A former staff member from The Trinity Church provided the following document to me:
Notice the heading: “The ministry of The Trinity Church is ruled by God, influenced by Wise Counsel, governed by a board, led by the Senior Pastor, run by staff, and carried out by Team Trinity.”
However, looking at the flow chart, there is no board. Rather, note who is large and in charge – “Pastor Mark & Grace.”
Notice also that Driscoll’s daughter Ashley Chase is higher on the chart than the pastors. It also appears that Driscoll’s Real Faith nonprofit is a subsidiary of The Trinity Church. Now that is confusing. Driscoll’s nonprofit board and staff serve as a part of the staff of The Trinity Church. Maybe this is indeed a family business.
Actually, on a sheet of instructions given to staff, that exact phrase “family business” is used. See #8 under Professional below:
There are some catchy but meaningless phrases in this document. For instance: “We are Governed Throne Down, not Pew Up.” Who is on what throne? In practice, this is just a way of the single leader telling everybody else what to do and claiming God’s permission to do it.
Notice the conflation of The Trinity Church and Driscoll’s personal ministry: The Trinity Church and Real Faith.
Staff and volunteers also have to sign a non-disclosure agreement. I will take that up in a separate post.
There are awful, harrowing stories coming out of this church. People are being kept from seeing family members because of how they feel about Mark Driscoll. Having chronicled stories from Mars Hill, I can say it feels like deja vu all over again listening to the hurting people contacting me now.
For any The Trinity Church attenders who are brave enough to read this far: Ask yourself why there are no financial statements. Do you know how your offerings are being spent? Why are there no elders or deliberative meetings over church direction? Why do people simply disappear from attendance without comment? Why are some people shunned? Why aren’t forgiveness and reconciliation stories what Mark Driscoll’s churches are known for?
If you are really brave, invest some time listening to these former Mars Hill Church co-workers of the man who now occupies your Trinity throne.
“The Emperor has dissolved the Imperial Senate.”
— Grand Moff Tarkin, Death Star command staff briefing room
Marky Mark’s Mars Hill 1.0 was what helped me identify deep wounds from religious abuse. Never went to Mars Hill, only found kinship with the slaughtered under Driscoll’s “pastoral care.” Though I’m guessing Driscoll’s style didn’t rely upon the traditional church organ, through him I learned to untangle the triggers of my religious PTSD which included the mere sound of a church organ.
The Buddha called it: avoid naming God and you avoid the certain abuses that follow, including Driscoll’s. I support WT through Patreon, and I support corn farmers. The Mars Hill 2.0 sequel will require lots and lots of popcorn.
Just upon his own personal organ.
I think a lot (but not all) of these problems would be mitigated if churches were required to file financial disclosures just like any other 501(c).
John Oliver satirized this problem 6 years ago.
Thank you for posting this, and for pointing out the empty and meaningless phrases sprinkled throughout these documents. Deception at the sentence level corresponds to deception at the theological level.
The only one ruling the ministry of Trinity Church is an unrepentant serial abuser.
As I said in a post on the last part of this series, Driscoll has shown up again, except to sign a document that called for the various “prophets” in the third wave movement to be held accountable. The document was made after so many failed Trump prophecies from last year. Of the prophets I have heard about only the ones that were a part of this and who received an avalanche of really nasty comments and even death threats have signed it. They have both shut down their prophetic part of their ministries. Only Patricia King signed it who is still in that business. Everyone else I have heard of from Rick Joyner to Chuck Pierce to Dutch Sheets to Bill Johnson to Elijah’s list Steve Schulz did not. But Driscoll did, so go figure that? And so did Robert Morris?
My former Pastor in Boston, Dr Roberto Miranda, signed the document too. He’s a very moral intelligent and good man. With very little Biblical revelation of the New Covenant Jesus Christ however. These apostolic prophetic leaders will only be properly aligned with Jesus Christ if they renounce allegiance to the world system of politics and embrace the gospel of the Kingdom and New Covenant of Jesus Christ.
It has been my observation that these white-washed septic tank leaders tend to become very obsessed with earthly politics because they do not actually know The King. Seeing Jesus Christ for who he is makes all of the politicians look like rats trying to eat each other. The contrast is so very stark who would want to vote for narcissists when you can live under the reign of Christ right now? No waiting necessary.
“Engage Enrage – if you engage a critic / enemy you will enrage them.”
Passive aggression, I reckon. Criticism will be met with dismissal or hostility. Yukky yuk.
(Some of us value criticism and have no wish for engaging with critics to be a hostile or negative thing.)
It’s said in several different ways, but it’s still perfectly clear that Mark Driscoll is the be-all and end-all of Trinity.
And there’s the scary stuff. The scariest, to my mind, besides the lack of oversight of Driscoll, is that there are no anonymous votes.
Bingo! Actually, the concept of no anonymous votes borders on more frightening than if they just said that there would never be votes. I am curious where voting would fit into their structure … is this just referring to votes in the “leadership team”?
The best way to run an organization is for people to be able to bring up criticisms openly and freely without fear of retaliation.
The second-best way, if you can’t achieve the best, is for people to be able to bring up criticisms anonymously and have them heard. Needing to do this is a symptom of power imbalance, but human institutions being what they are, it’s often necessary.
When a leader rails against anonymity, he is telling you he will not tolerate criticism. Nothing more and nothing less. Avoid such organizations like the plague they are.
The best way to run an organization is for people to be able to bring up criticisms openly and freely without fear of retaliation.
The second-best way, if you can’t achieve the best, is for people to be able to bring up criticisms anonymously and have them heard. Needing to do this is a symptom of power imbalance, but human institutions being what they are, it’s often necessary.
When a leader rails against anonymity, he is telling you he will not tolerate criticism. Nothing more and nothing less. Avoid such organizations like the plague they are.
The best way to run an organization is for people to be able to bring up criticisms openly and freely without fear of retaliation.
The second-best way, if you can’t achieve the best, is for people to be able to bring up criticisms anonymously and have them heard. Needing to do this is a symptom of power imbalance, but human institutions being what they are, it’s often necessary.
When a leader rails against anonymity, he is telling you he will not tolerate criticism. Nothing more and nothing less. Avoid such organizations like the plague they are.
Driscollneeds some of those IRS nerds to come visit, in the worst way.,.
So he can punch them in the nose and throw them under the bus?
“ME MAN! RAWR!!!”
I just watched the Hulu documentary on WeWork. It is very reminiscent of what I have read about Mars Hill: a charismatic leader drawing people into vision, leaving a trail a destruction behind him. The difference is that Driscoll is undertaking a second go-around, presumably targeting the low-information congregant. Adam Neumann has not, at least not yet. There is some talk about his wife wanting to found a school, but this is all pretty vague at this point. Perhaps the difference is that Neumann’s severance package pushed two billion-with-a-b dollars and he hasn’t burned through it yet.
Neumann and his family also fled the country and are now living in Israel. (Probably in hopes of dodging justice and extradition; from what I have read and heard about the WeWork debacle it’s probably only a matter of time before criminal fraud is uncovered.)