Mark Driscoll – Page 44 – Warren Throckmorton

Former Executive Elders of Mars Hill Church May Face RICO Lawsuit

According to former Mars Hill deacon Rob Smith and Seattle attorney Brian Fahling, a lawsuit is being prepared with Mark Driscoll, Sutton Turner, David Bruskas, and Jamie Munson named as defendants. The suit may not be filed until later this week or early next week. Those bringing the suit have alerted Mars Hill Church leaders and hope to engage in talks which could serve to prevent the suit from going forward.
A civil RICO claim (see link for statutory basis of a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations suit) must allege an injury to the plaintiffs. In this case, plaintiffs donated funds for specific purposes based on church leaders’ representations. The funds were then diverted to other purposes. In addition, plaintiffs believe that funds from the general fund were used fraudulently to scam the New York Times best-seller list for Mark Driscoll’s self-inurement.
As has been documented here, Mars Hill leaders solicited donations for various specific purposes (e.g., Jesus Festival, international misions). However, those funds were often used for other purposes (e.g., establishing Mars Hill video locations) via Mars Hill Church. The suit will allege a pattern of activities occurring over at least four years. The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability may also be named in a separate action.
Smith, who has raised numerous concerns about Mars Hill, recorded a You Tube video to promote a legal fund for the suit. The rationale is provided on the fundraising site:

Mars Hill Church, according to Paul Tripp who recently served on their Board of Advisors and Accountability, “is without a doubt the most abusive, coercive ministry culture” he has ever been involved with.
Because of the abuse of both people and money, it is essential that the dissolution of the church be delayed until the abuse can be clearly articulated by the church leadership, and repentance and restitution be made.
At this point, only a just legal action will stop the dissolution of the church. A legal team has been hired and the delay of the dissolution will be sought so that true repentance and restitution can occur.
Please support this effort.
As this year has unfolded, we have seen the widespread abuse of people, and of money.
Mark Driscoll, who built his image calling men to take personal responsibility for their actions, rather than take responsibility himself for his part in the abusive culture, resigned and left the church. He failed to address the abuse that Paul Tripp spoke of. He failed to address the hundreds of shunned and abused members, ex-members and donors.
The remaining leadership, rather than dealing head-on with the abuse, has continued to make decisions behind closed doors and simply ignored the multiple requests of members, ex-members and donors to deal with the abuse.
Rather than be transparent about the misuse of the finances of Mars Hill and the widespread abuse of people, they have chosen to hastily dissolve the corporation, and is promising whatever cash is left over to the individual campuses of Mars Hill Church.
The lead pastors of each of these campuses, rather than raising their voices for transparency and closure for the hurting ex-members, many of whom were under their care, are saying nothing. The word in the street is that they will lose their part of the “spoils” if they rock the boat. So they appear to have no interest in bringing healing to the members that their campus has harmed, or to the hurting members and ex-members from other campuses.
These “pastors” are not even calling for the public shunning of Paul Petry to be lifted. This is continued cruelty that has lasted over 7 years. Paul Petry represents many other members and families that were wrongly disciplined or ex-communicated.
At this stage of the game, without legal action being taken, Mars Hill Church will dissolve and the assets, including money, will be distributed in back-room deals that members and donors are excluded from. The many members, ex-members and donors who feel defrauded and abused will not see a just resolution to their wounds.
It is in the interest of transparency and healing that the dissolution be stopped. It will prove to be the righteous course of action. It will allow leadership that has particpated in the shocking level of abuse to clear their consciences, speak the truth, do the right thing, and be forgiven.
It will be a wonderful testimony to all. To simply dissolve will permanently harm all who are seeking healing and closure.
Please support this fund.

From my vantage point, it would be to the advantage of Ethiopian and Indian pastors if the dissolution of the church could be stalled to allow Mars Hill more time to disclose how much money should go to them. The Global Fund brought in millions and an investigation would help clarify how much money should be funneled to those who were used to raise the funds which ultimately were used to support Mars Hill’s expansion.

Dave Bruskas and Mark Driscoll to Mars Hill Church Elders in May 2012: We Really Need Your Help

The following post by Dave Bruskas and Mark Driscoll was made to Mars Hill Church’s internal website The City and also sent via email to staff and elders on May 25, 2012. This memo contrasts with the reality of compensation for the executive elders, apparently unknown to the lead pastors and members at the time.

