A Tale of Two Marks

So several days ago I finished 9 Marks of A Healthy Church by Mark Dever.  It defines what a healthy church should look like.

Last night (and, in a technical sense, this morning), I read Confessions of a Reformission Rev by Mark Driscoll. 

Some of you are wondering why I was reading a book by Mark Driscoll.  Some of you are wondering who Mark Driscoll even is.  The rest of you are probably disinterested. 

Known as "One of the 50 most influential pastors in America", Driscoll pastors a church in Seattle of 4000+.  He has been praised by many for building a megachurch literally from the ground up.  He has been criticized by others for his church growth practices (which might be referred to in some circles as accomodation - although not directly accomodation of the gospel) and vulgar speech.  He has been nicknamed Mark the Cussing Pastor because of said vulgar speech.

So in answer to the first question above: I got the book for free and I was curious how much God was at work in Mars Hill Church where Driscoll pastors, and how much of his success was church-growth methodology that simply put people in seats with no real fruit in their lives. 

After reading it, I have mixed feelings about it.  I came away from it with a higher opinion of Driscoll than I had before in some ways, and my feelings confirmed about him in others.  I disagree with a lot of his methodology, although he seems to sincerely desire to pattern his life and ministry on the bible. 

Mark Driscoll is a funny guy.  He is a man who loves God very much.  He has devoted his life to building a church whose purpose is to bring people in to save them and train them as missionaries who go out into the culture and continue the process.  I'm not fully in agreement with his purpose of the church: He talks very little about holiness or the importance of it. 

Much of his success has actually come from the church being centered largely around young married couples and college kids with messed up lives (for various reasons).  They are very open about letting people who live in sin come into the church if they are open to hear.  He has no interest in those who are simply 'dead weight' - who come in claiming to be saved, but have no desire to minister to others.  I actually agreed with him on that.

I also was not skeptical of stories he told of dreams he had received 'from God'.  He describes one as showing an event that later took place and scripture came to him in the dream that later prepared him to deal with that situation.  He also tells the story of 'bad angels' visiting his young daughter during the night.  After this and some personal study, he rejected cessationism - the idea that some spiritual gifts have ceased since the early church.  For the moment, anyway, I still hold nominally to cessationism.  But at the same time, I don't reject the possibility of exceptions to the general rule.  I don't believe it's a regular pattern of God, but it's obviously something we see God using throughout scripture.

In theology, Driscoll studies the bible carefully and uses that as his foundation for making decisions.  Where his problem comes, in my mind, is on issues that the bible is less clear about.  Obviously, his word usages and poor attempts at humor can be extremely objectionable, and, in my mind, is absolutely unscriptural.  I think Driscoll tends to be too worldly, although it's somewhat understandable based on his upbringing and the fact that he really had no strong spiritual mentors while building his church.  Let me be clear, though, while I understand it, I don't excuse it.  Just to put it in perspective, Martin Luther had similar problems with extrememely vulgar speech and God used him greatly.

While I have doubts about Driscoll's maturity at times, I came away with a profound respect for what God has accomplished through him.  I do still have sincere reservations about many of his practices, but I'm not really in a position to criticize a man who has done far more for God in his life than I have.  I was able to benefit from the book and to learn things (both positive and negative) from his example.  And I was reminded yet again that we are all sinners - it is pointless to focus only a person's shortcomings, as important as they are - our larger goal as believers is to be more like Christ and to seek to draw others to Him.  Mark Driscoll is working very hard on the latter part - I'm trusting God to be working on him in the former.