasn’t permitted to present it.
These and a few other events
accumulated to cause me to view the proposed bylaw changes as a bald-faced attempt to codify conduct
and attitudes that were already being exercised by Mark and experienced by the elders.
Accountability in my view was virtually non-existent in the language being proposed.
[Se]nt: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 4:13 PM
To: Pastor Jamie Munson
Cc: Pastor Bill Clem
Subject: Mars Hill Church - Bylaws - Final - 2-11-06.doc
…
from page 41
Scenario Bylaw testing
Scenario Bylaw testing
On 9/12/07 6:56 PM, "Pastor Bent Meyer" <bent@marshillchurch.org> wrote:
I spoke to Mike about my thinking related to the bylaws, primarily, how I was evaluating them. This is the nature of my approach reported to Mike. I am taking the language of the proposed bylaws and running various scenarios through them to see what the possible outcomes might be. In doing so, I have been alarmed by what has resulted. The following are some of my starting questions and the results. I would invite you to run the scenarios yourself to check me.
A push back I have already received, is that I am running what-if scenarios, which are frivolous and not valid. I don’t take this criticism very seriously, because the bylaw rewrite is based on projections of what-if scenarios to begin with. It is because of the likelihood of these what-if scenarios that propelled a bylaw change.
I know, once again, I am taking a risk in raising these issues. I don’t like being in this place, because I love what I do and want to continue without punishment, or lose to my ability to serve. Scott Thomas, has already met, with primarily Paul, and me, saying that we are the elder statesmen, with a responsibility to create unity and consensus. If we are in great disagreement, maybe we should consider moving on. I will not voluntarily move on, nor do I intend on disrespectfully disagree or address imbalances in the powers being presented to us disagreeable in attitude. The season ahead is very complicated and the bylaw direction makes sense in the aggregate. I just see holes in it.
I have made the commitment that once these bylaws or some version of them are in place, I will regard them as the law of the City and abide and support them as per Rom 13. I simply want to be understood if I am correct and language replaced or added that will safeguard the integrity of every level of leadership be place in the document.
My comments will appear as worst case scenarios, and admittedly they are. I also admit MHC would be near a church split under some of these conditions, or would suffer one afterward, but you know, as well as I, that church leadership will do unthinkably dumb things on the basis of what they think is “scriptural principle”. I want to safeguard against that possibility. I also admit, implied in even contemplating most of the scenarios implies major sin issues or the part of the leadership, but the language of the bylaw is what it is and leave gates open for wrong doing. Concentrated supreme authority would seem to guarantee stability and fidelity, until a new lead pastor takes over and the Board of Directors changes along with the pressures associated with the consequences of such on the population and financial cash flow of MHC. Then the proposed bylaws would be potentially problematic. The assumption is that Mark will outlive most of the current leadership is not guaranteed. The bylaws must be considered in light of catastrophic possibilities, as well as, ease nimble decision making and action. The nimbleness Mark speaks of is well taken, with careful consideration. They are partnered not necessary oppositional (nimbleness and consideration).
From page 42
2. Upon
the passing of Mark to new employment (not out of the question, since Mark, as
much as, said he has
contemplated such on a few occasions. He certainly has attractive offers),
death, or remover,
MHC would take a nose dive in population and funds. This would put enormous pressure
on whoever followed to reverse the effect. What compromises would the Board of Director’s
make to rite the ship? The scenario would not prevent recluse
decisions being made by a relative few. They would have exclusive rights to all
decisions, without regard to the council of elders. I admit this would be catastrophic, but
it could happen tomorrow. No one knows
what bus has Mark’s name on the grill. [emphasis original]What was removed, as best can be ascertained, was preserved at the following wordpress blog post.
Mark Driscoll TRAINING PASTORS at an Acts 29 session in Raleigh NC, September 20, 2007:
“…not contentious. You ever meet a guy, it doesn’t matter what the issue is, he’s always gonna play the other side. Those guys are the worst elders in the history of the world. And it doesn’t matter what you’re talk,
I had a guy like that; I recently put him in the wood chipper in my church. Seriously. I could say hey, we’re all going to get suckers. He’s be like, what flavor? Whatever flavor you want. Is it sugar free? If you would like. Well, I didn’t say I wanted a sucker. You, you know, you need to die. You know.[emphasis added] He just was the guy, he just, he had to nitpick at everything; he had to resist everything, he to look at the other side, if everyone was for something he felt obligated to be the e-brake pulling everything. And you’d ask him why, he’d be like, well, I just wanted to make sure we’ve looked at everything and everybody is considering all the angles. Its like, dude, you’re playing the devils advocate, which is not good. I don’t want anybody for the devil on my team. You know? But there’s some guys like that. It just, they’re contentious, it doesn’t, they’re always fighting, always arguing.