This memo should be read along with the memo Sutton Turner sent to Mark Driscoll and Dave Bruskas in March of 2012 where Turner said the church was in serious financial trouble due to poor planning and lack of financial transparency. Also recall that the church paid ResultSource over $200,000 in late 2011 and early 2012 to get Mark Driscoll’s book Real Marriage on the New York Times best-seller list. Another relevant fact is that the church solicited $6.4 million from the congregation at the end of 2011 in order to help launch four new church plants in January 2012, the same month that Real Marriage was released. The executive elders told the people that in addition to launching the churches, Mars Hill planned to use that money to develop an animated children’s video series. Like the Jesus Festival, the series was never animated.

The full text of the memo is reproduced below.

We Really Need Your Help
From Pastor David Bruskas:
From Pastor Dave:

As the final days of putting together a budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 are here, some Lead Pastors are wrestling with the reality of letting a few good people go at the local church level. And some of you have had recent conversations with your Lead Pastor regarding upcoming transitions that have been painful. I understand firsthand how hard it is to let a productive staff member go whom your church loves. I also know how hard it is for the people who have been served well to let staff go without a fight. So that makes Lead Pastors twice as vulnerable. They must face the disappointment of the departing staff member and the disappointment of the church. And much like I would expect any good leader to do, many Lead Pastors are fighting hard to keep staff and avoid cuts creatively and boldly. But we need to let go of that fight at this point. Here are a couple of reasons why.

First, we have, in reality, a single budget for all of our 14 churches. So this means for every cent in exceptions that once church receives above the $10 per adult compensation and ministry operation allotment, another church loses the same amount. So the only way for one church to win is for another church to lose. Second, the cost numbers per adult that Pastor Sutton and the Finance Team have given for targets aren’t arbitrary nor merely guidelines. They are hard targets that have been carefully researched and must be met. And if we don’t live within our means, we won’t just face the loss of future expansion opportunities, we will have to scale back our current ministry services significantly. And in the most dire circumstances, shut down a few of our churches. As of today, we are paying extra fees in financing the costs of existing buildings because of our unattractive financial condition to potential lenders. This must change for us even to be good stewards of what we already have.

A couple of final thoughts. First, we know this isn’t your fault, but the result of past decisions and practices. And while we will provide you a new and helpful global narrative soon to communicate this really tough news to our members, to be critical of the past means that we have to say things publicly that might hurt good leaders with great intentions who served Mars Hill well. Some of whom are still faithfully serving along side us today. And that to us seems like a losing proposition. We also know that this process has had some starts and stops along with some conflicting information. Please forgive us for that. We are continually receiving new financial information that has caused some hiccups along the way.

Second, these are decisions the Executive Elders are making in unity. We have spent countless hours discussing together both the state of our finances and our present staffing model through face to face meetings, emails, texts and phone calls. We have worked through each of your staff rosters in an attitude of prayer thinking through every angle we could imagine to keep as many people as possible. We grieve the fact that this cut is deep and results in letting go of some very good people who are performing well and helping the church. We have done the same thing with our central team reducing our costs 40%. It is super painful and we are very sympathetic towards you, your team and your church.

And more than anything, we hurt for those who have lost jobs. We would request that you abide by our spending targets per person. Please respect these decisions by not coming to us individually in the hope that they may be changed. Pastor Sutton and I are happy to clarify anything that is confusing. But we can’t devote any more time to hearing appeals.

We love you all very much and appreciate your devotion to Jesus and His church in this tough season. We do feel loved and supported by you and hope you feel the same from your

Executive Elders.

From Pastor Mark:

These are tough seasons. Personally we love our staff.

Pastorally we are concerned for our staff. Practically we grieve for our staff. Professionally we don’t have a choice but to reduce our staff. We simply have to live within our means. If we reduce staff now we can provide lead time for people to find an option while receiving severance. Had we not done this we would have had to reduce staff without severance this summer. We know this is hard but it is better than the alternative. The various leaders making these decisions across four states have prayed and labored over these tough calls. Your Exec Elders have cut first and deepest. Central is reduced 40% and working double time. We are vacating our offices reducing our staff and in contact nearly every hour every day pulling together and seeking Jesus’ wisdom. Your Executive Pastor Sutton is up at 4am everyday praying for our church. Now is a time for everyone to pray and love a lot. Lastly, without being improper we’ve frankly been through tougher times and deeper cuts before. After 15 years i can say this is not the worst storm we’ve weathered. We will get through it together by Gods grace. Trust me on this fact.

