This is a working list of elders who have departed under the current executive elder board of Mark Driscoll, Dave Bruskas and Sutton Turner. Nothing is implied about the circumstances of the departure. If you have additional information or updates to the list, let me know in the comments box.
Phil Smidt
Mike Wilkerson
Jon Krombein
Chad Gardner
Nate Burke
Aaron Mead
Matt Repucci
Jeff Bettger
Andrew Lisi
Tim Quiring
Phil Poirier
Dick McKinley
Matt Johnson
Zach Bolen
Bill Clem
Alex Early
Wyatt Houtz
Caleb Davis
Tyler Powell
Scott Mitchell
Kyle Firstenberg
Samuel Choi
Nick Bogardus
Justin Schaeffer
Kerry Michaelis
Matt Jensen
Justin Holcomb
Fred Choi
James Noriega
Elliot Grudem
Eric Stark
Chris Swan
Brad House
Tim Gaydos
Will Little
Tim Beltz
Dave Kraft
Bruce Ensign
Steven Mulkey
Willie Wilson
Chad Toulouse
James Harleman
Scott Thomas
Michael Van Skaik
Jeremy Echols
Author: Warren Throckmorton
Mars Hill Church Causes You Tube to Remove Mark Driscoll's Jesus Made Mistakes Sermon Segment
Well, Mars Hill giveth and Mars Hill taketh away.
Today, I got notice from YouTube that Mars Hill Church filed a copyright claim against me for posting the missing 6 minutes of Mark Driscoll’s sermon on Acts 6 where he talked about Jesus making mistakes.
We have received copyright complaint(s) regarding material you posted, as follows:
- from Mars Hill Church about Mark Driscoll: This Might Be a Heresy; Segment edited out of sermon – Psychvideos
Video ID: 2k4nmD0GTp0
Thus, You Tube removed the video. Now all you see is:
Despite the fact that Mars Hill said the church leaders were fine with the material and didn’t edit it because they felt something was wrong with the content, they have decided they don’t want it seen in this manner. In my opinion, the use of the material falls under the fair use exemption. The sermon was delivered in a public setting with many witnesses and was a part of the total work that I excerpted in order to critique the work in question. The use of the material does not deprive Mars Hill of any income since the sermon is offered for free on their website. I am considering how to respond.
Mars Hill took to their favorite press outlet, Christian Post, to explain that Driscoll’s sermons are edited all of the time, partly for time constraints. The content was defended by Driscoll’s fellow elder, Dave Bruskas. There are good reasons to question the official explanation.
So Mars Hill claims to have removed the video due to time constraints and didn’t object to the content. However, now they have moved to prevent others from seeing the content. There is a transcript on this webpage if you are interested in reading what Driscoll said.
Christianity Today took up the theological implications of the comments but readers will now not be able to hear them.
This morning I praised Mars Hill for taking the high road, but this afternoon, I must reconsider.
Kudos to Mars Hill Church
Brief note to give credit where credit is due.
On June 8, Matthew a commenter on one of my posts about Mars Hill Global noted that Mars Hill claimed to translate the Bible into Amharic. However, as Matthew noted, there are already good translations of the Bible in Amharic. I wondered if the claim was used to make it appear that more was being done than actually happened. Translation is a major undertaking, much more involved than printing an established translation.
The Mars Hill folks must read the blog because the reference to translation has been altered. In fact, there is an explanation given. This deserves a positive mention. Instead of simply removing the page as has been done in the past with embarrassing information, the Mars Hill folks corrected the error and provided an explanation.
The page used to say:
We have also had the privilege to translate the Bible into Amharic, Ethiopia’s native language. What a blessing it was for Mars Hill Global to be able to give away 1000 Amharic Bibles to brothers and sisters across the world.
This looks like a deliberately misleading statement. However, this statement has been changed on the page now:
Note the explanation just above. In my experience writing about Mars Hill, such corrections are infrequent. Often pages just disappear. However, in this case, they provided the correct information and provided an explanation so that people who consult this page will understand the change. Well done.
Now Mars Hill, how about telling us where the Global Fund went?
Sutton Turner and the Tale of Two Mars Hill Globals
With each new publication about Mars Hill Global, it seems that church leaders verify my suspicion that much of the money donated for international outreach over the past couple of years has been spent on expanding Mars Hill United States franchises.
In a new video, executive pastor Sutton Turner defines Mars Hill Global as a family connected to Mars Hill Church through Mark Driscoll. In this video, Turner reveals that Mars Hill Global is helping Spokane get off the ground, and in the past helped the Phoenix franchise launch. In a prior post, I noted that Mars Hill Everett’s pastor Ryan Williams thanked Mars Hill Global for helping buy their building. He was almost two years late with his thanks but better late than never I guess.
In this new video, Turner makes sure we know that Mars Hill Global is a bunch of people who give to support church planting locally and internationally. Watch:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D88NBSgOb4I[/youtube]
Transcript:
Mars Hill Global is a family; a family that is connected to Mars Hill Church through Pastor Mark Driscoll’s Bible preaching. Each week there are almost 250,000 people from all over the world that download, watch, and listen to sermons and other content from Mars Hill Church.
