initial thoughts on episode 7 of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill: Scott Thomas' statements in `21 on `07 are difficult to reconcile with what he wrote in `07 about the terminations and trials of Petry and Meyer

The newest episode of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill is, frankly, baffling in a few spots. No part of the episode seems more puzzling than the statements made by Scott Thomas about the 2007 terminations and trials of Paul Petry and Bent Meyer.  What Scott Thomas told Mike Cosper for the podcast I have transcribed below:

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/podcasts/rise-and-fall-of-mars-hill/mars-hill-mark-driscoll-podcast-state-of-emergency.html  

THE RISE AND FALL OF MARS HILLEPISODE 7|1 hr

State of Emergency

MIKE COSPER   AUGUST 9, 2021

00:44:22 

COSPER:   That same day, Scott Thomas was assigned to lead an Elder Investigation Taskforce looking into charges from Driscoll that Paul and Bent had disqualified themselves as elders.

SCOTT THOMAS:  What we determined, with a group of godly men, who were coming together, and what we determined was Paul nor Bent had done ANYTHING to disqualify themselves  from eldership and that was our [brief pause] report. I've got the full report right now but we determined there was nothing to disqualify them from eldership.

COSPER: You would think with a conclusion like that, that it would be a sort of open and shut case with the rest of the elders  but there's a weird disconnect that happens in the middle of this.  The team that Scott Thomas was leading, investigating Paul and Bent, did clear them of wrongdoing but they didn't communicate that to them directly. Instead, in all of the formal communications that I've seen, they simply said the investigation was complete and that Paul and Bent didn't need to attend their own trial before the rest of the elders. ...

SCOTT THOMAS: 00:46:12 

Both came and spoke and thought we were saying they were guilty and they approached it that way and began to blast, you know, most everybody in the room. And so it didn't help their cause and so the elders said, "Well, we gotta take action now."  And it was a different way from what the team that was investigating it, WE said they did nothing to disqualify themselves from eldership. And, uh, but after they spoke we said, "Well, maybe they should, at least, be reprimanded."

So, the thing is, none of that sits very easily beside the actual statements Scott Thomas was making in 2007 during the months of the investigation, trial, verdicts and subsequent shunning orders but it will take time to revisit all the materials preserved both at Joyful Exiles and materials made available to Wenatchee The Hatchet.  If you're up for reading through a pile of material, proceed.

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

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

https://komonews.com/news/local/simply-seattle-store-broken-into-early-saturday-morning

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. 

a not comprehensive list of men who served in ministry roles in Mars Hill and whether or not they are currently serving in any pastoral capacity

This is not intended to be a comprehensive list.  Mars Hill lasted nearly twenty years and had many, many leaders at all levels of organization.  Mark Driscoll, obviously, is leading a new-ish church in Arizona.  Dave Bruskas stayed in ministry and catching up to what has happened to him is more than I currently feel like doing.  Sutton Turner has joined the Vanderbloemen Group, last I recall.

The following list has been culled from results of a list of compiled staff or leaders who had City accounts circa 2014. One of the striking things about Mars Hill page layout design was including hotlinks to accounts on The City.  Obviously those accounts have gone defunct since Mars Hill dissolved but it became a snapshot that provided a sense of the scale of Mars Hill circa May 2014.

https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2014/05/a-history-of-publicly-listed-city.html



There is no currently accounting for Mike Gunn or Lief Moi, the co-founders of Mars Hill.  As Mark Driscoll has seemed reluctant to mention Mars Hill at all these days the odds that he knows of the whereabouts of his co-founding pastors may be low.

However, having documented more than a few things about the late Mars Hill over the years, I can put together a not-comprehensive list of the range of men who had roles within Mars Hill history, though many names here won't mean anything to people whose understanding of the church was mediated by, literally, media coverage, rather than through direct participation. Even yours truly didn't meet a few of these people.

Bill Clem
https://www.westernseminary.edu/renewal/center-for-pastoral-flourishing/
Bill Clem, director of the Center for Pastoral Flourishing
Bill Clem recently joined Western Seminary as the new director of the CPF. Bill has spent over forty years in various ministry contexts leading college ministries, planting churches, teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels and leading professional development seminars. Most recently, he served as the associate pastor of Imago Dei Community Church (Portland, OR) for almost six years. “He is a highly respected member of the pastoral community in Portland” said Chuck Conniry, vice president of Academic Affairs. “He is the ideal person to advance the mission of the Center.”