There’s, I’ve had guys in eldership, where, in the meeting, everything’s going fine, and they’ll say, I got something, I got something I need to say. And everybody’s head does this; everybody looks like they just got kicked in the sack. You know, I mean literally, they just the air comes out of their body, they just fold in half, because you know, here he goes again, here he freaking goes again. You know. That guy on an elder board, robs the board of any joy at all, and you already got enough criticism and people and work, when you get together with your elders, you don’t all men to be yes men, but at the same time, somebody who’s just contentious, and a neatnick and e-brake puller, I mean those guys, I mean all of a sudden you despise your elder’s meetings, and I’ll tell you what, when you despise your elders, at that point you have no safe place in the world from which to do ministry. Elders meetings stink, people are shooting me, everything’s hard, and I go to meet with the guys, and there’s always one guy there who just, he’s just like a fart in an elevator, and its just, you know, I’m just counting the minutes till I can get away from this guy. You can pray for me, you may say, it seems like he’s dealing with this right now, yes, I am. I’m thinking of certain people. If it weren’t for Jesus I would be violent.” [emphases added]
On
September 30, 2007 Mark Driscoll preached his last sermon in a series going
through the book of Nehemiah.
http://download.marshill.se/files/2007/09/30/20070930_fathers-and-fighting_sd_audio.mp3
Driscoll described Nehemiah as an older man who had worked to restore spiritual and social activity in Jerusalem in a post-exilic context who had heard, after he left for a time and was away from Jerusalem, that things had deteriorated. Driscoll recounted how Nehemiah went back to Jerusalem to rebuke God's people and that had Nehemiah not done so the restorative work on the walls might not have been completed and the message of Jesus after the resurrection would not have been able to ring out from the epicenter of Jerusalem (about 7:00). At about 7:33 Driscoll said that had Nehemiah not fought for that city Jesus would not have had an opportunity to come to that city so that from that city the good news could spread forth so that you and I could become Christians.
http://download.marshill.se/files/2007/09/30/20070930_fathers-and-fighting_sd_audio.mp3
Driscoll described Nehemiah as an older man who had worked to restore spiritual and social activity in Jerusalem in a post-exilic context who had heard, after he left for a time and was away from Jerusalem, that things had deteriorated. Driscoll recounted how Nehemiah went back to Jerusalem to rebuke God's people and that had Nehemiah not done so the restorative work on the walls might not have been completed and the message of Jesus after the resurrection would not have been able to ring out from the epicenter of Jerusalem (about 7:00). At about 7:33 Driscoll said that had Nehemiah not fought for that city Jesus would not have had an opportunity to come to that city so that from that city the good news could spread forth so that you and I could become Christians.
Yes, he actually put it like that. Had Nehemiah not gone back to Jerusalem to fight in the way Driscoll described him as having fought, the contention Driscoll made was that none of us who call ourselves Christians might have been able to do so ... as though everything about the prophesied coming of Christ that Christians over the last two millenia understood to have been foreordained by God ever got written down. For a guy in 2007 who described himself as a Calvinist Driscoll sure seemed to use rhetoric that indicated that a lot about the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Christ ... somehow, depended on Nehemiah going back to Jerusalem to kick some tail.
At 8:00 Nehemiah, Driscoll said, was very angry about the state of the Israelite marriages and families. Everything would rise and fall on the basis of the family.
Driscoll talked for a while about marriage and spiritual authority and federal headship and a few things like that. When discussing the need to submit to spiritual authority he remarked:
7:50...
Some of you will then push back, and say "But I've seen spiritual authority abused." and I would say, "So have I." And what we do is not abandon authority, we appeal to higher authority. If a man is being a bad husband and father he's NOT the highest authority. You can call the cops. You can bring him in for church discipline. We'll pull up some other authority. We'll pull up another authority, of Scripture, and we'll bring God into the equation.
Some of you will then push back, and say "But I've seen spiritual authority abused." and I would say, "So have I." And what we do is not abandon authority, we appeal to higher authority. If a man is being a bad husband and father he's NOT the highest authority. You can call the cops. You can bring him in for church discipline. We'll pull up some other authority. We'll pull up another authority, of Scripture, and we'll bring God into the equation.
If a
leader in the church, or an elder or a pastor, is not acting in accordance with
Scripture, then we appeal to Scripture and they get disciplined as well. No
one, myself included, is above spiritual authority. We all need to be
submissive and humble. And Nehemiah's frustration is with a bunch of men who
will not respect Scripture, they will not respect God, they won't respect
Nehemiah (their leader), they won't respect Ezra (their pastor), and he's very
angry about that because he sees the devastation of the wives and to the
children.
So it was clear Driscoll was saying that if there were leaders in the church that were not acting in accordance with Scripture it was possible to discipline them. This would culminate in the following commentary Driscoll gave about one of the things Nehemiah wrote of doing:
...
