Stop the Presses! Mark Driscoll Needs $650,000 More!

Remember the Mars Hill Church Jesus Festival?

At the end of 2013, Mark Driscoll’s church asked Mars Hill Church attenders for $2-million because God was going to do great things with the money in 2014. One of those things included a big party the church leaders called a “Jesus Festival.” Driscoll described it this way:

From Pastor Mark Driscoll: Heaven is going to be a party and we need to practice for that party. Over the next few months, you’ll be hearing a lot more about our first-ever Jesus Festival, August 22 at Marymoor Park near Seattle. Everyone at Mars Hill churches far and near is invited for this unique opportunity to grow together and evangelize within the surrounding community. We’ve never done anything quite like this event, but picture a huge outdoor celebration with live bands, food trucks, fun stuff for the kids, open-air gospel preaching, baptisms, and a summer night filled with the worship of thousands of brothers and sisters praising Jesus together. Pastor Dustin Kensrue will be leading us in worship, and as the date gets closer we’ll announce some special guests who will be joining us as well. Thanks to your generosity as a church, the whole thing will be free, which will make it very easy to invite non-Christian family and friends.

The church gave closer to $3-million, but the big heaven-party-practice never happened. No doubt the rapid financial decline of the church had something to do with that, but it may be that the concept of a Jesus Festival served a purpose to rally financial support. When asked about why the church didn’t have the party, Mars Hill Church spokesperson Justin Dean told Huffington Post:

Contrary to what has been reported, we did not raise money specifically for the Jesus festival. Gifts given during the end of the year campaign, as well as any gifts given to Mars Hill Church, go towards ministry operations, evangelism, and church planting all over the world.

Donors often don’t understand that unless the charity makes a specific promise to use their donations in a certain way, the charity decision makers can do what they want with it. They can bait with big plans, then switch to the current expense fund if they want.

Deja Vu All Over Again?

On Tuesday, I reported that Mark Driscoll Real Faith has a Real Need. To finish 2021 strong, he wants people to give him $200,000. He doesn’t say how he plans to use it, just that he needs it. I thought possibly he could need it to do church work, but now I don’t think that is it. I found out he is going to his church for an even stronger finish. Check this out.

The Trinity Church has its own giving campaign. He needs $650,000* for that side of the business.

So just as with Mars Hill Church, Driscoll wants his church to give substantially over and above their regular giving for expenses that apparently don’t fit in the budget.

This ask further confuses the earlier Real Faith ask for $200,000. Driscoll says he needs $200k for Real Faith, but then he says some of this $650k will also benefit Real Faith. Consider this component in the appeal:

2. Add more lighting and cameras so that we can improve the worship experience in the main room and also capture the worship and baptisms (over 400 in 2021!) in audio and video format to share online to minister to the more than 100 million people who are receiving Bible teaching through Real Faith from Trinity Church.

Now it is even less clear what Driscoll wants to do with $200,000 for his personal ministry/business.

Loaded

Maybe I just don’t understand how this ministry thing works. I’m sure that’s it. The man of god needs are different than the little people in the pew needs. The MOG needs his sermon dial in spot (see below):

And he needs his Loaded First Edition Bronco to contemplate great thoughts.

In any case, I will note again that I bet your local food pantry needs your money more than Rev. Driscoll or most megachurch pastors do. Don’t get me wrong, I know some churches are feeding lots of hungry people and doing lots of good. I bet lots of people will hear about Jesus in 2022 even if you don’t give a cent to Rev Driscoll, so consider helping those who hear about Jesus by knowing his kindness and care via a warm meal or a warm coat, or a cleft palate surgery.

*Mars Hill watchers will no doubt do a double take at the $650,000 amount since that was the amount of Driscoll’s severance in 2014 when he left the church.

 

32 thoughts on “Stop the Presses! Mark Driscoll Needs $650,000 More!”

  1. I am curious to know how many people who are in need and struggling this past year or two and have gone to the Church for help to only be told “Go and be filled the Lord will Provide” with a jolly good ole pat on the back and a shiny peerly white toothy grinned smile. While Good ole preacher man is wailing and prayin and preachin up a storm on how the church needs more money.