bubba jennings, lead pastor
https://www.resurrectionchurch.com/about-us

joel brown, associate pastor
https://www.resurrectionchurch.com/about-us

brad house, Executive Pastor of Ministry
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brad-house-b7319b39

mike wilkerson, not currently in any formal ministry
https://www.linkedin.com/in/wilkersonmike

eric stark, no longer in formal ministry
https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-stark-46143a8

phil smidt, not in formal ministry
https://www.linkedin.com/in/phil-smidt-9a4b1a27

justin holcomb, canon for vocations (florida), adjunct prof Gordon Conwell
https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinholcomb

matt johnson, published book but not observably in formal ministry 
https://www.seattlemet.com/arts-and-culture/2019/12/god-save-the-punks-mars-hill-tooth-and-nail-and-seattle-s-christian-alternative

elliot grudem
https://www.desiringgod.org/authors/elliot-grudem

adam christiansen, pastor at Cross & Crown
https://crossandcrownchurch.com/our-team

thomas hurst , not observably in formal ministry
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-hurst-54568443

Gary Shavey, in pastoral ministry at Redeemer Eastside
https://redeemereastside.com/leadership-3/

alex ghioni, pastor at Dox Church Bellevue
https://www.doxa-church.com/servant-leaders

michael van skaik, not able to establish if in any ministerial role at this time

tim zion, not currently in formal ministry
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-zion

sam delay, not in formal ministry
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-delay-41a67618

jason skelton (not observably in formal ministry)
https://twitter.com/jasondskelton?lang=en
(former MHC Sammamish merged with MHC Bellevue)
https://www.issaquahreporter.com/news/mars-hill-sammamish-to-merge-with-bellevue/

seth winterhalter (in leadership at Harbor Church, Olympia)
https://www.harborolympia.com/leadership

brian mccormack, lead pastor of Reach Church
https://twitter.com/brianmccormack?lang=en

dustin nickerson, comedian, member & outreach manager at the Salvation Army
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dustin-nickerson-0120397b

tim gaydos, chaplain for Sounders and Mariners, not in other pastoral roles at present
https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothygaydos

Will Little, unknown

Caleb Davis, in pastoral ministry
https://pastorcaleb.org/about

cam huxford, worship pastor at Cross & Crown
https://crossandcrownchurch.com/our-team

Colin Day, not in formal ministry
https://www.linkedin.com/in/imcolin

steven kwan, unknown

Gareth Best, no observable current ministry, though mentions past Acts 29 activity on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gareth-best-51a62210

justin ashurst, not currently in ministry
https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-ashurst-3a236122

brandon olsen, unknown

jeff bettger, not in any ministry

willie wilson, not currently known

dave harris, in ministry
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-harris-3112b036

mike davis, unknown

steven mulkey, in ministry
http://www.stevenmulkey.com/about

bruce ensign, unknown

kyle van tine, in ministry
https://rainiervalleychurch.com/leadershipmain

matt jensen, possibly still in ministry but common name

steve tompkins, possibly still in ministry but uncertain at the moment

james harleman, still in ministry, Refuge Church

justin schaeffer, not currently in ministry
https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-schaeffer-4b730313

kerry michaelis, unknown

dick mckinley unknown

chad toulouse unknown

joe day, not in ministry
https://www.linkedin.com/in/heyjoeday

david fairchild, in ministry (covered over at the following post)
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2020/02/trinity-west-seattle-looking-for-lead.html

aj hamilton, no longer serving in ministry
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aj-hamilton

jamie munson, owner of Simply Seattle
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiemunson
Doesn't mention any of his 15 some years at Mars Hill in any capacity

Scott Thomas, still is in the ministry scene

There's no sign of James Noriega since he checked into rehab.

Warren Throckmorton revisits Board of Elder assessment of Mark Driscoll, let's revisit the governance of MHC at the time of Driscoll's resignation and see where the BoE members have ended up

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

In 2014 during the final days of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church, 21 former elders of the church lodged charges of pastoral misconduct against Mark Driscoll. In line with church bylaws*, a committee of elders investigated those charges by interviewing numerous church members and related witnesses. A report of that investigation was never released to the church or public. Instead, the Board of Elders provided results to a decision making board at Mars Hill called the Board of Overseers.* This was communicated in a conference call and via a brief summary.

Recently, an anonymous source provided me with a summary of these results which were intended to be shared with members after Driscoll resigned. I checked this summary with several sources who were at Mars Hill at the time who confirmed the accuracy of information in the report. These sources were in a position to know if the material was true. I have also seen information shared with various members of the Board of Overseers which make it clear that the Board of Elders did not want Driscoll to be in a teaching or administrative role at Mars Hill without first going through a restoration process. ...

...

...

Here is the summary of Board of Elders investigation. This was a version of results which was intended to go to members of the church.

Members of Mars Hill Church,

This report is given to you from the Board of Elders with permission from the Board of Overseers.* These two boards are working together for the good of Mars Hill Church.