31:17
You either enjoy confrontation or you enjoy sin. You get to pick one or the other. If people sin and there's not confrontation then you better enjoy sin because that's what's going to happen.
"Then I confronted them and I cursed them"
He's just cussing guys out.
"and beat some of them." I'll read that again, "and beat SOME of them."
31:44
Now he's
an older guy and he's beating up members of his church. What do we do with
that? I'll tell you what I'd LIKE to do with that. I'd like to follow in his
example. There's a few guys here that, if I wasn't gonna end up on CNN, that I
would go Old Testament on `em even in leadership of this church.
32:08
Here's
Nehemiah's deal. Now Romans 13 says we need to obey the government so you can't
just walk around beating people up, tragically.
It DOES
simplify things. There's no, like, attorneys and blogging. It's like, "I
punched you in the mouth. Shut up."
That's clean. It's simple.
Now in
this Nehemiah gets so angry that he can't make these guys stop that he
physically assaults them. ...
32:45
I'm not saying it's okay to beat people up, but I understand.
for a more condensed version ...
Back in 2007 there were questions as to what this was supposed to mean. Who were these guys Driscoll wanted to "go Old Testament" on? Since the dissolution of Mars Hill a few things came to light and we'll be brief about them here since so much is available at this blog for further reading: In short, the intended second Ballard campus Mark Driscoll talked about in Confessions of a Reformission Rev was a boondoggle. The property could not be refitted to serve as a second church campus and was not zoned for such. The elders decided to pursue a multisite approach and Driscoll began to consult toward making a structure that would handle that. Real estate began to get purchased. As the elders explained things in later 2007, the elder board was not conducive to being "nimble" and a number of campus sites were being opened. The newer bylaws were supposed to make it easier to make key decisions. Meyer and Petry voiced objections to the changes that would consolidate a great deal of practical power to a small self-selected group of executive elders. As noted above, Meyer expressed concern that if Driscoll ever left Mars Hill for whatever reason the church would possibly not be able to withstand or survive that departure. So that's the short version.
https://joyfulexiles.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/joyful-exiles-email-from-pastor-jamie-munson-re-mandatory-meeting-9-30-2008-3.pdf
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2007 5:41 PM
To: Pastor Paul Petry
Subject: meeting tonight
Importance: High
Paul – I
need you to join me for a meeting tonight at 8:15 in Bill Clem’s office. It’s
mandatory so please confirm you have received this, I’ll try and catch you in person
if you don’t read this.
JamieJamie Munson
Lead Pastor
Mars Hill Church
1401 NW Leary Way, Seattle, WA 98107
o: 206.816.3773
e: jamie@marshillchurch.org
w: www.marshillchurch.org
As documented in 2012 by both Joyful Exiles and Chris Rosebrough at Fighting for the Faith/Pirate Christian Radio, on October 1, 2007 Mark Driscoll was discussing preaching and church planting at an Acts 29 leadership event.
https://joyfulexiles.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/preaching-paul_edits1.mp3
Here’s what I’ve learned. You cast vision for your mission; and if people don’t sign up, you move on. You move on. There are people that are gonna to die in the wilderness and there are people that are gonna take the hill. That’s just how it is.
Too many guys waste too much time trying to move stiff-necked, stubborn, obstinate people. (pause) I am all about blessed subtraction. There is a pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus (laughs) and by God’s grace it’ll be a mountain by the time we’re done.
You either get on the bus or you get run over by the bus. Those are the options; but the bus ain’t gonna stop. [emphasis added] And I’m just a—I’m just a guy who is like, “Look, we love ya, but, this is what we’re doing.”
There’s a few kinda people. There’s people who get in the way of the bus. They gotta get run over. There are people who wanna take turns driving the bus. They gotta get thrown off (laughs). ‘Cuz they wanna go somewhere else. There are people who will be on the bus, leaders and helpers and servants, they’re awesome.
There’s also just, sometimes, nice people who sit on the bus and shut up. (pause) They’re not helping or hurting. Just let ‘em ride along. Y’know what I’m saying? But, don’t look at the nice people that are just gonna sit on the bus and shut their mouth and think, “I need you to lead the mission.”
Here’s what I’ve learned. You cast vision for your mission; and if people don’t sign up, you move on. You move on. There are people that are gonna to die in the wilderness and there are people that are gonna take the hill. That’s just how it is.
Too many guys waste too much time trying to move stiff-necked, stubborn, obstinate people. (pause) I am all about blessed subtraction. There is a pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus (laughs) and by God’s grace it’ll be a mountain by the time we’re done.
You either get on the bus or you get run over by the bus. Those are the options; but the bus ain’t gonna stop. [emphasis added] And I’m just a—I’m just a guy who is like, “Look, we love ya, but, this is what we’re doing.”