This memo illustrates why transparency is needed now. Dave Bruskas is the remaining executive and presumably is the one responsible for the current decision not to release information on the Global Fund, severance packages and the Driscoll investigation report. In 2012, the executive elders had gotten raises while telling the staff that they had cut “first and deepest.”

What were the cuts? In Driscoll’s case, he cut his salary for several months from $503,077 to $480,769. While some people were losing their jobs, Driscoll cut his half million dollar salary by 4.4% on an annualized basis. Then, less than three months later, Sutton Turner recommended that the church raise Driscoll’s pay by nearly $150,000. Clearly, the first cut was not the deepest.

Year after year, Mars Hill members have been asked to give sacrificially above and beyond tithes to the Global Fund and various year-end financial drives (Turner called them “Hail Mary” efforts) with no knowledge of the financial moves being made by leadership. As the church winds down, secrecy still appears to be the norm at the church with members being asked to give until the end while the leaders have decided not to disclose the Driscoll investigation, a full accounting of the Global Fund, or the commitment of the church to executive severances.

The current remaining elders have an opportunity to step up and walk in the light as they were asked to do by the nine former pastors who took a stand for disclosure and transparency. Time is slipping away and it remains to be seen what that legacy will be.

Research for Mark Driscoll's Delayed Book — The Problem with Christianity — Available to the Masses

This is an interesting development.
The research which formed the foundation for Mark Driscoll’s now postponed book, The Problem with Christianity has now been made available for free download on the Mars Hill Church website.
The way the description of the research report closes makes me wonder if Driscoll is going to release his book:

Our hope is this valuable research can be helpful for you as you prepare content such as sermons, books, or blog posts.

When he took his six week “focus break,” Driscoll said he had agreed to postpone the publication of the book until a future “season.”
Now someone else might turn it into a book first.
I have to give some unknown decision maker at Mars Hill kudos. The research for the book cost Mars Hill Church six figures and now the members and the rest of us can read it.

One Year Ago Today Janet Mefferd Interviewed Mark Driscoll

In conversations about Mars Hill Church, many people peg the beginning of the Year of Mars Hill’s Discontent as being Janet Mefferd’s radio interview with Mark Driscoll. In that interview, Mefferd accused Driscoll of plagiarism and he accused her of having “sort of a grumpy day.”

In hindsight, perhaps one could view the Strange Fire conference deception as the beginning of the end and indeed Mefferd began her interview by asking Driscoll about the conference. In fact, he never really answered her question about whether or not the books were confiscated. He said they were going to confiscate them but didn’t say they did. Please see Darren Wiebe’s eye witness account for more on the Strange Fire confiscation controversy.

In any case, the Fall of 2013 was the start of a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year for Rev. Driscoll and his fellow executives at Mars Hill. Mefferd later apologized for her approach but did not retract her claims of plagiarism.

Mefferd’s interview seemed to break open the flood gates and eventually brought me and others into the situation. I wasn’t sure at first that Mefferd was correct in her claims, but I quickly came to believe she was right. Eventually I discovered problems in more of his books and created a chart to map it all. From there, problems with church finances, leadership, scamming the New York Times best-seller list, bullying personnel, and more snowballed. Time will tell what the enduring significance will be.

If you want to listen again, here it is:

John Catanzaro Does Victory Dance

Clearly John Catanzaro hopes people don’t read the actual settlement reached with the Department of Health.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/OndGls86cw0[/youtube]
Catanzaro makes it seem like he did the Department of Health a favor and he did nothing wrong. However, he stipulated to deceiving the Department and he has to pay former patients $180,750 to cover the costs of vaccines he charged for but did not administer.
Catazaro admitted to the same charges made back in January. Here is just one in which he agrees with the Department of Health that his treatment was not safe and he engaged in unprofessional conduct.

Catanzaro is pretty brazen; he still has to apply for reinstatement and yet he is counting his vaccines before they are hatched.