Below are the findings and recommendations from the Board of Elders and our investigation into the charges against Pastor Mark Driscoll. Though Mark has resigned from his role of pastor and elder we believe these findings should be explained to the people Jesus has entrusted to us. In this matter we stand before God, Christ Jesus and the elect angels (1 Timothy 5:21) to give an account.

Summary of BoE Findings

Proverbs 27:6 “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.”

1 Timothy 5:19-20 says, “Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.”

We conducted an examination of the charges against Mark by interviewing more than 40 eyewitnesses and Mark himself. The charges below we find to be true are supported by testimony of those currently close to Mark, and was not limited to the former staff and elders who signed the formal charges. Based on eyewitness testimony and our own direct experiences we find the following allegations of sin in Mark to be true:

Quick-tempered, including harsh speech
Arrogant
Domineering in his leadership of the elders and staff

While no members of the Board of Elders expect Mark Driscoll to be perfect, the scriptures hold those who serve in the office of elder to a high standard of character and godliness. Throughout the history of Mars Hill Church, Mark has demonstrated these patterns of sin. Former elders have shared their concerns on this with Mark privately, and friends and advisors outside the church have shared this feedback with him as well. On many occasions Mark has acknowledged these sins himself. Sadly we see Mark continuing in these patterns to the present day.

It is with a heavy heart that we believe the church should follow 1 Timothy 5:20 which says that an elder persisting in sin should be rebuked before the body. It is our prayer that through the church following scripture, and the work of the Holy Spirit, Mark can more clearly see his sin, repent and be reconciled with those whom he has sinned against.

Recommendations
It was our recommendation to the Board of Overseers that Mark be rebuked for his sin and a restoration process be developed to shepherd Mark towards godliness. This process would have involved:

Removal from eldership and all church leadership for reflection, repentance, and healing

Repentance and reconciliation with those who have been sinned against

A team of pastors and counselors inside and outside of Mars Hill that would care for Mark throughout the process

Loving restoration of Mark to ministry and leadership when the above pastors unanimously agree that Mark is in a place of repentance and godliness

All of the members of this board love Mark Driscoll deeply. We hoped to see him restored and are grieved that Mark chose to leave before we were able to walk alongside him through this process.

Repentance as Leaders
As we walked through this investigation the Holy Spirit impressed upon us that we too have been sinful and that He is calling us to confession and repentance of our own sins. Before God we confess: we are guilty of arrogance, being quick-tempered, we have led in a domineering manner.

It is our hope to lovingly lead the church in a season of reflection, confession, and repentance. May the love of Jesus Christ we show towards one another and his redemption of our brokenness be what Mars Hill Church is known for in the future. Glory be to Jesus Christ!

Board of Elders
Ed Choi
Alex Ghioni
Aaron Gray
AJ Hamilton
Bubba Jennings
Miles Rohde
Tim Smith

...

One of the things that is important to mention about the above summary is to compare this summation of investigation to some Twitter interaction between Warren Throckmorton and Justin Dean a while back.

an exchange between Warren Throckmorton and Justin Dean on Twitter, and a Driscoll discussion of governance as "throne down, not pew up" may (actually) shed new light on Driscoll's 2014 resignation decision

At the time I summarized the situation as follows:

...

If in Driscoll’s understanding of church governance and ecclesiology leadership is from the throne down and not the pew up, and if Justin Dean’s account is accurate that the Mars Hill Church governing board offered Mark Driscoll a restoration plan in which he would stop being in a managerial role and would preach, then the most plausible explanation for why Mark Driscoll resigned that takes all of his accounts as factual, face-value accounts is this: he decided that a church as a corporate entity in which he was not seated on the throne (as president and CEO) was not a church in which he would be a member. 

POSTSCRIPT 7-14-2019

If you want to get a clearer sense of the governance context in which Mark Driscoll decided to resign, here are some pertinent passages from the Mars Hill Church bylaws from 2012.

https://www.wthrockmorton.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/MHC-BYLAWS-1.pdf

Mars Hill Church 2012 bylaws

Article 7

Section 7.6. Removal. The primary preaching and teaching pastor for the Church may only be removed from the board of advisors & accountability if it is determined that he engaged in conduct which would disqualify him from service as an elder in the Church. This determination will be made pursuant to the procedure established in Article 12 of these Bylaws. The remaining members of the executive elder team may be removed from the board of advisors & accountability at any time for any reason upon a recommendation of removal by the primary preaching and teaching pastor for the Church and the approval of a majority of the board of advisors & accmmtability. If a member of the executive elder team is removed from his position on the board, he will also be deemed removed as a member of the executive elder team and as an officer of the Church. Any other member of the board of advisors & accountability may be removed by majority approval of the members of the board of advisors & accmmtability. In connection with any vote of the board of advisors & accountability pursuant to this Section 7.6,the member of the board of advisors & accountability being considered for removal shall not vote and shall not be taken into account for purposes of determining whether the required vote is obtained.