There’s a few kinda people. There’s people who get in the way of the bus. They gotta get run over. There are people who wanna take turns driving the bus. They gotta get thrown off (laughs). ‘Cuz they wanna go somewhere else. There are people who will be on the bus, leaders and helpers and servants, they’re awesome.
There’s also just, sometimes, nice people who sit on the bus and shut up. (pause) They’re not helping or hurting. Just let ‘em ride along. Y’know what I’m saying? But, don’t look at the nice people that are just gonna sit on the bus and shut their mouth and think, “I need you to lead the mission.”
They’re never going to. At the very most you’ll give ’em a job to do and they’ll serve somewhere and help out in a minimal way. If someone can sit in a place that hasn’t been on mission for a really long time they are by definition not a leader. And, so they’re never going to lead.
You need to gather a whole new court. I’ll tell you guys what, too. You don’t do this just for your church planting or replanting. I’m doin’ it right now. I’m doin’ it right now. We just took certain guys and rearranged the seats on the bus.
Yesterday we fired two elders for the first time in the history of Mars Hill last night. They’re off the bus, under the bus. They were off mission so now they’re unemployed. I mean (pause) you—this will be the defining issue as to whether or not you succeed or fail. I've read enough of the New Testament to know that occasionally Paul put someone in the woodchipper, y'know? [emphasis added]
Ironically two of the men Mark Driscoll and designated surrogates may have put through the proverbial woodchipper were men who were tasked with running the counseling ministries. By Driscoll's own account he approached Bent Meyer to take over the counseling load he had been doing:
Confessions of a Reformission Rev
Mark Driscoll, Zondervan 2006
copyright 2006 by Mark Driscoll
ISBN-13: 978-0-310-27016-4
ISBN-10:0-310-2-7016-2
page 151
To make these transitions, I needed to hand much of my work load to my elders and deacons so that I could continue to concentrate on the future of expansion of our church. In some ways I longed for this day because it meant the weight of the church would be off my shoulders and shared with many leaders. In other ways I lamented not being able to invest in every young couple, experience the joy of officiating at so many weddings, or know everything that was going on in the church.
I asked our newest and oldest elder, Bent, to take over the counseling load that I had been carrying. [emphasis added] He was the first person to join our church who had gray hair, and he and Filipino wife, Joanne, were lock rock stars with groupies since all the young people wanted to hang out with these grandparents that loved Jesus. My problem was I loved our people so much that if I got deeply involved in the pain of too many people's lives, it emotionally killed me, and I needed to do less counseling.
pages 156-157
Pastor Bent has launched a number of care and recovery groups for such things as sexual abuse, sexual addiction, and alcoholism. He is also training new elders to help shoulder this burden with him. Among them is Phil, who was the first father to show up in our church when we had less than forty people and who has risen up to become a pastor [most likely Phil Smidt, Jamie Munson's brother-law and currently a biblical counseling pastor at Mars Hill Ballard, WtH]
Paul Petry also had a role in pastoral counseling at Mars Hill in 2007, too. It's possible that the two older men in eldership who were run through the proverbial woodchipper had at some point been recruited by Driscoll himself to consider eldership. Whether that's the case or not would be for the men themselves to confirm or disconfirm however they wish to.
33.22
I think one of the great myths
that has come about (it's a demonic lie) is that myself, the executive elders,
the senior leaders we don't care about people. [emphasis added] I was the only one who did ANY
counseling until we had 800 people. We still do tons of shepherding,
counseling, spiritual warfare, conflict. But we try to do so in a way that is
humble, that isn't "and here is who I served and here are the demons we
cast out and here's the list of people that I've healed." That's demonic.
The truth is I love the people as much--actually, more than anyone in this
church. And the senior leaders, the campus pastors, the departmental leaders,
the executive elders love the people in this church as much or more than anyone
else in this church. [emphasis added] And one of my great concerns is not just, "Can you
hold hands and help sheep?" but "can you also flip the staff over and
defend against a wolf?" You HAVE to have that discernment, that
courage, and that ability to tell someone: "You are in sin. That is false
doctrine. You are not qualified to be a leader. If you do not repent you
are not welcome here. And I will speak truthfully to those who want to follow
you because my job is for the well-being of the sheep."
The most infamous excerpt from this marathon of teaching is already known to some extent but we'll quote it at length anyway. Because of years of purging and redacting content those who might doubt the veracity of what Mark Driscoll said in the "I see things" presentation should have an opportunity to see and/or hear for themselves what he said.
