yet another Acts 29 leader has had to get removed

https://julieroys.com/acts-29-vp-removed-from-leadership-after-confessing-to-long-term-extramarital-relationship/

 

The Roys Report account eludes to Mark Driscoll being expelled from Acts 29 leadership and while that’s certainly one way to put it, the TRR reference is to Christianity Doay coverage.  For those of us who were chronicling things here in Seattle there are other ways to cite the incident.

Mark Driscoll has let it be known that the Jimmy Evans prophesy given to him on October 20, 2014 is coming true now (relying on a Jimmy Evans prophesy rather than his own predictions post-Mars Hill may have some prudence, of a kind)

For those who don't recall ... 

https://wthrockmorton.com/2014/10/24/mark-driscoll-gets-prophetic-word-at-gateway-conference/
https://wthrockmorton.com/2015/12/16/remembering-the-prophecy-about-mark-driscolls-new-church-and-daddy-issues/
https://www.instagram.com/p/uayA_TmqUN/

Mark Driscoll has recently tweeted a clip of receiving a prophesy from Jimmy Evans on October 20, 2014.  It is not the custom of Wenatchee The Hatchet to refer to tweets but in this case when the tweet is Driscoll stating that Evans' prophesy is already coming true here in 2023 and providing a clip with a transcript, well, it's of documentary interest.

https://twitter.com/PastorMark/status/1635283361932652544

Most pivotal moment of my life. Already seeing Pastor Jimmy’s prophecy come true as we continue to reach tens of millions every year with Bible teaching.
7:15 AM · Mar 13, 2023  123.5K Views

transcript after the break

Sutton Turner posts notes from the 2014 elder investigation of formal charges against Mark Driscoll, discusses his discussions with Cosper, and mentions conversation with Throckmorton in January 2022 posts

If you listened to Cosper's The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill there wasn't much new in the January 7, 2022 post.  

https://suttonturner.com/blog/f/rise-fall-of-mars-hill-podcast—my-participation

Or at least, for me, there wasn't much new but then, you know, I have chronicled a lot of stuff about the former Mars Hill over the years.

But this post ... there's a lot of material to it, notes from the investigation of 2014.  

https://suttonturner.com/blog/f/investigating-the-formal-charges-mark-driscollmars-hill-church

Warren Throckmorton has noted the post and has left it at that for now.
https://www.wthrockmorton.com/2022/01/13/sutton-turner-releases-notes-from-the-2014-mark-driscoll-elder-investigation/

"It's good to have you back" in Driscoll's accounts of crises of power and accountability as a public preacher, revisiting the 2007 Mars Hill trials of Petry and Meyer and Driscoll's post-MH resignation account of a family conversation

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. 

The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill--"The Tempest"--some observations and thoughts

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/podcasts/rise-and-fall-of-mars-hill/tempest-mars-hill-driscoll.html

 

There's an awful lot of material in 2.5 hours of podcast and at the moment I'm sharing a few things that jumped out for me.

Christianity Today reports 39 (41 as of 7-28) former Mars Hill pastors state Mark Driscoll unfit for ministry, and within minutes Driscoll tweets a link to a story about how this one total stranger pastor podcast fan of his had a vision and that confirmed that moving to Arizona was the will of God

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2021/july/mars-hill-elders-letter-mark-driscoll-pastor-resign-trinity.html

Their statement also includes a never-before-released document from October 2014 that details how the church investigation, conducted by members of the elder board at the direction of Mars Hill’s board of overseers, found Driscoll to be quick-tempered, arrogant, and domineering.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/assets/22730.pdf

Based on my own reading and study of Mars Hill Church history the statement was actually released, or rather leaked, some time ago.

https://www.wthrockmorton.com/2020/02/20/from-the-past-the-mars-hill-church-board-of-elders-wanted-mark-driscoll-out-of-ministry/

Warren Throckmorton published a statement from former MHC pastor Andrew Lisi, whose departure from the U District campus was (sort of) documented here around March 2014 (now with better archive.org linkage)

Warren Throckmorton has published the following:

https://www.wthrockmorton.com/2021/07/01/a-former-mars-hill-church-pastor-speaks-out-about-mark-driscoll/

Andrew Lisi was involved at Mars Hill Church from December 2011 to March, 2014. During that time, he was an Executive Pastor, Community Groups Pastor and Biblical Living Pastor at three different campus churches (Downtown, U-District and West Seatte). When Andrew resigned, allegations of pastoral abuse and wrongdoing had started to surface against lead pastor Mark Driscoll.

Andrew recently reached out to me with a letter of concern he wrote to the Executive Elders of Mars Hill Church at the time of his resignation (Dave Bruskas, Sutton Turner, and Mark Driscoll). The letter expressed many of his reasons for leaving. He contacted me in response to the recent reports from former members of The Trinity Church in Phoenix. Andrew sees The Trinity Church reports as history repeating itself. He also hopes to raise awareness about the fact that the investigating board of elders at Mars Hill declared Mark Driscoll to be disqualified from ministry in 2014. Driscoll first agreed to undergo a restoration process but abruptly quit before he started it.   ...

For those who want to read the full March 2, 2014 letter Andrew Lisi wrote, go here

https://www.wthrockmorton.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Andrew-Lisi-Grievance-Letter.pdf

revisiting Mark Driscoll's resignation from the presidency of Acts 29 and withdrawal from the Gospel Coalition

Even though it has only been a few years since Mark Driscoll resigned from Mars Hill there can be some confusion and misremembering as to whether Acts 29 removed Mark Driscoll and when and whether or not The Gospel Coalition removed Mark Driscoll.  Acts 29 didn't remove Driscoll and Mars Hill until 2014.  Previously, in 2012, Mark Driscoll himself announced he was withdrawing from presidency of Acts 29 and withdrawing completely from The Gospel Coalition.  It may be useful to keep in mind that the first quarter of 2012 saw Mark Driscoll shaking hands with T. D. Jakes as a trinitarian; the Andrew Lamb disciplinary situation became news; Real Marriage became a NYT bestseller; and there were plans to keep expanding Mars Hill.

Sutton Turner clarifies two questions regarding "bullet proof vest?" and severance pay correction, there was a severance pay some time after a Ballard sale

While I had not intended to post about this topic until I had more time to assemble background material, Turner has published the interview in two parts and also, more recently, published a clarifying statement.  Plus, this particular sunny Sunday the heat proper has not kicked in yet, so before it gets into the early 90s, let's get this out of the way. 

