Mark Driscoll's spectrums of trust past and present (2011 and 2021), and the barnyard animals of ministry from Confessions of a Reformission Rev, 2006

Julie Roys has lately reported that there is a “spectrum of trust” code at The Trinity Church (as attested by former volunteer security director of the church Chad Freese):

https://julieroys.com/mark-driscoll-cult-like-actions-24-7-surveillance-loyalty/

…

On April 7, Freese said Mark Driscoll pulled the entire staff into a “training session.” Driscoll then reportedly drew his “spectrum of trust” on a dry-erase board, rating people’s loyalty from 0 to 10 to determine their access to Driscoll’s family.

 

Freese said Anderson then said that Freese’s security team was at a “level nine.” But because Freese and his wife had appeared in a picture posted on social media with former worship pastor, Dustin Blatnik, who reportedly had been fired by Trinity, Freese and his wife were a “level 8.”

 

Freese said that was the “tipping point,” and he officially resigned the following week.

 

Freese said what bothered him even more than the loyalty scale, though, was the slandering of the Manueles by Driscoll and other pastors.

… 

Warren Throckmorton has also noted the spectrum of trust.

https://www.wthrockmorton.com/2021/05/10/mark-driscolls-cult-like-actions-julie-roys-enters-the-chat/

…

As extensive as Roys’ report is, there are more stories to tell. She mentions shunning, but there are more stories of families being shunned because they are not sufficiently loyal to Mark Driscoll. Roys introduces us to the very culty phrase “spectrum of trust.” The higher you are on the spectrum of trust, the more the Driscolls trust you and the more access to them you have. Sadly, if you not high on that spectrum, you may drag your family members down a notch or two. Ranking people in terms of their loyalty to the dear leader is a characteristic of a mind control group. An extension of that is shunning family members over loyalty to the dear leader.

…

That is certainly possible but rather than confirm or contest the statement about The Trinity Church being a mind control group I want, instead, to highlight that for those of us who were at Mars Hill or even those of us who left Mars Hill but kept tabs on Mark Driscoll’s prolific blogging at The Gospel Coalition and the Acts 29 blogs that the idea of a “spectrum of trust” isn’t the least bit new.

I read Driscoll’s numbered ranking 0-10 concept for enemies and friends back in 2011. Of course, the relevant posts were purged from both the Gospel Coalition website and the Acts 29 website so the material is only accessible via archive access or, barring that, material that was preserved at Wenatchee The Hatchet.  Because the blog posts were not necessarily preserved even by The Wayback Machine we’ll have to make do with what I preserved back in June of 2011 for the actual numbered ranking system itself. 

https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2011/06/friend-is-useful-at-all-times-and.html