Spiritual Warfare
February 5, 2008
Pastor Mark Driscoll
Christus Victor (Part 3)
February 5, 2008
Pastor Mark Driscoll
Christus Victor (Part 3)
19:19
On occasion I see things. I see
things. Like I was meeting with one person, and they didn't know this but they
were abused when they were a child and I said, "When you were a child, you
were abused. This person did this to you, physically touched you this
way." They said, "How do you know?" I said, "I don't know,
it's like I got a TV right here and I'm seeing it." They said, "No,
that never happened." I said, "Go ask them. Go ask if they actually
did what I think they did and I see that they did." They went and
asked this person, "When I was a little kid did you do this?" and the
person said, "Yeah [slowly], but you were only like a year or two old. How
do you remember that?" They said, "Well, Pastor Mark told me."
I'm not a guru. I'm not a freak. I don't talk about this. If I did talk about
it everybody'd want to meet with me and I'd end up like one of those guys on
TV, but some of you have this visual ability to see things. [emphasis added]
20:13
There was one woman I dealt with, she never told her husband that she had committed adultery on him early in the relationship. I said:
"You know (she was sitting there with her husband), you know I think the root of all this is Satan has a foothold in your life because you never told your husband about that really tall blond guy that you met at the bar. And then you went back to the hotel, and you laid on your back, and you undressed yourself, and he climbed on top of you, and you had sex with him, and snuggled up with him for a while, and deep down in your heart (even though you had just met him) you desired him because (secretly) he is the fantasy body type."
I said:
"You remember that place, it was that cheap hotel with that certain colored bedspread. You did it--you had sex with the light on because you weren't ashamed and you wanted him to see you and you wanted to see him."
She's just looking at me, like ...
I said, "You know, it was about ten years ago." I see everything.
She looks at her husband. He says, "Is that true?" She says, "Yeah. He was 6'2", blonde hair, blue eyes. Yeah."
Some of you, when you're counseling, you will see things. You will literally get the discernment to see things. I can't even explain it. It doesn't happen all the time.
Sometimes your counselee, they will see things. I found this with people, I'm, okay,-like, "I'm gonna ask the demon questions, you tell me what they say." They don't say anything. I say, "What do you hear?" and they say, "Nothing, but I'm seeing stuff." "What, oh, oh. What's that?"
"I'm seeing, you know, when I was little, my grandpa molested me. I didn't know that."
I said, "Well, let's not assume it's true. Go ask your grandpa." Grandpa says, "Yeah [slowly], when you were little I molested you." Grandpa was assuming they'd be too young to remember so he'd only molest grandkids up until a certain age. But they saw it. Supernatural. It's a whole other realm. It's like the Matrix. You can take the blue pill. You can take the red pill. You can go into this whole other world and that's the way it works.
So I say tell me everything you hear, tell me everything you see and sometimes I see things, too. I see things, too. I've seen women raped.
I've seen children molested. I've seen people abused. I've seen people beaten. I've seen horrible things done. Horrible things done.
I've seen children dedicated in occult groups, and demons come upon them as an infant by invitation and I wasn't present for any of it but I've seen it, visibly.
Upon occasion when I get up to preach I see, just like a [makes "whif" sound] screen in front of me, I'll see somebody get raped or abused and I'll track `em down and say, "Look, I had this vision, let me tell you about it." All true. One I had, I was sitting in my office at the old Earl building. This gal walks by, nice gal, member of the church. This was when the church was small. And there just like a TV was there and I saw the night before her husband threw her up against the wall, had her by the throat, was physically violent with her and she said, "That's it. I'm telling the pastor." And he said, "If you do, I'll kill you." He was a very physically abusive man. She was walking by and I just saw it. Just like a TV. [emphasis added] I said, "Hey! come here for a sec. ... Last night did your husband throw you against the wall and have you by the throat, physically assault you and tell you if you told anyone he would kill you?" She just starts bawling. She says, "How did you know?" I said, "Jesus told me." I call the guy on the phone, "Hey, I need you to come to the office." Didn't give him any clue. [He] comes in. I said, "What did you do to your wife last night? Why'd you this? Why'd you throw her against the wall?" And he gets very angry, they're sitting on the couch, he says, "Why did you tell him?" I said, "She didn't, Jesus did." Jesus did.
There are people who are hyper-spiritual total freaks. They make stuff up. They hear from demons. They pretend to have insight and discernment and there are some people who have real gift of discernment, and I'm not saying I'm 100% always right with it, but some of you are gonna have gift of discernment and you need to, you need to grow to learn in the use of that gift. Sometimes people will hear things. Sometimes people will see things.