For those who haven't read the interview ... 

https://investyourgifts.com/honest-answers-1/
https://investyourgifts.com/honest-answers-2/

https://www.wthrockmorton.com/2020/07/28/blog-theme-mars-hill-church-interview-with-dave-bruskas-and-sutton-turner/  

https://www.wthrockmorton.com/2020/07/30/blog-theme-mars-hill-church-interview-with-sutton-turner-and-dave-bruskas-part-two/ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkPwP4ng5l4&t=1308s 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWzR1WV91qo

Discussing the interview itself is still an incubating project. However, I want to highlight that there have since been two clarifications from Turner at his blog, published August 5, 2020.  There were two points Turner wanted to clarify, corrections sent his way about two questions: 1) did Driscoll wear a bulletproof vest? (Turner and Bruskas couldn't remember ever seeing that) and 2) what severance payout did Driscoll get after resignation (Turner didn't recall there being the funds for such a thing in later 2014 while he was still there).  There are corrections given by Turner to both those statements and it is those corrections we'll look at in some detail. I'm aware that some view Turner or Bruskas or both as spinning things.  That's possible but ... having chronicled the life and times of Mars Hill off and on for ... a decade ... Turner's corrections do not contradict anything I've managed to document here and the corrections he's given show that, as he admitted in the larger interview, there WAS stuff he didn't have access to on some questions.  So ... read Turner's statement that is reproduced after the break if you want to read more:

https://investyourgifts.com/clarification/

notes on Ep 8 of Older Pastor/Younger Pastor--Sutton Turner confirms that Mark Driscoll has blocked him across social media and won't talk to him in any capacity, and some other things

I thought it was going to be a seven episode run but there are eight episodes.
https://amicalled.com/pastoral-lessons-from-mars-hill-church-e8-lessons-on-recovering-after-crisis/
What is more, Sutton Turner has published the transcript of episode 8
https://investyourgifts.com/recovering-after-crisis/
Ah, thanks!  That sure beats Wenatchee The Hatchet having to spend a uncounted hours transcribing things like Mark Driscoll's 2008 spiritual warfare series before being able to do any analysis of it!

Excerpts from and thoughts/notes on Episode 8 are below:

a brief survey of the Mars Hill Church spin-off campuses most of them are still active, although former MHC PDX closed last year via merger and former MHC EVE merged/closed this year

It's admittedly easier to do an April 2020 update on which former Mars Hill Church campuses are still functional as organizations than to try to give an update on all of the guys who were at one point listed as elders at Mars Hill.  That may still manage to get assembled but regular readers of the blog know that Wenatchee The Hatchet has tried to shift between 2015 and 2020 back toward writing about all the sorts of stuff the blog was intended to discuss until a long stretch between about 2010 to 2015 when the blog focused pretty intensively on the peak and demise and associated history of the former Mars Hill Church. 

So, for those who don't know or remembered things differently, most of the Mars Hill campuses survived, though a few merged, and many of them are still functioning to this day as churches.  Rather than attempt to give you a blow-by-blow history of each and every campus here in 2020 (which is impossible, even for WtH) here are tags of indexed posts that let you investigate the campus you want to know about.  Comments are always in moderation and there's no assurance they will get published but if you have updates on campuses or leaders you can feel free to post a comment here and mention if you do not want it to get published and you only want to provide info.  I've gotten a few of those over the years. 

Usual guidelines regarding public figures and defamation apply, folks.  Every once in a while I've gotten comments from people with scores to settle and while some of the guys who were in leadership at MHC who were not Driscoll caused some serious relational damage this post is intended to be a stopping point for people interested in the campuses and their current activity or closure.  A series on former MHC leaders and what they're up to or if they're still in ministry is something, maybe, for another time. 

Albuquerque (became North Church)
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/search/label/albuquerque

ballard  (closed, real estate acquired by Quest Church)
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/search/label/ballard

bellevue (active as Doxa Church Bellevue)
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/search/label/bellevue

downtown (merged with MHC Ballard and U-District which became Cross and Crown Church)
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/search/label/downtown

olympia (Harbor Church Olympia, still active)
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/search/label/olympia

portland (merged with Door of Hope in Portland, no longer exists)
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/search/label/portland

rainier valley (closed)
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/search/label/rainier%20valley

sammamish (real estate sold, closed)
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/search/label/sammamish

shoreline (active as Sound City Bible Church)
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/search/label/shoreline

spokane (Redemption Spokane, still active)
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/search/label/spokane

tacoma (still active as of April 2020, and has or had church plant for South Puget Sound planned)
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/search/label/tacoma

Wedgewood/Lake City
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2012/08/mars-hill-wedgwoodlake-city-open-and.html

west seattle (Trinity West Seattle, still active)
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/search/label/west%20seattle

University District (see above regarding Ballard and Downtown)
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/search/label/U%20district

Gerry Breshears on the Mars Hill implosion--talks about the need for challenging leaders without explaining whether or not he did that himself ten years ago when he was co-authoring books with Driscoll

Someone sent this along, a podcast interview with Gerry Breshears for a podcast from April 30, 2018, who talks about the Mars Hill experience at about 30 minutes in.

It dates back to April 30, 2018.  Took a while to get around to this one.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/everything-in-between/id1347633418?mt=2
https://www.buzzsprout.com/154766/692432

interview Breshears did with Daniel Kunkel and Scott Bolin

30:10
Breshears:

Boy, big issue there. One of the things I think is super important is that, when you have power, it has to be done in close relationship with people. And as churches grow really quickly, as Mars Hill did, in the 2011-2013 year era, what ended up happening was that they (this is my judgment and it may not be right), as the churches grew quickly they didn't have pastors lead the churches. So they end up going with they centralized the preaching and some of those end of things to provide high quality teaching and other kinds of resources, and they went with more administrators for the campuses. And because the centralization of key things because of the very fast-growing church I think that left things vulnerable to needs not being met and people being hurt. 

That's not unique to Mars Hill, by a long ways. Any church that grows quickly has a similar kind of thing. You've got to remain pastoral with people in the process. And I know Mark had that as an agenda. He was working hard, because we were working with him to try to get that pastoral training, but it was just going too quick to do it. 

31:36
So that's one thing I learned.

Another ... just an observation I look at there, is that when you're doing pastoral work it's really, really important to, I'm not going in the right direction let me think just a second, one of the things that was impacted at Mars Hill which is very where I'm at is leadership is always a team thing and when leadership comes into too small a group or a single person there are real dangers there. Now, again, I know Mark knew this because we were, we're friends, but he was so much the center of what was happening with his unique giftings and leadership abilities, 

And the TEAM thing, I think, is essential.  So where I look at things (and this is me talking) Ephesians 4:11 gives us five types of leaders, I think.  So apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, shepherd and teacher and I think every leadership board of a church or a Christian organization should have those different types of leaders represented.

32:54
So you get a guy like Mark and he is an incredible apostolic leader, uniquely gifted. He's got a huge evangelistic heart but what he needs around him is somebody who's a pastor, who really cares about the hurts of people; and around that he needs someone who is an administrator who thinks in processes and they drive each other absolutely crazy.  And so Mark tried to make that happen but it just wasn't as effective because the church was growing so quickly. But I think that's a thing, the TEAM approach to leadership with conflicting personality types actually makes it work better. 

But you have to go through the constructive criticizm, the hopefully creative conflicts at the front end not at the back end. So that would be a big lesson in leadership is always a team thing and let APEST model we call it this day--it might be better to call it the PASTE model, reordering the letters, it really holds things together well--I think that's a good thing.  

34:04
Speaking of Driscoll directly, I'm watching what's happening at Trinity Church down in Scottsdale, totally different church than Mars Hill. Mars Hill began as a group of angry young men on a mission and that's what they drew, angry young men. I know all these guys. I was the one who was around from the very beginning, very closely involved and that was kinda who drew in. They were on a mission, they were angry about stuff and that breeds things. 

34:33
Mark tried to change the leadership structure when he went on his father-leaves-a-legacy toward the end but it didn't, the church didn't get changed, I think. And what I'm seeing now with what Mark is doing at Trinity is he's looked at this as a family.  He still does great hour-long sermons but, just to indicate how different things are, at the end of each of his sermons Grace comes up on stage and says whatever she wants to the church and she says a mother and the last thing that happens in the church service is she prays a prayer of blessing over the entire congregation, as a mother. That's not angry men on a mission, that's a family that's bringing deep change in people's lives. 