Section 7.7. Resignations. Subject at all times to the right of removal as provided in Section 7.6 and to the provisions of any employment agreement, any member of the board of advisors & accountability may at any time resign by giving notice in writing or by electronic transmission to the board of advisors &  accountability or the chairman of the board. Such resignation shall take effect at the time specified in such notice or, if the time be not specified, upon receipt of such notice; and, unless otherwise specified in such notice, the acceptance of such resignation shall not be necessary to make it effective. If a member of the executive elder team resigns from his position on the board of advisors & accountability, he will also be deemed to have resigned as a member of the executive elder team and as an officer of the Church.

It looks like the way the bylaws were written the president had an all or nothing kind of deal.  The president could resign or be removed but once the president was removed from, it seems, any position, he was removed from all other positions.  Clearly Driscoll chose to resign rather than be removed, although the wording as to how not unfit for ministry Driscoll was found to be for ministry now seems a bit vague.  If he was found ultimately not unfit for ministry why would he have been asked to step away from management when the bylaws that would have apparently been in effect at that point stipulated that being asked to step away from the BoAA or a managerial position meant loss of membership (go read the earlier articles).  Let's look at some of the other articles.

Article 9 

Section 9 .1. Election, Qualification. The primary preaching and teaching pastor for the Church shall serve as the president of the Church and shall have the authority to appoint other elders who are employed by the Church (or, if necessary to fill a vacancy while an individual completes the eldership process, a deacon) to fill other offices of the Church. The officers of the Church shall at a minimum include a president and a secretary. The president may also choose a chief operating officer, a chief financial officer, one or more vice presidents, a treasurer, one or more assistant secretaries and assistant treasurers and such other officers and agents as he shall deem necessary. Any number of offices may be held by the same person, unless the Articles of Incorporation or these Bylaws otherwise provide. The office of president and secretary may not be held by the same person.

Section 9.2. Term, Removal. The primary preaching and teaching pastor for the Church shall serve as the president of the Church until such time as he ceases to be a member of the executive elder team. Each other officer shall hold office until such officer's successor is appointed and qualified or until such officer's earlier resignation or removal. Any officer appointed by the president of the Church may be removed by the president of the Church at any time.

Section 9.3. Resignation. Subject at all times to the right of removal as provided in Section 9.2 and to the provisions of any employment agreement, any officer may resign at any time by giving notice to the board of advisors & accountability, the president, or the secretary of the Church. Any such resignation shall take effect at the date of receipt of such notice or at any later date specified provided that the president or, in the event of the resignation of the president, the board of advisors & accountability may designate an effective date for such resignation which is earlier than the date specified in such notice but which is not earlier than the date of receipt of such notice; and, unless otherwise specified in such notice, the acceptance of such resignation shall not be necessary to make it effective. If a member of the executive elder team resigns from his position as an officer of the Church, he will also be deemed to have resigned as a member of the executive elder team and the board of advisors & accountability.

Section 9.4. Vacancies. A vacancy in the office of president because of the death, resignation or removal of the primary preaching and teaching pastor shall be filled by the individual chosen to fill his vacancy on the board of advisors & accountability. A vacancy in any other office because of death, resignation, removal or any other cause may be filled in the manner prescribed in these Bylaws for appointment to such office.

Section 9.5: President. The president shall be the chief executive officer of the Church and shall, subject to the provisions of these Bylaws, (i) have general and active management of the affairs of the Church and have general supervision of its officers, agents and employees; (ii) in the absence of the chairman of the board, preside at all meetings of the full council of elders and the board of advisors & accountability; and (iii) perform those other duties incident to the office of president and as from time to time may be assigned to him by the board of advisors & accountability.

ARTICLE 12
BOARD OF OVERSEERS
Section 12.1. Constitution. In the event that a formal charge and/or accusation is made against the primary preaching and teaching pastor for the Church that, if investigated and found to be true, would disqualify him from his position as an elder in the Church based on the biblical requirements of an elder, the board of advisors & accountability shall refer the charge and/or accusation to the board of overseers. The board of overseers shall have authority to investigate any such charge and/or accusation. If the board of overseers determines that the charge and/or accusation is true, the board of overseers can vote to rebuke the primary preaching and teaching pastor or, if warranted, remove the primary preaching and teaching pastor as an elder of the Church (in which case he shall automatically be removed as a member of the board of advisors & accountability and his employment with the Church shall be terminated for cause under the terms and condition set forth in any employment agreement entered into between the primary preaching and teaching pastor for the Church and the Church).