I had not renewed my membership contract (they called it a covenant but ... ) in 2007 because I had gotten tired of having to "re-up" every couple of years. But at the time in early 2008 I was still attending and participating in a lay ministry of volunteers that had some deacons called the Theology Response Team that had some pastoral oversight. In this ministry we were asked to field questions on behalf of Mark Driscoll. Accordingly, we were told it was a requirement to listen to all four odd hours of the Spiritual Warfare 2008 presentation so as to be able to answer questions. After listening to the presentation I was more certain than before I would not renew my membership. The combination of healing of memories tropes with the demonization at a literal and figurative level that Mark deployed against any dissent was more than I thought was reasonable. 20:13
There was one woman I dealt with, she never told her husband that she had committed adultery on him early in the relationship. I said:
"You know (she was sitting there with her husband), you know I think the root of all this is Satan has a foothold in your life because you never told your husband about that really tall blond guy that you met at the bar. And then you went back to the hotel, and you laid on your back, and you undressed yourself, and he climbed on top of you, and you had sex with him, and snuggled up with him for a while, and deep down in your heart (even though you had just met him) you desired him because (secretly) he is the fantasy body type."
I said:
"You remember that place, it was that cheap hotel with that certain colored bedspread. You did it--you had sex with the light on because you weren't ashamed and you wanted him to see you and you wanted to see him."
She's just looking at me, like ...
I said, "You know, it was about ten years ago." I see everything.
She looks at her husband. He says, "Is that true?" She says, "Yeah. He was 6'2", blonde hair, blue eyes. Yeah."
Some of you, when you're counseling, you will see things. You will literally get the discernment to see things. I can't even explain it. It doesn't happen all the time.
Sometimes your counselee, they will see things. I found this with people, I'm, okay,-like, "I'm gonna ask the demon questions, you tell me what they say." They don't say anything. I say, "What do you hear?" and they say, "Nothing, but I'm seeing stuff." "What, oh, oh. What's that?"
"I'm seeing, you know, when I was little, my grandpa molested me. I didn't know that."
I said, "Well, let's not assume it's true. Go ask your grandpa." Grandpa says, "Yeah [slowly], when you were little I molested you." Grandpa was assuming they'd be too young to remember so he'd only molest grandkids up until a certain age. But they saw it. Supernatural. It's a whole other realm. It's like the Matrix. You can take the blue pill. You can take the red pill. You can go into this whole other world and that's the way it works.
So I say tell me everything you hear, tell me everything you see and sometimes I see things, too. I see things, too. I've seen women raped.
I've seen children molested. I've seen people abused. I've seen people beaten. I've seen horrible things done. Horrible things done.
I've seen children dedicated in occult groups, and demons come upon them as an infant by invitation and I wasn't present for any of it but I've seen it, visibly.
Upon occasion when I get up to preach I see, just like a [makes "whif" sound] screen in front of me, I'll see somebody get raped or abused and I'll track `em down and say, "Look, I had this vision, let me tell you about it." All true. One I had, I was sitting in my office at the old Earl building. This gal walks by, nice gal, member of the church. This was when the church was small. And there just like a TV was there and I saw the night before her husband threw her up against the wall, had her by the throat, was physically violent with her and she said, "That's it. I'm telling the pastor." And he said, "If you do, I'll kill you." He was a very physically abusive man. She was walking by and I just saw it. Just like a TV. [emphasis added] I said, "Hey! come here for a sec. ... Last night did your husband throw you against the wall and have you by the throat, physically assault you and tell you if you told anyone he would kill you?" She just starts bawling. She says, "How did you know?" I said, "Jesus told me." I call the guy on the phone, "Hey, I need you to come to the office." Didn't give him any clue. [He] comes in. I said, "What did you do to your wife last night? Why'd you this? Why'd you throw her against the wall?" And he gets very angry, they're sitting on the couch, he says, "Why did you tell him?" I said, "She didn't, Jesus did." Jesus did.
There are people who are hyper-spiritual total freaks. They make stuff up. They hear from demons. They pretend to have insight and discernment and there are some people who have real gift of discernment, and I'm not saying I'm 100% always right with it, but some of you are gonna have gift of discernment and you need to, you need to grow to learn in the use of that gift. Sometimes people will hear things. Sometimes people will see things.
What is striking about the above passage is that when Driscoll described all the stuff that he would see it was sexual abuse or physical abuse. The sins were sexy sins, so to speak. Whether Driscoll in his visionary moments saw stuff like wire fraud or embezzlement or ... plagiarism ... we'll never know. But what we do know is that in 2008 Mark Driscoll said that the belief that the executive elders didn't really love the people of Mars Hill was a demonic lie. Of course for the many who left Mars Hill in the 2007-2008 period the question was not really so much "do the executive elders of Mars Hill Church love the people of Mars Hill Church?" because even abusers think they love they people they abuse in many cases. The question was whether or not the level of power that had been consolidated to the executive elders during the controversial course of events in 2007 was proper was the question. It would eventually transpire that the executive eldership team was not, taken as a whole, necessarily being very honest or truthful about the nature of what happened in 2007.
At this point it will be useful to quote earlier writing.