    1. That’s a good question. I am a Christian, and the truth is that many Christians DO help. The church I financially support provides Thanksgiving meal baskets every year to low-income families, and also provides a free summer day camp to needy children in the area. The church also provides homeless people with access to showers and medical/dental care. The church also remotely supports teachers and school facilities in Africa. It is a church with members of many different races who come together to worship Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, many other churches have lost their way.

  2. Slight threadjack, for which I apologize. However, this piece seemed the nearest one at least tangentially related.

    You indicated in earlier pieces that Driscoll was responsible for your eviction from the evangelical channel and Patheos, and speculated about the long term future of its ability to “host the conversation of the faith”. Recent news reports (and final pieces on several blogs) suggest further rise in its disability, with the (nominally amiable) exodus of the majority of the Nonreligious channel bloggers over Patheos changing editorial policies to restrict content in ways that would have particularly impacted that channel.

    Having seen mention of your eviction in a discussion of wider background, I thought I’d leave a comment on your current blog to draw this recent development to your attention, on the off chance you want to make a blog post to share your reflections on it.

    1. to clarify Warren didn’t claim Driscoll was responsible for his boot from patheos, just that it was possible Driscoll contributed to it.

    2. Another thing I have noticed in the past couple of months is that Patheos has started taking advertising from Gab, a social network that serves white supremacists and anti-Semites. With slogans in the ads like “Make America one nation under God again” and “Kick God out of social media? Not here”.

      Gab ads show up for me maybe 50% of the time on the 2 blogs under Patheos Evangelical that I still read; I don’t know if other parts of Patheos are also infected.
      While I don’t know much about how ad networks function, the fact that these ads continue to show up after many times closing them and clicking “Stop seeing this ad” suggests that they don’t have much in the way of less sleazy advertisers to show me.

  3. It’s not insignificant that he shows himself “dialing in his sermon” and “praying for his enemies” whilst on his backside and not on his knees.

    1. hlj3rd: What I would like to know if MD ever prayed for anyone to die, cursed with Cancer, lose everything or get into car accounts ANY imprecatory prayers or ask family, staff, anyone to do the same? Especially anyone exposing his abuses like Rachel Held Evans, or anyone? Pastors have done that, know true examples!

  4. Something most folks don’t know is that Mark Driscoll is on the board of directors for a local DFW area church, Keystone Church, in Keller, TX. The senior pastor of Keystone Church, Brandon Thomas, is also on the board of directors for Driscoll’s Trinity church in AZ. Each has spoken at the others church several times. I myself used to be in leadership at Keystone, and once I found out about Driscoll being so intimately tied to Keystone, I left. Keystone itself and Brandon have yearly giving campaigns, just like Driscoll, and refuse to share cash reports so members don’t actually know the truth of the church’s finances. If folks knew the truth, they would know that the top 4 staff pastors (which include Brandon and his wife Susan, along with the worship pastor Brian Burton and Groups pastor Jody Franke) all make a combined salary of $800k…FOR 4 PEOPLE. That may not seem like an amount that approaches Driscoll like status, but the church also only has an attendance of only 900 on an average weekend. Driscoll already has a foot hold in Texas, so for him to move here next should things go south in AZ, that wouldn’t shock me in the least.

    1. How about an email? Be interested in chatting more about what you said above. warrenthrockmorton @ gmail (dot) com

    2. Jeff: Religion is BIG BUSINESS with NO accountability to how much each Pastor/speaker takes in per year in entirety and same applies to each Denomination. What everyone takes in per year in entirety and what own and what worth and expenses paid. NO transparency to date so then behave like The Occult which doesn’t live in truth. Trinity Foundation, Dallas, TX as when Los Angeles Times and other entities wanted transparency and accountability got LIES and Cover-up! Look at their Lifestyles vs. who they truly help? When people know, called OVER 4,000 big named Ministries for two Homeless got mocked, ridiculed and NO help to date; along with OVER 55 years of diligently asking for help for Fatherless, Widow, Orphan, Poor, Homeless, Single Parents/their children; healthy families. NO HELP TO DATE! Talk Christian Cantonese but DO NOT LIVE? “Church was set up to deceive, and that’s been throughout History”!