Every single member of the Board of Overseers now has to be able to explain why they decided Mark Driscoll was not found disqualified from ministry even if all we have is the summary of the Board of Elders report.

https://marshill.com/2014/10/15/pastor-mark-driscolls-resignation

Pastor Mark Driscoll’s Resignation

Mars Hill Church
From Mars Hill Church:

 

On Tuesday, October 14, Pastor Mark Driscoll submitted his resignation as an elder and lead pastor of Mars Hill Church. The Board of Overseers has accepted that resignation and is moving forward with planning for pastoral transition, recognizing the challenge of such a task in a church that has only known one pastor since its founding. We ask for prayer for the journey ahead.

 

As is well known, inside and outside of Mars Hill, Pastor Mark has been on a leave of absence for nearly two months while a group of elders investigated a series of formal charges brought against him. This investigation had only recently been concluded, following some 1,000 hours of research, interviewing more than 50 people and preparing 200 pages of information. This process was conducted in accordance with our church Bylaws and with Pastor Mark’s support and cooperation.

While a group of seven elders plus one member of the Board of Overseers was charged with conducting this investigation, the full Board of Overseers is charged with reaching any conclusions and issuing any findings. In that capacity, we believe it appropriate to publicly mention the following:

1. We concluded that Pastor Mark has, at times, been guilty of arrogance, responding to conflict with a quick temper and harsh speech, and leading the staff and elders in a domineering manner. While we believe Mark needs to continue to address these areas in his life, we do not believe him to be disqualified from pastoral ministry.
2. Pastor Mark has never been charged with any immorality, illegality or heresy. Most of the charges involved attitudes and behaviors reflected by a domineering style of leadership.
3. We found some of the accusations against Pastor Mark to be altogether unfair or untrue.
4. Other charges had been previously been addressed by Pastor Mark, privately and publicly. Indeed, he had publicly confessed and apologized for a number of the charges against him, some of which occurred as long as 14 years ago.
5. We commend Mark for acting upon the vision God gave him to start Mars Hill Church and for his ministry of faithfully teaching the Word of God for the past 18 years. We commit to pray for him, for Grace, and for their children as they transition from ministry at Mars Hill Church.

We would ask for patience as we now make plans for the first transition of pastoral leadership in the history of Mars Hill Church. We have asked Pastor Dave Bruskas to serve as the primary teaching pastor while we work on long-term plans and decisions. Our elders and board members will work closely with the church staff to support the ongoing operations of Mars Hill in the days and months ahead.

Finally, Mark Driscoll was not asked to resign; indeed, we were surprised to receive his resignation letter. While he can speak to his decision as he chooses, we would point to just two things from his letter. He noted that he had concluded “it would be best for the health of our family, and for the Mars Hill family, that we step aside from further ministry at the church.” Secondly, he specifically wanted to convey “to the wonderful members of the Mars Hill family, how deeply my family and I love them, thank them, and point them to their Senior Pastor, Jesus Christ, who has always been only good to us.”

Mars Hill Board of Overseers
Michael Van Skaik
Larry Osborne [there's a series of posts on Osborne, Driscoll and MHC here]
Jon Phelps
Matt Rogers

These four guys at some point have to be able to explain why they concluded from the Board of Elders report that Driscoll was not found disqualified from ministry.

As I put it earlier, the governance of Mars Hill was designed so that Mark was on the throne or not even a member of the church in any capacity.  It becomes clearer, in light of the governance structure Mars Hill had in 2014, why the Board of Overseers decided not to publicly rebuke Mark Driscoll.  To have done so would have entailed the end of his membership and managerial role within the corporation.  Driscoll obviously chose to resign rather than let things reach such a moment, which is why I have not felt there was anything inappropriate about suggesting that Mark Driscoll is the Richard Nixon of megachurch pastors.  

In fact when you look at those bylaws and see what would be involved in a public rebuke of Driscoll it makes it seem as though the statement of the BoAA that they were surprised that Mark Driscoll chose to resign seems a bit ... well ... maybe a bit precious.  Why WOULDN'T they suspect that Driscoll would rather resign than submit to a process that, if followed to the letter of the by-laws quoted above, would involve a public rebuke and a removal of Mark Driscoll from not just the pulpit but having any legal standing in the corporation known as Mars Hill Church.  Now precisely WHY it was designed in such a way is a bit mysterious since it seems as though it would have been possible to design the corporate structure of Mars Hill in such a way that it would be able to exist without Mark Driscoll as president or in any managerial role.  

It makes one wonder if Justin Dean ever looked, even once, at the actual bylaws and governing documents of the former Mars Hill Church.  It seems to defy plausibility that anyone on the BoAA or the BoE or Justin Dean, if they bothered to read the governing documents of Mars Hill ratified in the zone of 2011 and 2012, should have been surprised that when faced with the prospect of a public rebuke, removal from management, and placement in a restoration plan that resignation wasn't going to be what happened.  Driscoll did say he said he was going to submit to the restoration plan but then he heard that a trap had been set.  The more stories get shared about that period the more it seems that the only plausible explanation for whatever that trap was supposed to be was the actual restoration plan. 