35:14
I think Mark's learned a lot, as painful as it was, from the Mars Hill falling apart and now he's on a path, and I'll be real curious to see what it's going to look like two or three years from now. I think Mark's learned a lot.  I know he did and we've talked. 
...


We'll get to this material in a bit but let's establish for the record that Breshears has let it be known he updated some books he co-authored with Driscoll a while back.

http://breshears.net/older-journaling/  

... 

February 19, 2017

For some reason I have been thinking of changes in the decade from age 60 to 70. A year ago I was deeply engaged in writing Death by Love. I really hate writing but God called me to do it. The task ended up being four books, all of which are now out of print ended as part of the collapse of Mars Hill Church. But Mark and I have redone Doctrine and it’s coming out as a daily devotional from his web site and Facebook page, getting tens of thousands of reads. It seems likely it will be published as a 365 day devotional book – but more writing work required for that – and I still hate writing!

...

If the first print runs of Driscoll-Breshears books sold out perhaps someone can confirm that.  Why books that seemed to be at least moderately popular went out of print can, perhaps, be explained by folks with industry knowledge about how these things work.  But it seems the gist of Breshears' comments in February 2017 about what was going on in 2016 seems to have been that he was revising books he co-authored with Mark Driscoll.   There's some connection between the Driscoll/Breshears books going out of print associated with the collapse of Mars Hill Church but exactly what the connection could have been is unclear.

The thing about Death By Love that we've discussed before is that by Mark Driscoll's account in 2006 at The Resurgence he was almost done writing the book and there's nary a mention of Breshears at all.

http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2014/07/a-blast-from-past-resurgence-blog-post.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20061025035511/http://www.theresurgence.com/md_blog_2006-09-19_its_always_something_at_mars_hill_church

...We are still giving 10 percent of our money to help lead the Acts 29 Church Planting Network. I'm still writing a lot, including a book titled Death by Love on the subject of the cross that is nearing completion. [fourteenth paragraph]
...
To be sure, Driscoll did mention co-authoring Death by Love with Breshears in his extensive multi-hour teaching marathon on spiritual warfare, it's just there wasn't mention of Breshears as a co-author two years earlier.  By Mark Driscoll's account in September 2006 Death by Love was nearing completion. We also have a direct statement from Breshears about how he hates writing.  While I'm not interested in debating the claim that God told Breshears to write the books it would be worthwhile to revisit that the Driscoll/Breshears books read more like Driscoll than Breshears, at least to me. 

https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2015/01/2-5-2008-spiritual-warfare-part-3-part_53.html

Breshears was also not the one Janet Mefferd confronted on air in an interview about whether or not she believed he had plagiarized the works of others. 

Nevertheless, Death by Love was part of a set of controversies connected to citation errors in Mark Driscoll books on the one hand and historical inaccuracies on the other.

http://heidelblog.net/2013/12/the-ninth-commandment-and-the-new-media/
https://www.wthrockmorton.com/2013/12/16/historical-problems-in-mark-driscolls-death-by-love/
https://www.wthrockmorton.com/2014/02/20/mark-driscolls-citation-errors-at-a-glance/
https://www.wthrockmorton.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Driscollgridfinal.pdf

Compared to the problems found in the first print edition of Real Marriage, Death by Love turned out to be relatively smaller-scale as charted things went.  

But ... since the books that Breshears and Driscoll co-authored seemed to have been given copyrights to Driscoll and Breshears rather than to Mars Hill Church it's actually not at all clear why the books should have gone out of print or stopped being printed simply because Mars Hill Church was dissolved as a legal entity.  Isn't it a commonplace for literary estates to continue on, for instance?

Now, let's get back to the comparison and contrast Breshears made about Mars Hill being founded by angry young men whereas The Trinity Church is more founded by a family.  There's some trouble with that, which is simply that by 2011 with God's Work, Our Witness, it would be easy to get the impression from that fundraising film/documentary that the story of Mars Hill was the story of the Driscoll family, seeing as Mark and Grace Driscoll made appearances and one Joe and one Debbie appeared, too, to share about Mark Driscoll's high school accomplishments.

For that matter, Driscoll described the joys of family doing ministry together in Mars Hill all the way back in 2001.

http://download.marshill.se/files/2001/01/21/20010121_fishes-and-loaves_sd_audio.mp3
FISHES AND LOAVES
Part 12 of The Gospel of John
Pastor Mark Driscoll | John 6:1-14 | January 21, 2001
...
32.00
And I remember – I’ll tell you one story that kind of just sort of summarizes how I view this. My daughter was upstairs. She was about two-years-old taking her nap, and she was laying in her bed sleeping away – the bed that her grandmother had given her. She came downstairs and I was meeting with a guy who was sitting on my couch really struggling with a sin. He had been a child molester and was wondering whether or not he could become a Christian and whether God could forgive him of what he had done.And if you know me, I have very little compassion on men, especially men who take advantage of women and children. So this was really hard for me, especially being a first time father with a little daughter that I adored. And I was like, “You know, scripture says though that Christ has died for all our sins and there’s nothing that is beyond God’s grace in Christ. There’s nothing that God can’t forgive you of.”

And he’s crying. He says, “Do you really think that that’s possible? Do you really think that I could be forgiven for this?”

And it was interesting because my daughter came downstairs from her nap, and he was sitting on the couch that was given to us, and she looked at him and she saw him crying and she said, “Daddy, why is he crying?”

I said, “Well because he sinned. He did a bad thing and he feels bad about that.”

And she says, “Well we should pray for him.” So she climbs up on his lap and prays for him. She had no idea why he was crying, but I thought, “Man, if this is not the whole world coming together right here.” I mean it’s fishes and loaves. Somebody helped us get this house. Somebody gave us that couch. My daughter comes downstairs, sits on his lap, and then all of a sudden God’s grace gets multiplied right in the life of someone who’s very guilty of their sin, but now God has given them grace through a little girl and she didn’t even know she was doing it. She just thought she was praying for someone in need. [emphases added]

We have seen this over and over and over. It’s just amazing. ...

http://download.marshill.se/files/misc/20010407_womens-meeting-part-3_sd_audio.mp3
2001-04-07 Women's Meeting Part 3
answering a question
41:39
Best case scenario, I think, in ministry, is husband and wife working together. Beautiful. Like Priscilla and Aquilla, that's ideal to me because it's not good for the man to be alone, that includes ministry. So the wife is very helpful when she's a good fit. All our elders have wives that I admire and that I hope you would admire because they're admirable women. [emphasis added] And that's what it talks about in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, that the elders should be a certain way and so should their wives, because those women will know everything that is going on in the church; they will have more responsibility and have a higher profile. 

That's why, you know, how many of your are in a home group with one of the elders? Some of you are. You should be. The way we set those up is that the elders are opening up their homes and teaching with their wives so that you can get to know them in a natural context.  That's the way it's generally working. And the reason is that because we feel that the husbands and the wives working together serve for the best model of how the church should work. It should NOT be 'the wife stays home with the children and the husband goes out and does ministry', it's that the WHOLE family does ministry TOGETHER. [emphases added] Our children are a part of our ministry. It's great. I love it. I love it when people come over and my daughter opens the door and welcomes them, sits them down--if you've been at my house you know how this works, she's little Miss Hospitality.