      1. I am not a church; I am just one Christian. But since believing in Jesus Christ and asking Him to be my savior, I have endeavored to devote my life to help others and spread the gospel of Christ. I am not perfect and I have a continual battle with sin, but I have given away a lot of my own resources to help people. I have also found many Christian churches to be inward-focused and not care about the outside community.
        These churches are also overly-focused on getting money from the attendees/church members.

      1. Yes. He is one of the main guys that sings at Trinity. Can’t remember his name. Sad to see he is still there, he is a great guy who gave his testimony last year. Just another guy who’s been sucked into Driscoll’s lair..

  5. Pro tip: There will never be a time in his life when Mark Driscoll doesn’t “need” more than he has. He’s as much a grifter as he is a pastor.

  6. I did receive the request via email to contribute toward the $200,000 “deficit.” I am listening to the last episode of the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill and noted that Driscoll’s severance from Mars Hill was $650,000. Wonder if that is a significant number?

  7. There needs to be a board game called, “Where will Mark Go Next?” Seattle—>Phoenix—>??? I’d bet it’s Texas. Lots of Trump lovin’, narcissist enabling, authoritarian venerating going on in the Lone Star state. We know Marky Mark bolts when the heat is turned on.

    1. he wouldn’t infringe on his re-branding benefactor Robert Morris and *his family business (his kid planted a satellite in Austin). No way he comes to Dallas and is close to former friend Matt Chandler, and he couldn’t compete with the master con-man Osteen in Houston

      1. My bad. I forgot the evangelical industrial complex operates like the mob and carves up the territory like the Bonnano-Colombo-Gambino-Genovese-Lucchese families. I know Osteen wears a permanent grin like a woman who is never seen without makeup, but I bet he flashes a mean mug whenever he needs to remind a relative lightweight like Driscoll he needs to fleece his own people. That’s a real nice church you have there in Phoenix. It would be a shame if anything ever happened to it.

  8. What is perhaps simultaneously so amazing and sickening about this sort of thing is that there will be no shortage of people only too willing to stump up the cash. It boggles the mind.

    1. Yes, and I am honestly struggling not to feel like those people deserve exactly what they are getting or are going to get eventually. With all the available material online, there is no reason for someone not to have done proper diligence on him before diving in simply to get in on the ground floor of the next big thing in Arizona.

      He is actively rubbing this lifestyle into the wounds of those he left behind, some still struggling economically because of the stigma around their former MH affiliations making it hard to find ministry work. This is prosperity gospel lite, heading toward the full-calorie thing.

      1. I understand the sentiment. But it’s important to keep in focus the fact that Driscoll is the perpetrator here, and those who fall under his sway are victims of one kind or another.

        1. The lack of basic diligence on the part of these “victims” is disturbing. In this case the money that could be going to much better causes is only going to line Driscolls pockets. However, what if it were going to support a human trafficking ring, or a violent militant org (Proud boys etc).

          I get you can’t always be sure about your donations, but these people aren’t even trying.

          1. Lots of charitable donations should be re-directed. For an easy example, donations to Harvard should all go somewhere else, anywhere else. Harvard has enough money to finance itself for four generations. That said, in light of his record, any money going anywhere near Mark Driscoll should be sent elsewhere.

          2. Ken,
            Watch Mark Levin Interview with Jaco Booyens on “8 Days Documentary” as Interview exposes Pastors and Churches involved in human trafficking. Sobering interview, full of Wisdom!

    2. Where did MD come from, who put him in play/position; groomed him and funded ALL that and did he ever live James 1:27 and Matthew 25:31-end? Can the people who sat in MD’s Business, did they truly learn anything that could apply in life and get the Bible from cover to cover and how many times other than horrific spiritual abuse? Where did ALL the money go? Was he even Christian, Acts 16:31; those questions, would apply to all Ministries.

  9. He probably needs to stock up the money to finance those lawsuit threats against his newest accusers.

  10. Maybe he needs the $650K for another MD severance that is coming soon? One can only hope for a miracle here!

  11. I appreciate the work you’ve done (and continue to do) exposing Driscoll. But I just finished listening to “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill” and I can’t think of Driscoll now without getting sick to my stomach.

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