That Driscoll resigned is, as the axiom goes, history.

Now might also be a good moment to note that most of the former Mars Hill campuses actually survived Mark Driscoll's resignation.
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2018/09/with-mark-driscolls-spirit-filled-jesus.html

Ed Choi (lead pastor Thanksgiving Lifepoint Church, it seems)
Alex Ghioni (gospel shepherding pastor at Doxa Church)
Aaron Gray (Sound City Bible Church)
AJ Hamilton (not currently serving in any ministerial capacity)
Bubba Jennings (lead pastor Resurrection Church)
Miles Rohde (currently lead pastor at Redemption Spokane, formerly MH Spokane)

Tim Smith (currently Executive Pastor of Staff and Ministries and an elder at Door of Hope)

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. 

a statement from James Harleman at Repentant Pastor--some observations about how the water boiled and why 2007 was in one sense symbolic rather than substantial

http://repentantpastor.com/confessions/james-harlemans-confession/

The above went up Saturday morning and Wenatchee The Hatchet has waited a bit to discuss the content. 

It took a few years longer than hoped for, but it is nice to see the statement.

Regular readers of Wenatchee The Hatchet should already know that one of the long-term contentions here has been that identity politics as usual made it impossible for the theological "left" and "right" to get an accurate or even honest understanding of what was at play in the history of Mars Hill and in the public/private ministry of Mark Driscoll.  While for a time Driscoll and his advocates had mastery over the public narrative both for and against him, the level of control possible over that narrative eroded over time.  This doesn't mean that there aren't people who have jumped up to talk about the "lessons" we can or should all learn from the demise of Mars Hill; there have been plenty of those and the problem has been that most of those people have thrown lessons our way that seem like exercises in self-justification.  As Wenatchee has written more and less obliquely in the last year, if the "lessons" you have to share with the world about Mars Hill are lessons that exonerate you then, well, you probably learned nothing.

Which is why Harleman's statement was encouraging to read.  For those unfamiliar with his work or his writing "I was Jar Jar Binks" is a pretty concise and hefty admission of guilt. 

You can go read the statement if you haven't already.  This post will be ruminating about a few things touched on in James' statement that bear further thought.

It has been necessary for someone who was in the leadership culture of Mars Hill to observe, no, let's say it is helpful that someone has observed that what happened in 2007 was surely important but that it was, in many ways, symbolically important.  How Mark and other leaders spoke to and treated people before and after was not necessarily any better.  Some might say that up until 2007 there was at least the formal possibility of Driscoll being held accountable.  That's ultimately nonsense since 1) we know the elders did not hold Driscoll accountable and 2) that would be, as James put it in his statement, belittling to those who were mistreated before 2007.  James would know where some of the proverbial bodies got buried.  We hail from early enough in the history of Mars Hill we can remember a few things that went down that people who showed up even as early as 2002 or 2003 couldn't have known about. 

There was a lot that happened that happened in plain sight.  Those who remember Driscoll saying to a guy "Shut your wife up or I'll do it for you" may not remember it was in the context of a discussion about the film Lost in Translation. They may remember the topic in discussion was whether men and women could have close friends of the opposite gender.  There were people who would go on to be Driscoll critics who at the time concluded that the woman Driscoll put in the place he thought she needed to be just had issues with spiritual authority.  Because Real Marriage had not been published and the Driscolls had not revealed how rickety their marriage truly was a lot of people could just trust that even if Driscoll was too harsh it was still for a good reason. 

James' statement gets at some of the general process of how rationalizing that the positive fruit outweighed the negative fruit looked in a slice of the church history.

It is true that 2007 was a landmark year in the history of the church but Wenatchee The Hatchet is going to propose that it was not because the change of the by-laws necessarily became a point of no return.  That Driscoll was left in ministry in the wake of 2000's "Pussified Nation" would seem to have settled further back that leaving Driscoll in ministry might have been a bad move.  But by the time many former pillars in the community showed up circa 2000-2002 "Pussified Nation" had been thoroughly scrubbed.  There were men who served as pastors who never even heard of the thread, let alone saw it.  In the years before 2007 there had been things that could have been scandalous but things were able to be suppressed quickly enough that things died down.  That Driscoll could be verbally abusive and bullying wasn't news by 2007.  As Dan Savage so bluntly put it, there were a lot of guys in leadership at the formal and informal level in Mars Hill who only concluded Mark Driscoll was a nasty piece of work when they were directly harmed by Driscoll's action.  For Savage that made each and every one such man a complicit asshole. 