43:04
Now her big thing before our Tuesday night study [is], she likes to open it in prayer, and then she likes to take the children upstairs and be the little hostess, which is great.  We have seen, I have seen, my daughter minister to people. I saw her, on one occasion, share the Gospel with a convicted pedophile, which was beautiful.  She was about, I think, right around about three years of age. About two and a half, three years of age. We were talking and he wanted to know as to whether or not God could forgive him for his sin. She came downstairs from her nap, saw him crying on the couch, and sat on his lap and asked me why he was said and I told her that he'd committed a sin against God and so she prayed for him. 

And so I view my daughter as having a spiritual gift, or two or three, and I see her knowing Christ, that means I see evidence of the spirit of God in her. That means she is a member of this church and she is a part of this church and that every part, as Paul says, is necessary and vital. So to kick her out, or to kick the women out, or to kick the children out, and relegate them to some secondary position, it harms the church and it harms them.  

Best case scenario--husband, wife, kids--doing the Gospel together as a family with Dad functioning as the pastor of that congregation. That's best case scenario.  [emphasis added]

If that doesn't happen because the man abdicates his responsibility or he sins, we'll put scenarios in to help work around that. 
...
44:45
You'll get bored in your life if all you have is just you and your husband. When you're serving Christ and doing things NOW your life is going somewhere. You're doing something and it's fun. Most of my wife and my conversations are about OTHER people that are coming to Christ. People who are getting married. People who are having children. People who are learning Scripture. People who are getting their life together by God's grace. It's great because we don't get bored. There's always something to do. There's always something that God is up to. 

By the 2006 book Confessions of a Reformission Rev a somewhat different account was shared.

Confessions of a Reformission Rev
Mark Driscoll, Zondervan 2006
ISBN-13: 978-0-310-27016-4
ISBN-10:0-310-27016-2
CHAPTER FOUR 150-350 PEOPLE

page 101-102
During this season my wife, Grace, also started to experience a lot of serious medical problems. her job was very stressful, and between her long hours at the office and long hours at the church, her body started breaking down. I felt tremendousy convicted that I had sinned against my wife and had violated the spirit of 1 Timothy 5:8, which says that if a man does not provide for his family he has denied his faith and has acted in a manner worse than an unbeliever. I repented to Grace for my sin of not making enough money and having her shoulder any of the financial burden for our family.  We did not yet have elders installed in the church but did have an advisory council in place, and I asked them for a small monthly stipend to help us make ends meet, and I supplemented our income with outside support and an occasional speaking engagement.

Shortly thereafter, Grace gave birth to our first child, my sweetie-pie Ashley. Up to this point Grace had continuously poured endless hours into the church. She taught a women's Bible study, mentored many young women, oversaw hospitality on Sundays, coordinated meals for new moms recovering from birth, and organized all of the bridal and baby showers. Grace's dad had planted a church before she was born and has remained there for more than forty years. Her heart for ministry and willingness to serve was amazing. But as our church grew, I felt I was losing my wife because we were both putting so many hours into the church that we were not connecting as a couple like we should have. I found myself getting bitter against her because she would spend her time caring for our child and caring for our church but was somewhat negligent of me. 

I explained to Grace that her primary ministry was to me, our child, and the management of our home and that I needed her to pull back from the church work to focus on what mattered most.  She resisted a bit at first, but no one took care of me but her.  And the best thing she could do for the church was to make sure that we had a good marriage and godly children as an example for other people in the church to follow.  [emphases added] It was the first time that I remember actually admitting my need for help to anyone.  It was tough. But I feared that if we did not put our marriage and children above the demands of the church, we would end up with the lukewarm, distant marriage that so many pastors have because they treat their churches as mistresses that they are more passionate about than their brides.
...
Although I was frustrated with both my wife and church, I had to own the fact that they were both under my leadership and that I had obviously done a poor job of organizing things to function effectively.  [emphasis added] And since we did not yet have elders formally in place there was no one to stop me from implementing dumb ideas like the 9:00p.m. church service.  So I decided to come to firmer convictions on church government and structure so that I could establish the founding framework for what our church leadership would look like. 

CHAPTER FIVE, 350-1,000 PEOPLE
page 120
A friend in the church kindly allowed me to move into a large home he owned on a lease-to-own deal because I was too broke to qualify for anything but an outhouse. The seventy-year-old house had over three thousand square feet, seven bedrooms on three floors, and needed a ton of work because it had been neglected for many years as a rental home for college students. Grace and I and our daughter Ashley, three male renters who helped cover the mortgage, my study, and the church office all moved into the home. This put me on the job, literally, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, as the boundary between home and church was erased.

We ran the church out of my house for nearly two years, including leadership meetings and Bible studies for various groups on almost every night of the week. It was not uncommon to have over seventy people a week in our home. Grace got sucked right back into the church mess. She was a great host to our guests. But I started growing bitter toward her because I was again feeling neglected. [emphasis added]

Page 128
...
I was burned-out, underpaid, in debt, sexually frustrated due to an unspectacular sex life, under frequent demonic attack, and so stressed that my blood pressure hovered somewhere between heart-attack victim and mulch in the ground [emphasis added], and now found myself alone with an attractive woman in a foreign country. In retrospect, I think the decision I made in that moment was perhaps the most significant ministry decision I have ever made. ...

By 2008 Mark Driscoll had the following to say about his thoughts on those women in the history of Mars Hill who sought out friendship with his wife.  This excerpt is extensive and quoted at such length because it helps to demonstrate how much Mark Driscoll's stated views on his wife in ministry shifted as Mars Hill got bigger, or at least that's one possible explanation:

http://download.marshill.se/files/MH%20Audio/2008/20080205_the-devil_sd_audio.mp3
Spiritual Warfare part 2, The Devil
February 5, 2008
about 50 minutes in to the 1 hour mark. 

How about this one? Idle gossip and busybodying. 1 Timothy 5:11-15. This one is amazing. Ladies this one is especially for you. Some of you say, "Oh, it's not me." Yeah, it is. 1 Timothy 5:11-15, but refuse to enroll younger widows for when their passions draw them away from Christ they desire to marry and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith.  Besides that they learn to be idlers 

Women learn how to make a lot of free time. Going about from house to house. Well now it would be from email to email and from phone call to phone call. Technology makes idle busybodying far more effective than ever. 

And not only idlers but also gossips. They like to talk about people. How are you doing? What are you doing? And this isn't sisterly accountability, this is "I need to know what everybody's doing because I like to know what everybody's doing and then I can tell other people what other people are doing and then I can say, `Hey, you need to pray for so-and-so.' and I can make it sound spiritual so that when I'm gossiping and busy-bodying I'm doing so in a way that seems really Jesus-like." And busybodies, they need to know what everybody's doing. They need to know what everybody's doing, saying what they should not. So I would have younger widows marry, bear children and manage their household, right? Stay busy, and give the adversary (that's Satan) no occasion for slander. For some have already strayed after Satan. Hmm.

A woman who's a gossip and a busybody; a woman who has to put her nose in everybody's business and knows what everybody's going on; know what they're doing, she's working with Satan. Now I know most women would say, "No, no, no. I'm not Satanic, I'm concerned. I'm not Satanic, I'm an intercessor. I'm a prayer warrior. I'm not Satanic, I'm an accountability partner.  I'm not Satanic, I'm a concerned friend."  Okay, you're a Satanic intercessory prayer warrior accountability partner concerned friend but just start the whole list with "Satanic" so that we don't misunderstand your job description.  