In 2007, I began listening to Mars Hill podcasts while living in Texas and continued as a podcaster when I moved to the Middle East. My family and I were amazed at the work that Jesus was doing through Mars Hill and the number of people that were meeting Jesus and growing in Jesus each week. It was amazing. I wanted to be more than just a podcaster, I wanted to participate with prayers and financial support as part of the global family of Mars Hill Church so that more people would meet Jesus and more churches would be planted.
Together you and I are both a part the global family of Mars Hill Church. Mars Hill Global mission is the same as Mars Hill Church, making disciples and planting churches all over the world. Currently,your gifts support our 15 Mars Hill Church locations in the United States, evangelists in Ethiopia in church planters in India. It’s a blessing to have a global family who supports what Jesus is doing around the world.
As I mentioned, I’m here in Spokane Washington where we hope to plant our 16th Mars Hill Church location. It’s our prayer that this church building originally constructed in 1926 will be the new home of Mars Hill Spokane. I want to ask you to begin praying about this opportunity; an opportunity for a new Gospel work in an old vintage building, a building that will be home for a new family of believers to meet, worship, and fellowship in Jesus’s name. This new work doesn’t happen without your financial support. You help plant Mars Hill Phoenix earlier this year. Now we’re praying about this opportunity to plant Mars Hill Spokane.
I invite you to continue to pray and give, so more people can be saved by Jesus, more people can grow in Jesus, and more people can be on Jesus’s mission in Seattle, Albuquerque, Spokane, the United States, Ethiopia, India, and the ends of the Earth.
All of that is fine. If people who don’t go to Mars Hill want to donate money to Mars Hill’s General Fund, then, of course, that is up to them. However, what about the people who donated money to the Mars Hill Global Fund when it existed? Shouldn’t they know where their donation went? As some commenters on my blog have expressed, they are surprised that their money went to building in the U.S. One commenter who claimed to donate to the Global Fund wrote:
I have no words! So, we not so rich east europeans give money for poor Ethiopia and India, but surprise, they go for rich americans!!! This is some kind a joke!
Up to May, a donor could donate to something called the Global Fund. And as the next video shows, the source of the donations could be from Mars Hill members in the U.S. as well as from people who didn’t attend Mars Hill. According to this video published in January, Mars Hill Global was the arm of Mars Hill Church which developed resources for international efforts. Watch:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcseC6KpSBk[/youtube]
Transcript:
Howdy Mars Hill Church, pastor Sutton Turner here and I’m in Ethiopia, and I just want to thank Jesus for continuing to use Mars Hill Church to make disciples and plant churches. Mars Hill Global is the arm of Mars Hill Church that makes disciples and plant churches all over the world. We not only do church planting, but we help better equip church planters. Most recently, we shipped and now distributed a thousand Bibles into Amharic which is the language here in Ethiopia, and we launched a project to translate Pastor Mark Driscoll’s Doctrine book into Spanish. We have people from over 29 different countries that are giving on a monthly basis to Mars Hill Global.
So whether you’re a member of one of our Mars Hill Church locations in the United States or you’re one of 100,000 podcasters every single week, We encourage you to pray about giving above and beyond your tithe to Mars Hill Global. Thank you and let’s see more materials translated, more pastors sent out, more churches planted, and more people saved by Jesus Christ.
Turner’s January 2014 video sounds much more like the way Mars Hill Global was described in the 2013 Annual Report. Prior to May, as noted by Turner in the second video above, a donor, including a member of Mars Hill Church, could designate money separately from one’s tithe (General Fund giving) for international efforts. That was called the Global Fund. In all of the revising of Mars Hill Global’s history which has been going on lately, nothing has been said about where the Global Fund has gone or where that money was spent. Apparently, some of it was spent on Everett’s down payment, and now we learn that some of it was spent on Mars Hill Phoenix and is about to be spent on Mars Hill Spokane. But how much of it went to Ethiopia and India? If I had donated to Mars Hill Global Fund in FY 2013 and/or 2014, I would want to know.
Former Pastor: Mars Hill Church Has Entered Mediation Process with Twenty Former Pastors
On March 17, Dave Kraft and Kyle Firstenberg sent a letter to Mars Hill’s executive elders requesting mediation on behalf of themselves and 18 other former pastors. Yesterday, Dave Kraft posted an update on the process on his blog. After describing the process, Kraft wrote:
I am glad to report that the process described above is now underway. A reputable professional team, experienced in matters of significant conflict in churches, has been retained by the BOAA. This team is doing initial interviews and getting the lay of the land regarding what has transpired over the last seven years or so at Mars Hill Church. This will be a long process, so patience will be the need of the hour. Once the team has done its initial round of interviews, recommendations will be given to the BOAA as to next steps.
So the news part of this post is that Mars Hill leaders have entered into talks with twenty former pastors with a mediation team.
Kraft says he is cautiously optimistic. However, in my opinion, it is fair to point out that events of recent weeks strain optimism. Mars Hill continues to dismiss staff when they question leadership or decline to sign a non-compete clause. Instead of transparency, Mars Hill leaders stealthily change information on their website without explanation. Reasonable requests for accountability are ignored, and Mark Driscoll preached recently that the cycle that has been taking place is normal and biblical. In other words, some of the same issues the pastors wanted to talk about seem to remain the same.
Kraft acknowledges in his post that the process may not work out. However, the fact that the executive elders and Board of Advisors and Accountability have entered the process seems to recognize that there is conflict which must be addressed.