Which is why reading James articulate that the strictly binary script the for and against crews have brought to bear on the history of Mars Hill is encouraging to see.  When Wenatchee The Hatchet felt obliged to leave Mars Hill a parting concern was to observe that I can't diagnose a spiritual ailment in the community of Mars Hill without acknowledging that I am also a symptom.  Those who diagnose a disease without seeing themselves as a symptom may not yet understand their contribution to the spiritual and social malaise. 

That said, to get back to the earlier observation about 2007, what made things different was that by 2007 the php discussion boards made cross-campus communication and enquiry so swift and so simple that the kind of information suppressing damage control that might have worked wonderfully in the past was no longer possible.  The by-laws changes and the firings did not happen in a vacuum, either.  Questions had emerged about the $1.5 million boondoggle that was supposed to be Ballard campus II.  It would be a huge mistake to fixate on the bylaws as indicative of a serious change for the worse within the leadership of Mars Hill because there was a unified vote for that 2005 boondoggle.  Frankly the fiscal foolishness of that 2005 decision, when the details finally started to belatedly get conceded, was more infuriating than the secrecy surrounding the 2007 firings.  Why?  Because even the fired pastors voted for that real estate purchase. 

What James Harleman's statement touches upon is that the water was coming to a boil for years before 2007.  Anyone who was at Mars Hill circa 2002-2007 may recall the courtship fad and it was one of the more idiotic fads in the history of the church.  Wenatchee The Hatchet's disdain for the fad would be easily known to those who know who Wenatchee The Hatchet is.  It's one thing to urge people to respectfully pursue marriage in a way that respects the concerns of all concerned parties, and another to present courtship as the "Christian" alternative to modern dating practices.  There's no methodology that is fire insurance against the temptation to evil in your own heart.  And yet there was a weird lockstep enforcement of the story of how great courtship was.  What did it matter that one of the textbook/poster couple courtships didn't exactly fit the mold?  The mold was more important than the reality. 

In terms of cultural enforcement there was a sense in which a culture that would enforce the silly legalisms of the courtship fad could be relied upon to enforce draconian expectations when actually important things, like governance and finances came up.  Harleman's statement touches on these things but they seem worth mentioning explicitly.  There were a whole lot of people who went on to be Driscoll critics who played roles in enforcing the expectations and rules formal and informal in the culture.  The point here, muddled though it is, is that 2007 was symbolically important and meant a big change in formal governance but the crisis only emerged when people who were in some sense expected to keep operating by the informal script broke from their script.

What was different in 2007 was that by 2007 Mars Hill had cultivated information distribution, social media and mass media tools of the sort that made fully suppressing scandals nearly impossible.  It wasn't possible, any longer, to just scrub a "Pussified Nation" away and hope nobody noticed.  Ironically and yet inevitably the strengths of Mars Hill became weaknesses, the information distribution culture that had been cultivated within Mars Hill became a means of articulating the beginnings of some dissent.  The php forums were swiftly scrapped and replaced with The City.  As Wenatchee The Hatchet has demonstrated vividly in more than a dozen posts, even The City eventually became a point from which members expressing dissent began to leak content.  Or as an old-time Mars Hill song could have put it "Strength is my weakness."  When it became impossible to suppress the rumbling of discord the leadership culture had to seize control of the narrative in a forceful way, which is pretty much what happened.  What James Harleman has opened up is a glimpse into how even the process of the leadership selling itself on the plausibility of what was done planted the seeds of what grew into a crisis. 

The majority of readers last year probably wouldn't know Wenatchee The Hatchet has known James for at least fifteen years now.  Our friendship was probably not something anyone with ten years inside MH wouldn't already know about.  There's a whole lot of blogging about cartoons that wouldn't have happened the way it did without the two of us sharing many a thought about animation and about superheroes.  A write-up about his book is still pending.

But in a way what James has shared about reconsidering the narrative of his life and his time at Mars Hill is an example of what he's done for years.  He spent many a Friday evening over the years discussing narrative in film and ways we can analyze narrative and character arcs to discover what is or isn't true about the human condition and connect it to what he's called the meganarrative.  So in many ways what James published this last weekend fits into all of that.

Others have pointed out that what happened in the last few years was that Mark Driscoll and his advocates lost control of the public narrative. That would be accurate.  It might be even more accurate to add to that observation that what transpired was the narrative that had always been public was finally able to get examined with enough primary source citation and, not to put this pejoratively, critical apparatus to reveal that the public narrative had changed in ways that were drastic enough to cast  legitimate doubt on its overall veracity.  Driscoll was starting to contradict his own public narrative at too many points about too many big events in the story for the public narrative to remain coherent.  The tipping point there was, in many ways, Real Marriage.  What James Harleman's latest statement gives us at least a glimpse of is that there were people within the leadership of Mars Hill who had moments of doubt about what was going on and how they persuaded themselves things were okay, at least for a while.