Now there's a difference between someone inviting you into their life and saying, "I want to be friends, I want to have an accountable  relationship." and you pushing yourself into everyone's life, okay?  I'll tell you, in the history of Mars Hill, I mean, I have had to put up a firewall, a moat, guard dogs, and a high wall with barbed wire on top, and snipers behind it, around my wife. There are certain women who, they just need to know what Grace is doing and they are determined, they say things like, uh, "Hey, we need to have dinner with your family." [slight chuckle] No you don't. [emphasis added]

"Hey, we need to have coffee." No you don't.  "Hey, phone number." What? Nope. "Email." Nope.  Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. "Oh, come on." Nope.
"But I thought you were our pastor."
I am and my first lesson is to tell you you're Satanic. 

"Oh, come on, in our last church the pastor's wife [sob] she was my best friend and I got to talk to her all the time." 
Well, she was Satanic, too.  Give me her number, I'll call her and tell her. We'll help her out.
You ladies KNOW these women. Right? How many of you ladies know these women? They will try first with the hyper-spiritual, "Oh, praise the Lord! I'd love to pray for you. Let's get together. Let's do Christian community. Let's go to heart." If you decline, then they emotionally manipulate, [inhales, sobbing voice], "I thought we were friends, I thought you loved me. I don't have anybody to talk to." It's all manipulation. It's FEMALE manipulation.  Some of you ladies, right now? You think, "I can't believe he said that." It's all true. It's Satanic, Satanic. 

Paul says, "Don't be a busybody, stay busy." Right? Your husband, your kids, your family, your home, Jesus Christ. You got things to do. 

Busybodies stay busy inserting themselves into everyone else's life. In some churches there are certain women, if you call them, they'll know everything that's going on because, somehow, they know everything. There's a difference between being a woman who is invited into someone's life for friendship, prayer and accountability, and a woman who emotionally manipulates and is pushy and is sometimes hyperspiritual and demanding and forces herself in because she's a drama queen and has to be at the center of all the drama. That is a Satanic woman. 

You need to believe that and the worst thing you can do is accomodate it. Okay, we'll have you over for dinner once. And then, the next month, it's "Okay, buddy, we haven't been together in a month. We need to get together again. I'm sure a lot has happened in your life and I don't know what it is and I need to know because I need to know everything. I have a God complex of omniscience. I want to know everything about everybody." And what you find with these people, Paul says, they tend to be gossips, meaning you don't just talk to them, then they talk to other people.  "Well, did you know their marriage is struggling? Did you know that she's depressed?  Did you know that  she's post-partum?  Do you know that, sexually, her husband's impotent?" These are conversations I've heard in this building. Really?

Sometimes womens' ministry is the cesspool that this kind of activity flourishes in. Some have asked, "Why don't you have womens' ministry?" The answer is we do, but it's, you have to be very careful, it's like juggling knives. You put the wrong women in charge of womens' ministry, the drama queen, the gossip mama, all of a sudden all the women come together, tell her everything, she becomes the pseudo-elder  quasi-matriarch; she's got the dirt on everybody and sometimes the women all get together to rip on their husbands in the name of prayer requests. Happens all the time. Happens all the time.  [emphasis added] We have worked very hard so that the women who teach here are like Wendy Alsup who I really love and appreciate and respect. She's not like that. It is not that no woman should lead, that no woman should teach, that no woman should in a position of authority over other women  under the authority of their husband, Jesus and the elders it's just that the wrong women tend to want it. The wrong women tend to want it and they tend to want it for the wrong reasons. [emphasis added] And sometimes it's the humble woman, who isn't fighting to be the center of drama, control and power; who doesn't have to be up front; she's usually the one who is most capable and qualified.   

And for you single men as well I would say be very, very careful because if you're on staff at Mars Hill  (everything I say sounds terrible, this will just be added to the pile) there are certain women who will tell you, "I want to marry a pastor." Really? You should want to marry a Christian who loves Jesus, loves you, loves your kids should God give them to you. I've lectured enough Bible colleges and seminaries, the young women who come up and say, "I want to marry a pastor"  my immediate default question is, "Are you a gossip? Are you a busybody? Are you a drama queen?" "No. No, I feel called to serve the Lord."  Well, you can serve the Lord without being called to be a pastor's wife in fact, take it from me, it's easier to be a woman and serve the Lord than being married to a pastor.   

You single  guys, you gotta be careful, man. There are some women, they want to marry a pastor so they can be the center of power, authority; they can be the first lady;  everybody knows them, everybody wants to be their friend, everybody wants to tell them everything; and they can be the center of all the drama. Run for your life. Run for your life. Run for your life. It's Satanic. 
See?  I need you women to really search your own heart. Are you Satanic? Is this still part of your flesh, this sick desire in you to know everybody's business? I'm not saying you don't have friends but how much are you on the internet? How much time do you spend emailing? How much time do you spend crying and freaking out and knowing everybody's business and on the phone and having to meet with people because, "Did you know so-and-so did such-and-such and so-and-so is feeling this way and did you?" Are you the center of LOTS of activity? Why? It's Satanic. It's Satanic. I think I've made my point

There's a potentially ironic juxtaposition between Mark Driscoll's comments about womens' ministry being "like juggling knives"; and particularly his remarks on women as gossips and womens' ministry as the cesspool of a church ministry within the 2008 spiritual warfare teaching marathon, inasmuch as the man who said "I see things" shared stories of stuff he claimed to have seen as if they were on a television screen or like reading people's mail that if conveyed by other people turned out to be gossip--the irony is in what seems to have been a double-standardized measure of what gossip and speculation could be defined as.  

So despite Breshears talking about having been around Mars Hill founders from the earlier days it would actually seem as though Mark Driscoll indicated he thought it was ideal for the whole family to participate in church ministry circa 2000-2001 but by 2008 he was saying very different things.  

Later in 2008 Driscoll shared the following in a sermon from The Peasant Princess series.

http://download.marshill.se/files/2008/09/28/20080928_sweet-to-my-taste_sd_audio.mp3
SWEET TO MY TASTE
part 2 of The Peasant Princess
Pastor Mark Driscoll | Song of Songs 1:8 - 2:7 | September 28, 2008
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yRrAL8urqM]

... and this is an ENORMOUS part of my relationship with Grace.  I mean I still remember when I first started seeing her she, uh, she went off to college, I was still in high school and they ran out of housing so they put her in a guys' dorm. And I was like, "What!?" so I got in the car and I drove to the university and I knocked on all the doors of all the guys on her floor. "Hi. My name is Mark. I love this woman. If anyone touches her, talks to her, thinks about talking about touching her I will beat them. Literally I threatened twenty guys. Just knocked on every door. No way she's gonna get messed with. No way.

[to go by the audience laughter Mark Driscoll threatening twenty guys with assault was both chivalrous and funny, disappointing, to put it nicely]

Later on when she transferred to another university, WSU, she's five hours away. And she moved out there and her phone wasn't hooked up yet and we didn't have cell phones. And I told her, "When you get there, go to a pay phone. Call me. Let me know you got there safe."  Well she ... didn't call so I got in the car and I drove there. Five hours.  The day I had to work. And I knocked on the door. She answered it and I said, "Whu, you didn't call." She said, "I forgot." I said, "Are you okay?" She said, "I'm okay." So, okay, good, I got in the car and I drove home. Just checking. Six hundred miles.  Who cares? It's Grace. 