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2012/03/scott-thomas-depature-from-acts-29-in.html
Scott Thomas informed Petry "This is not a witch hunt." He also wrote, "For some reason, unknown clearly at this time, we are to undergo a painful pruning of the eldership to achieve more Christ-like fruit in our lives."
http://joyfulexiles.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/10-01-2007-termination-ltr-jamie-munson.pdf
Munson informed Paul Petry that a task force headed by Scott Thomas would be conducting the investigation on 10/02/2007:
http://joyfulexiles.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/10-02-2007-important-message-from-the-lead-pastor.pdf
Munson formally announced the firings of Petry and Meyer. Munson stated that the firings were not based on any sexual or moral impropriety. No discussion of the firings was permitted on the members forums and speculation and gossip was discouraged.
http://joyfulexiles.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/scott-thomas-10-10-2007-no-show-for-trial.pdf
On 10/10/2007 Scott Thomas explained that the trial date had been moved to 10/15/2007. Vote would be by a show of hands. Thomas declared that all four members of the EIT had adequately heard Petry's response to the charges and that Petry's presence at his trial would not be necessary.
Sometimes in life you have these strange moments of dumb luck. Somebody happens to know someone who never got rid of an email Scott Thomas sent to a member about the firings. That someone managed to get said email to some blogger of no particular significance. On 10/12/2007 Scott Thomas replied to a member enquiry. The member enquiry read as follows and was sent 10/10/2007:
I read Pastor Jamie's announcement last week with some sadness and confusion. I understand the need for courtesy and respect of privacy but as I attempt to understand the following:
1) firing two pastors and announcing this to the church body,
2) the by-laws say a pastor can be suspended on credible charges of moral or doctrinal wrong
3) 1 Timothy 5:19-20 says to not accept accusations against elders without two or three witnesses
4) and says that spiritual leaders rebuker sinners publicly so that the rest may also fear
5) Pastor Jamie has said the fired pastors have not been accused of any moral or doctrinal error at all
This seems to create more rather than less confusion and presents a precedent that confuses me. It seems that firing two pastors; barring them from service in ministry and voting on church issues; and publicly announcing this to the body seem necessary and good if the pastors are guilty of moral or doctrinal error, are not repentant, and an investigation has already been completed establishing their guilt. It seems baffling if they have not been accused of anything but their firing has simply been announced prior to an actual investigation.
It is particularly confounding for me in light of the precedent established by the pastoral announcement about Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx two years ago. She was found to be in unrepentant sin, was determined to have never been a Christian, and was allowed to leave the church with an admonition to the Mars Hill body to not ostracize but welcome her back if she chose to return. I trust that once the investigation and disciplinary process is complete we'll hear from the pastors but I wonder if Pastor Jamie's announcement is having the unintended effect of fueling rather than stifling speculation. I will keep praying that the Lord's will be done and that He will guide the church where He wishes and that the Enemy will not sow discord.
Scott Thomas' reply on 10/12/2007 was as follows:
I appreciate your love and concern for these men. My heart is heavy right now as well. A team of elders just concluded a conciliatory process with these two men. [emphasis added] Be patient, trust Jesus and rest in the fact that this is His church. I do not expect you to understand the gravity of the situation with limited information. This is a legal proceeding, is supervised by our lawyer and as a result, is not a familial discussion. It was what Paul and Bent specifically requested. However, we are bound by our own judiciary system to act justly. After due process, the elders will rule according to Bylaw procedure and the members will be informed. This takes the church through a sanctification process—elders and members. It is more painful but at the last bears the needed fruit. You have to endure as well. You have to trust Jesus and His under shepherds to complete the task assigned in the time allotted (Oct 15).
Thanks,
Pastor Scott
... For example, I once met with a young man whose father, a pastor, suddenly left his ministry, wife, and teenage sons to have a homosexual affair with a man he had met on the Internet. He told his teenage sons that there is no God, Jesus did not rise from death, and that there is no such thing as punishment for sin. His sons experienced a profound crisis of faith, and since their dad kept saying that he was happy for the first time in his life, they wondered if God existed, and if he did, whether he cared. To make matters worse, the entire church he had been pastoring was experiencing the same sort of faith crisis. I prayed with one of the sons, asking God to either bring their father to repentance or pour out his wrath on the man as an example. Within days, the father died of an unexplainable, sudden explosion of his heart. [emphases added]
While we can't make a definitive connection of this timely death to the wrath of God, it is in keeping with what we see in instances like Genesis 38 where God kills the two sons of Judah because of their wickedness.