This rationalization process would be  easy to condemn if it weren't seeming so awkwardly evident lately that it doesn't matter what team you're on, this process of overlooking the bad because you think it's outweighed by the good can happen anywhere.  It remains to be seen how things will play out regarding Tony Jones and Julie McMahon but we don't even need to look at the realm of religion.  What about Penn State and Joe Paterno?  Even without religious ideas at stake if there's enough money and power in play overlooking or dismissing allegations of severe wrong-doing can still happen. 

Wenatchee The Hatchet admits to being a bit gloomy about the human condition.  One of the laziest canards from people who seem to imagine themselves above this sort of thing would be the "lol don't drink the kool-aid" sentiment, as if humans had a capacity to inherently resist drinking kool-aid.  What if drinking the kool-aid is actually inherent in what humans do?  Think about it this way, what are the great works of art and philosophy if not, at the end of things, definitions and defenses of what would be worth "drinking the kool-aid" for?  Take Driscoll's one-time favorite film Braveheart.  What's worth killing and dying for?  Freedom ... theoretically. But having never much cared for Braveheart compared to Toy Story Wenatchee The Hatchet will borrow some phrases from the buddies at Mockingbird and say that the problem with the Gibson film is that in the end it was not really a rumination on freedom as much as a rumination on the glory of fighting for freedom. Call it a theology of glory rather than theology of freedom if we're even going to "go there" in discussing the film as any theology of any kind.  Certainly in the hands of a Mark Driscoll, with his career-long drive toward "legacy", it would be almost impossible not to think of that push for legacy as tinged, at least, with a theology of glory.

And this gets roundaboutly to something else Harleman touches on, that there were men in leadership who could not raise doubts about Mark Driscoll without ultimately raising doubts about their own fitness for ministry.  There were men who only ended up in ministry at Mars Hill because Mark Driscoll recruited them.  It could have been guys like Petry and Meyer, in fact, recruited into ministry, who ended up fired when they didn't go on script about governance.  Take a group of men who ended up in ministry because they were recruited by Mark or men who came to or back to the Christian faith on account of Mars Hill and questioning Mark became too self-indicting to be emotionally sustainable.

This gets to a point that Wenatchee The Hatchet has presented before, that it's important to understand that many people over the years who have defended the situation at Mars Hill were ultimately not defending Mark Driscoll, necessarily, as they were defending themselves.  People were defending their own emotional investment of their selves into what became Mars Hill.  Wenatchee The Hatchet used to make defenses of how Mars Hill did things but not generally of Mark Driscoll the person, who often enough said stuff so stupid there was no point in defending that stuff.  Over time Wenatchee began to realize that a defense of a conventionally evangelical Protestant, let alone Reformed, Christian confession was not only not going to benefit from any defense of Driscoll but that Mark Driscoll began to seem more and more like a RINO, Reformed-in-name-only.  At length he tipped his Amyraldian hand.  But by the time he did there was this problem, so many journalists and writers, even those who supposedly knew what they were talking about, had already labeled Mark Driscoll as Reformed.  Even among Mark Driscoll's critics, the price of backpedaling on the narrative was too high.  And it turned out to be the same for many of Mark Driscoll's supporters.

The term repentance can be easily wielded by Christians.  In a setting like Mars Hill it tended to refer to either behaviors or doctrines. What beliefs needed to change?  What behaviors needed to change?  But there's something in addition to that that defines what repentance is in Christian terms, it's recalibrating and redefining the story we live by.  When we find our story meets the story of who Christ is and what he said and did our story changes ... and it has begun to seem more and more over the years that at Mars Hill we were told "It's all about Jesus" and it began to seem as though, as more than just a few people tried to point out, that Jesus seemed to be someone remade more and more into Mark's ideal of who Jesus ought to be than the one presented in the scriptures.

Understanding that following Christ hardly entailed remaining at Mars Hill and that Mars Hill was hardly the only place (if that) in which to follow Jesus was a years-long process for Wenatchee The Hatchet.  Repenting from being the kind of Christian I was while I was there isn't even a finished process and to the extent that this blog has preserved the story of Mars Hill it could be read as a form of repentance.  I've never told anyone they "have" to leave Mars Hill but I've invited them to reconsider the narrative.  That's a path that people may not choose to take but for those who do, it's probably a never-ending path.  If anything the most dangerous thing for us would be to think we've "arrived" because, after all, wasn't that how we felt when we landed at Mars Hill? 

To piggyback a bit on what James published this weekend, a more thoroughly Christian understanding of the world we live in should neither make us a hero or even a villain in the story of our lives.  One of the most pernicious temptations for those who would either defend or attack what has happened within what was once known as Mars Hill is to make ourselves the hero in the narrative.  If we did that while we were there let's all the more resist the temptation to do that when we are away.