[this has been commented on by others and so it's merely worth noting that a cumulative ten hour road trip because Grace didn't call him sounds weird]

... even emotionally, people send her nasty emails, text messages, talk trash about me, leave the church and want to take parting shots at her. She has nothing to do with any of it. So I even put a white/black list on her email and some people so some people can email her and the rest come to me. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. So that she doesn't have to feel bad because people are taking shots at her. That's my girl. No shots. That's the rule. 

So overall it seems as though there was a shift from "ministry as a family" as an expressed ethos and praxis on the part of Mark Driscoll to something else ... .

Now even if we were to set all that aside let's note that in quoting so much material from 2008 I'm quoting Mark Driscoll from the period in which Breshears had begun to be a co-author with Mark Driscoll.  Breshears didn't really say much to address things like the following:

https://refundamentalism.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/mark-driscoll-despised-his-elders/


 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]

You probably won't be able to even find the Acts 29 audio these days and even a few years ago the audio was redacted to the point where the materials quoted above were not necessarily even in the audio you could download.  It had become apparent by 2012 and through a stretch of 2013 that Mars Hill leadership was redacting and purging material.  They were not necessarily redacting and purging material faster than, say, Wenatchee The Hatchet could transcribe and publicly discuss material, but purging was starting to seem commonplace in the Mars Hill media library.  So maybe this material is stuff Breshears actually wouldn't have known about. 

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
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. 

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.”

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]

A lot does come down to Mark Driscoll's chuckling observation about what he called a pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus that, by God's grace, would be a mountain by the time Mark Driscoll and whoever else was on mission with him would be done.

Which is why it's significant that there is no Mars hill now.  It is also significant, however, that for all of Breshears' talk about how this time it's different because this time it's founded by or as a family, well, that's easy to say but for those who were part of Mars Hill in its actual foundational years could Breshears seriously claim they didn't see themselves as having a kind of spiritual family? 

If Breshears was around Mars Hill during the period in which Mark Driscoll talked about putting guys through the woodchipper, or letting people sign a contract with Result Source to promote Real Marriage, how certain can Breshears be that "this time" things really are different because the whole family is involved?  A lot of the extended Driscoll family was involved in Mars Hill, wasn't it?  What's different?  Moving from a formally blue state like Washington (but only western Washington if we're going to break it down by electors and so forth) to a redder state like Arizona?  Why should that be?  Twenty years ago it was almost as if Mark Driscoll thrived on adversarial coverage like an article in Mother Jones.

It's not necessarily clear that just because Breshears says things are different now that they actually are different.  Driscoll wrote back in 2010 about reasons why he wasn't going anywhere (i.e., wasn't going to leave Seattle)

http://marshill.se/marshill/2010/07/06/6-reasons-why-im-not-going-anywhere

... 

1. Mars Hill is very healthy place for us to flourish, and we love our church. Furthermore, that my parents, Grace’s parents, one of my brothers and his family, along with two of my sisters and their families all attend Mars Hill is a unique gift. Our family is surrounded by the loving support of our church family as well as our extended relatives who are also part of our church family.
2. I will be back because we believe God is doing something unique that we delight in being a part of. Much grace and provision has been poured out on us. I do not believe that God blesses a man, but rather God blesses his Word, his people, and his Church. I simply do not believe I could repeat what we are enjoying at Mars Hill by doing ministry anywhere else. I say this not to boast of the ministry we enjoy, but to boast in all the grace that God has given us and to recognize that it is indeed gracious.
3. The multi-campus strategy we are using is sustainable and healthy. Being able to distribute as campuses of various sizes and personalities is a bit like the joy of being a father watching children with various resemblances but distinct personalities grow up. Having such a large team of elders, deacons, and members deployed across the campuses is a great relief to me as I see us taking better care of more people than we have ever been able to.
4. My heart is here. While I enjoy the opportunities for ministry that God grants outside of Mars Hill, were I allowed to only do one thing, I would easily and gladly choose to be an elder at Mars Hill, preaching God’s Word and shepherding God’s people. I have zero interest in doing anything other than being a pastor and have zero interest in being a pastor anywhere else. I am very content with where I am and what I am doing, and am very passionate about continuing to press forward together for more people worshiping Jesus more deeply.

What happened?  What transpired between 2010 and 2014 that Driscoll pulled up stakes and left the Washington area?  Merely saying some jokey quip about being like crash test dummies in a car without air bags wraps Mark Driscoll in family, but the conflicts that surrounded Mark Driscoll probably had more to do with things Mark Driscoll said and did.  If anything the new church raises a question as to why, given how publicly Driscoll said he worried about his family, he let them, in his semi-jocular accounts in the last few years, charge full speed into founding the new church .. . not that they're necessarily listed as legal officers of said church.  Breshears is certianly able to believe this time is going to be different but in saying so he hasn't really addressed what Driscoll learned or, more pressingly, why he may have needed to learn whatever it was we're not clearly told he learned.

So ... here we are in 2018 and he's in Arizona.  Breshears has talked as if this time will be different but if he was around for the era of Mars Hill and its implosion how certain can he be that "this time" will end differently? 

recent Gospel Coalition piece discusses how Acts 29 survived the collapse of Mars Hill and the departure of Driscoll, but still leaves a few large chunks of its history a little blank

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/how-acts-29-survived-and-thrived-after-the-collapse-of-mars-hill/

On the one hand, it's hard to imagine Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra might have been able to find anyone willing to address the power transfer that occurred in 2005 through which David Nicholas stopped being the founder and/or leader of Acts 29 and Mark Driscoll took over.

...
It was no accident that in the early days, Acts 29 (named after the desire to be part of the continuing story of the early church) planters channeled Driscoll’s boldness and blue jeans.

The megachurch pastor was the front man for the church-planting network founded by his mentor David Nicholas, taking over as president around 2005 and moving the headquarters from Nicholas’s church in Boca Raton, Florida, to Mars Hill Church in Seattle. There it was housed in Mars Hill’s offices and primarily funded by its income.

Driscoll’s direct style of communication, charismatic personality, and stunning success with his own church drew young planters who “were serious about the Bible but didn’t feel at home in the rigid Reformed world,” Chandler said.

Chandler was one of them. Well on his way to growing his own megachurch in a Dallas suburb, he was interested enough in Acts 29’s 98 percent church-viability rate to send his youth pastor to check it out. Soon after, Driscoll asked Chandler to come on board.

...

The tricky thing is that David Nicholas might have come across as some kind of mentor doing a short period of time in which he had the "he's my pastor, you know" stamp of acceptance from Mark Driscoll but that stamp was also assigned to Darrin Patrick around the 2008 period.  At other times Kappas played a role and at other times Hutcherson had some kind of mentoring/assistance role.  Depending on the stage of Mars Hill history there were a number of people mentioned by Driscoll as having advisory or mentoring roles, including his father-in-law Gib Martin.  But who got that label could seem to be ... how to put this delicately, context sensitive. 

So on the whole it's not hard to imagine that absolutely nobody who was present for the power transition in 2005 felt like saying anything quotable for the record, but this 2005 power transfer is one of the most mysterious and opaque parts of the history of Acts 29. 