Driscoll, so far as can be ascertained, never seems to have ever named this now dead man. So who was it? Why even mention the story at all if it's not possible to make a definitive connection between Mark Driscoll's prayer and the anonymous man's death? Taken together with other statements Driscoll made in early 2008 it's possible to infer that Driscoll had indicated in a number of ways that he had been given spiritual super-powers, more or less, and that when he prayed that people he regarded as in rebellion against God would be objects of God's wrath it was possible they could just straight up die.
http://download.marshill.se/files/MH%20Vodcast%20Video/2008/20080205_introduction-to-spiritual-warfare_vodcast.m4v
SPIRITUAL WARFARE PART 1
February 05, 2008
11:08 or so
Had other people with night terrors. I had people seeing things. I had people that are clairvoyant. I had people that are hearing things. I start getting prophetic dreams, God's showing me the future. A gift of discernment kinda comes to the fore for me. Not all the time but I can see somebody and I just know their story. I remember walking up to people and, one woman, telling her: "You know, last night, did your husband grab you by the throat, throw you up against the wall, threaten you, and tell you that if you told me that he would kill you?" She's crying, she said, "How did YOU know?" I said, "I don't know. I see it. I see it, like a film." [emphasis added]
Go up to another a person and I say, "Hey, I believe that you were sexually abused when you were young. Did so-and-so do this to you, when you were this age? And did a comforting spirit come to you at that point, a demon masquerading as an angel of light?" And they say, "Yeah. How did you know?" I was like, "I saw it."
I started having dreams. I started seeing things. I start reading people's proverbial mail. [emphasis added] I did not know what to do with any of this because, in my theology, I'm a cessationist. That means I believe that the supernatural essentially ceased in the early Church so we don't have charismatic gifts today, and the demonic activity isn't real, especially for believers. So I needed to know what to do, so I remembered the pastor and I asked him, I said, "What do I do with all of this?" He said, "That's not for today. That was only in the early church." I said, "Why in the early church?" He said, "Well, you know, there was more demonic opposition and there was more spiritual gifts of the divine, supernatural in the early Church to get it started, to get it going." I said, "Well, I'm planting a church. I'm getting it started. I'm getting it going." It's just as pagan as anything in the New Testament." Seattle is so completely dark and completely unchurched, I said, "How could it not be that the same resistance they had in the planting of the early church that I'm experiencing in the planting of this church?" He said, "Naw, don't worry about it. It's not a big deal, it'll be fine."
Well things got worse. I didn't know what to do.
We've covered a lot of material here from roughly ten years ago. We've looked at how by Mark Driscoll's own account guys in leadership who were not on board with his vision needed to be put through the proverbial woodchipper. The termination and trials of Paul Petry and Bent Meyer, documented over at Joyful Exiles, are a testament as to what that "woodchipper" treatment could look like. In the wake of the trials Mark Driscoll spent some time instructing the leadership of Mars Hill on spiritual warfare and explained that distrust of the executive elders constituted a demonic mindset; that he had been given discernment and spiritual insight so as to be able to see terrible things that happened to or that were done by people; that he was able to read people's proverbial mail. Keeping all this in mind and the published story of praying that a guy might be an object of God's wrath being met, apparently, with the answer of the man's death, and it sets the stage for the controversies that would erupt from the 2012 through 2014 period.
Because when so much of what has been quoted here from the 2007 to 2008 period remained in the collective memory of people who attended and served at Mars Hill was remembered in light of the plagiarism controversy that erupted after Janet Mefferd interview Mark Driscoll in late 2013; when this was all remembered in light of the early 2014 news that Mars Hill had contracted Result Source to secure a place for Real Marriage in the New York Times bestseller list; and when the ways the executive leadership really handled the 2007 firings began to be known; all of this suggests that Mark Driscoll might have been dissembling a bit when he was interviewed by Sheila Walsh and Randy Robison earlier this 2017.
http://lifetoday.org/assets/files/4-6-17e-SWRR-wDriscoll.pdf
from page 3
Randy: Why are they so mad at you?
Mark: Well, it was from one of the police officers, I don't know if he was at Seattle S.P.D. but for high alert Sundays where there was protest or there was danger. And the kids knew on those days come in and out with police escort.
Randy: Why? Why were they so mad at you?
Mark: You know I'm a really lovely guy so I just don't know.
If joking about putting men through proverbial woodchippers; if literally and figuratively demonizing the possibility of dissent against his executive elder team; and invoking God-given spiritual superpowers ranging from clairvoyance to the ability to pray that people he regarded as in defiance of God would be punished and sharing a story of how, one time, God might have killed a man in response to his prayer is evidence of a man's loveliness then maybe somebody needs a new definition of what loveliness entails.
And here we are, ten years from the day that Mark Driscoll preached "Fathers and Fighting" and there is no Mars Hill Church. In the end it may turn out that for all the threats Mark Driscoll and executive elders perceived in others the most grave threats to the health and existence of Mars Hill existed inside the lives and actions of the executive leadership team itself, starting at the top.
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