What this article establishes that corresponds to my own research is that David Nicholas, according to the earliest available published/written sources, was the sole founder of Acts 29.  How Mark Driscoll ever came to be co-credited as co-founding the organization could be a story in itself, but one that I'm not sure we'll ever get to see published (if at all) at The Gospel Coalition unless some Acts 29 associated people get bolder. 

That men associated with leadership at Acts 29 skewed on the younger side and may have been known more for entrepreneurial drive than emotional or spiritual maturity could be the subject of a few academic monographs on the subject of missiology if anybody out there wanted to write such books but the tenor of material published at The Gospel Coalition about Acts 29 so far does not invite optimism that its associates or contributors are ... ideally situated to tackle such projects.

Then we get this skeletal description of the transition from Acts 29 1.0 to 2.0.

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.”

The first thing that needs to be pointed out was that from 2007 to 2012 Scott Thomas, one of the executive elders at Mars Hill Church during the same general period, was president of Acts 29.

In case people didn't remember some of this stuff.
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2012/03/scott-thomas-announces-departure-from.html
http://www.acts29network.org/acts-29-blog/a-letter-from-scott-thomas/

I am thrilled that Acts 29 is moving to Dallas and will be led by my friend, Pastor Matt Chandler. I think it is good for the network that other leaders will add different perspectives, nuances, and emphases. It will only be a better network as healthy, reproducing churches will continue to plant churches for the glory of God.


I was honored to serve in Acts 29 as God allowed some amazing outcomes in spite of man’s feeble efforts. I never deserved the opportunity. I never deserved the love of so many planters. I never deserved the fruitfulness God enabled.


But I wasn’t planning to stay forever. I was anticipating a change for my ministry in the future, and the move to Dallas makes it a perfect time to allow new leadership to emerge. I am looking forward with great anticipation how God is going to shape the network and the planters to effectively pursue His mission with greater Spirit-empowerment and clearer gospel purposes.


[Updated March 28, 2012 at 3:30 pm]

I am deeply thankful for the generosity of Mars Hill Church, the unity of the Acts 29 Board, and for the friendship of Mark Driscoll. I am especially grateful for the hundreds of church planters in Acts 29 who I had the honor of pastoring and leading.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/mark-driscoll-steps-down-as-leader-of-acts-29-resigns-from-gospel-coalition-72283/


"There are few things that excite me like planting churches and seeing people come to know, love, and mature in Christ. So, this task allows me to serve in an area of my passion," he said. "We are in the process of transitioning Acts 29 from Seattle to Dallas. At present that involves gathering all of the information we can on Acts 29 's budget, processes, setting up Acts 29 legally in Texas, etc."


Pastor Scott Thomas, who was a board member and director of the group at one time, was not mentioned in Driscoll's letter, but Chandler wrote that Thomas was "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," Chandler wrote.

For a relatively short overview of that.
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2012/04/chandler-on-mars-hill-a29-was-so-kind.html

There's a somewhat long comment trail (for this blog, anyway) at that post.  Somebody thought that Wenatchee The Hatchet was trying to drum up some kind of needless controversy.  In light of everything that has transpired since 2012 with Mark Driscoll's removal from Acts 29 and resignation from Mars Hill I don't think that my highlighting the somewhat alarming overlap of MH leadership with A29 leadership to a point where at a number of intervals it was hard to know where MH stopped and A29 was a problem.  If anything the problem was one Matt Chandler would note later in conversations with the press.

But when this new piece describes how Driscoll saw the weaknesses in Acts 29 and knew he wasn't the person to fix them that could be misunderstood by readers ignorant of Acts 29 history as some indication that Mark Driscoll had been president of Acts 29 through the 2007-2012 period when it can be fairly readily established by his own testimony and that of others that he wasn't.

And ... what happened to Darrin Patrick?   He was removed, wasn't he, from Acts 29 leadership and leadership at The Journey about a year ago, wasn't he?

There's something else, the comment in the article about how Mars Hill ended up fitting the bill for Acts 29 and that its leaders had some sore feelings about that.  By early 2012, let's recall, there was a memo inside Mars Hill from Sutton Turner that explained that Mars Hill itself was on the brink of what he regarded as something close to fiscal disaster.

https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2014/09/warren-throckmorton-publishes-march.html
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2014/09/warren-throckmorton-publishes-march_10.html
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2014/09/warren-throckmorton-publishes-march_74.html
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2014/09/warren-throckmorton-publishes-march_66.html
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2014/09/and-part-5-hole-we-are-in-today-was-set.html

By early 2012 Mars Hill was, at least by some accounts, not really situated in the midst of launching multiple new campuses and promoting Real Marriage to keep operating as it had in the past.

But in 2011 it was impossible to get the sense that Mark Driscoll knew he wasn't the person to fix problems at Acts 29 because though he was on the Acts 29 board he was not the acting president.  If anything in later 2011 one of the main concerns was how to move forward with Pastor Mark TV on the one hand and promotion of Real Marriage on the other.  There was also, of course, that cease-and-desist letter sent to a church regarding logo issues. 

Since it's not that hard to establish that Scott Thomas had been president of Acts 29 for most of the 2007 to 2012 period what happened to him?  He stepped down but these days resignation announcements don't explain themselves, and Scott Thomas didn't just step down from leadership at Acts 29, he also stopped being in leadership at Mars Hill in early 2012, too.   Oddly, like David Nicholas before him, Scott Thomas' abrupt departure from formal leadership of Acts 29 is either altogether unmentioned or, when mentioned at all, basically unexplained.  Whatever was going on, Chandler's experience was that Mark Driscoll was totally supportive of his taking over Acts 29. 
...
“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.

“Everyone asked really honest questions, and what was more important, they heard really honest answers,” Kwon said, “answers of brokenness, of grief. Answers that were really saturated in grace and longing for our brother Mark. He was not our enemy; he was a fallen brother.”
That kindness and openness did a lot to earn leaders the trust of pastors, and to soften and humble the entire network, Kwon said.

Remarkably, not a single church left. In fact, in the tumultuous and traumatic 2014, Acts 29 welcomed 78 new members, 71 new candidates, and 145 new applications
...
After Driscoll stepped down from ministry, his 12,000-member church—and the majority of Acts 29’s funding—came to a crashing halt.

Two months after asking Driscoll and Mars Hill to leave, and two months before the megachurch officially dissolved, Acts 29 announced the mandatory 1 percent contribution to what became known as the Catalyst Fund, which would fund operations and new plants. Two months later, they held their first big fundraiser.
...
So at least one person connected with Acts 29 regards Driscoll as a fallen brother.  It may be that the consensus in Acts 29 leadership is that Driscoll has not provided evidence that he is fit for ministry ... ?  Or is there a clarifying remark about that subject pending?

Some of those quotes look familiar but for the longer statements ...
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2014/08/acts29-removes-driscoll-and-mh-makes.html

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/08/08/acts-29-network-removes-co-founder-mark-driscoll-and-mars-hill-church-from-membership/
Throckmorton states he got a letter that was sent by A29 leadership and that it contained the following text: [paragraph breaks supplied by WtH and are conjecture]

Mark,

As the Board of Acts 29, we are grateful to God for the leadership, courage, and generosity of both you and Mars Hill in not only founding the network but also sustaining it through the transition to this board three years ago. The very act of giving away your authority over the network was one of humility and grace, and for that we are grateful.

Over the past three years, our board and network have been the recipients of countless shots and dozens of fires directly linked to you and what we consider ungodly and disqualifying behavior. We have both publicly and internally tried to support and give you the benefit of the doubt, even when multiple pastors in our network confirmed this behavior. In response, we leaned on the Mars Hill Board of Advisors & Accountability to take the lead in dealing with this matter. But we no longer believe the BoAA is able to execute the plan of reconciliation originally laid out. Ample time has been given for repentance, change, and restitution, with none forthcoming.

We now have to take another course of action. 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. Consequently, we also feel that we have no alternative but to remove you and Mars Hill from membership in Acts 29. Because you are the founder of Acts 29 and a member, we are naturally associated with you and feel that this association discredits the network and is a major distraction. We tell you this out of love for you, Mars Hill, Acts 29, and most significantly, the cause of Christ, and we would be irresponsible and deeply unloving not to do so in a clear and unequivocal manner.

Again, we want you to know that we are eternally thankful for what you as a man and Mars Hill as a church have meant to our network. However, that cannot dissuade us from action. Instead, it gives added significance and importance to our decision. We hope and pray that you see this decision as the action of men who love you deeply and want you to walk in the light—for your good, the good of your family, and the honor of your Savior. Shortly after sending this, we will be informing the members of Acts 29, your Board of Advisors and Accountability, and your elders, as well as putting out a public statement on the Acts 29 website. It brings us no joy to move forward in this direction, and we trust that the Lord will be at work in all of this.

In sorrow and with hope,
The Board of the Acts 29 Church Planting Network
Matt Chandler
Darrin Patrick
 Steve Timmis
Eric Mason
John Bryson
Bruce Wesley
Leonce Crump

There's been a few sorrowful letters of parting ways from A29 and MH people in the last three years, hasn't there?

The public statement by Acts 29 regarding Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll is here:

http://www.acts29network.org/acts-29-blog/a-message-from-the-board-of-acts-29-concerning-mark-driscoll-and-mars-hill-church/

8August 2014

0 comments

by Acts 29 Network

A Message from the Board of Acts 29 concerning Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church

 

It is with deep sorrow that the Acts 29 Network announces its decision to remove Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church from membership in the network. Mark and the Elders of Mars Hill have been informed of the decision, along with the reasons for removal. It is our conviction that the nature of the accusations against Mark, most of which have been confirmed by him, make it untenable and unhelpful to keep Mark and Mars Hill in our network. In taking this action, our prayer is that it will encourage the leadership of Mars Hill to respond in a distinctive and godly manner so that the name of Christ will not continue to be dishonored.
The Board of the Acts 29 Church Planting Network

Matt Chandler
Darrin Patrick
Steve Timmis
Eric Mason
John Bryson
Bruce Wesley
Leonce Crump

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/08/08/mars-hill-church-board-reacts-to-being-removed-from-acts-29-network/

Update from the Board of Advisors & Accountability

 

Earlier today our board chairman, as well as many of our other pastors, received a letter from Matt Chandler, the president of Acts 29. The letter notified us that the board of Acts 29 has removed Pastor Mark and Mars Hill from membership in the Acts 29 church planting network. Our board responded to the letter with the following update to our elders, and we wanted to share it with you as well.

 

Men,

I told the lead pastors at the recent annual retreat that we are making real progress in addressing the serious reconciliation and unhealthy culture issues that have been a part of Mars Hill Church for way too long. And we are. I also told them that more opposition would undoubtedly be coming, and it has. Friendly fire always hurts the most.

I have never in my life spoken with Matt Chandler or any of the A29 board members for that matter (except Darrin Patrick, once about 4 years ago as part of Pastor Mark’s employment review process which he used to be a part of). In addition, no one from Acts 29 contacted Larry Osborne of our board prior to this decision. And perhaps most significantly, Pastor Mark was not personally contacted by the A29 board prior to receiving this announcement.

So I am not quite sure what Matt means by “leaning on the board to take the lead in dealing with this matter.”

Be assured of this, the formal charges that were filed were serious, were taken seriously and were not dismissed by the board lightly. There is clear evidence that the attitudes and behaviors attributed to Mark in the charges are not a part and have not been a part of Mark’s life for some time now.
Our board’s decision is final regarding these charges, although will no doubt continue to be played out in the courts of public opinion. Again, I am deeply saddened that the A29 board would make such a decisive and divisive conclusion without speaking directly to the board or Mark prior to their public announcement.

My counsel to you is to not become bitter or angry. Continue to pray for all involved. Continue to love and lead the people God has brought to your churches. They need a pastor right now and God has given them you!

Michael Van Skaik
Chairman, Board of Advisors and Accountability

Larry Osborne
Board Member...

So, overall the article is alright as an overview of Acts 29 since roughly 2012 but there's still gaps in the history of leadership transitions.  The specific gaps are

2005 transition from David Nicholas to Mark Driscoll leading A29
2012 Scott Thomas' departure
2016 removal of Darrin Patrick
on this latter topic see also

https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2016/04/a-lot-in-phrase-history-of-building-his.html
http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2016/april/darrin-patrick-removed-acts-29-megachurch-journey.html
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2016/04/in-light-of-darrin-patrick-news-lets.html

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2016/04/12/darrin-patrick-has-been-relieved-of-pastoral-duties-at-the-journey/

http://www.acts29.com/statement-regarding-darrin-patrick/
By Acts 29
April 14, 2016
It is with deep sadness that we have accepted the resignation of Darrin Patrick from the Board of Acts 29, and removed him as Vice-President and a member. We have taken these steps to respect, honour and affirm the decision and process of the elders at The Journey. ...

http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2016/april/darrin-patrick-removed-acts-29-megachurch-journey.html
...
Darrin Patrick, vice president of the Acts 29 church planting network and founding pastor of The Journey megachurch in St. Louis, has been fired for violating his duties as a pastor.

The Journey cited a range of ongoing sinful behaviors over the past few years including manipulation, domineering, lack of biblical community, and “a history of building his identity through ministry and media platforms.”

 

In a letter announcing its lead pastor’s removal after 14 years of leadership, the church clarified that adultery was not a factor, though elders looked into inappropriate interactions with two women.

http://www.worldmag.com/2016/04/darrin_patrick_commits_to_restoration_process

A years-long pattern of sin led to the dismissal this week of Darrin Patrick, lead pastor of The Journey, a St. Louis, Mo., megachurch. While the reconciliation process is underway, an expert in pastoral crisis management who was called in to work with the church said Patrick’s restoration could take as long as his undoing. He does not expect Patrick to return to ministry anytime soon.
 
After confirming “substantive allegations of pastoral misconduct … combined with deep historical patterns of sin,” the elders of The Journey this week called for Patrick’s removal. He also resigned as vice president of the board of Acts 29, a church-planting network of congregations, which includes The Journey. 
For that matter, the history of those people who at one point endorsed Real Marriage has been pockmarked with some controversies.

https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2016/07/real-marriage-in-2016-looking-back-on.html

Particularly this year in the "post Weinstein" moment we're discovering that things are pretty equally ugly across the spectrum in terms of what men who believe they have power and influence feel able to do.

But the history of the crash and burn of Mars Hill Church should be a reminder that those scandals don't have to be about sex as such to still revolve around questions about integrity, the use of power, and leadership ethics. 

If there's a way to distill the recent piece about Acts 29 into a single sentence it's this--Acts 29 managed to survive the controversies and crises associated with mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church by divesting themselves of association and working to put as much distance within their doctrinal convictions from that historic connection as possible. 

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