Category: Mars Hill Church

Say Good-Bye to Mars Hill Church's Web Presence Tonight (UPDATED)

UPDATE: The website now has a history of the church and directory of locations which are attempting to become independent churches.
The history includes Leif Moi and Mike Gunn as co-founders and in 2014 there’s this:

While the year began with much joy, 2014 was a year marked by trials, tribulations, and ultimately—transitions. Facing mounting criticism as the church investigated formal charges against him, Pastor Mark Driscoll submitted his resignation as vision and preaching pastor on October 14, 2014.

……………..
Ecclesiastes 7:8 – “The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.”
If you want to get some last minute Mars Hill information put aside, now is the time to do it. Multiple sources are telling me that the website content will be unavailable at midnight eastern time.
As we now know, at least some of the sermon content will live on at markdriscoll.org. Google cache will have some available for several days but the Wayback Machine is hindered by the ever-pesky robot.txt.
Not sure about the social media but I suspect those accounts will be gone as well (e.g., You Tube, Twitter, Facebook).
The church has lots of business to conduct so it really can’t legally go away until the final dissolution. I have some more stories and information which I will add to the record in the coming days.
Readers can also use this post as an open forum on the last days at Mars Hill. Maybe MH Insida will make an appearance before he goes off to party. In any case, please keep it civil and respectful of each other.

Seattle Times Covers the Last Day at Mars Hill Church

Some interesting news in this article about the new Cross and Crown Church (formerly Mars Hill Ballard).
For those keeping up, the article is a brief update on Ballard.
According to the report, the Evangelical Credit Union, who is financing the building, wants to see fewer paid staff on the leadership team.
 
 

The Title of Mark Driscoll's New Non-Profit is Trademarked by Two Other Organizations (UPDATED)

Update: markdriscoll.org is back up. There are some Mars Hill elements which remain (e.g., navigation bar, and logo), are assets of the church, and presumably are being pulled from their servers. For instance, the logo:
MarkDriscollLogo
The sites are telling Facebook they are the same site by using the same Facebook insight tag:
marshill.com
markdriscoll.org
There is content which comes from Justin Dean’s new company Doxa Media (for instance this image on the “Get” tab).
Also, see update at the end of the post concerning the co-directors of Learning for Living…
………………………………
Mark Driscoll’s new website has been down since the 27th after I reported that it was a copy of marshill.com.
markdriscollsomethingwrong
This morning Janet Mefferd tweeted that Driscoll’s new organization, Learning for Living, is trademarked by Alistair Begg’s Truth for Life organization. I became aware of that last week and wrote Truth for Life for comment. Today, I spoke to someone at the organization who declined to comment but was aware of the issue. The person who is able to comment was not there today.
The phrase is also trademarked by the non-sectarian Learning for Living Institute. I don’t really know how this works since according to the search results two organizations have the same phrase. There was no response from the Institute to my inquiries before I posted this.
truthforlifetrademark
In any case, I don’t know if the trademark issue is the reason the website is down or if it relates to a clean up of the Mars Hill code issue raised over the weekend.
Update: Becky Garrison has information on who is helping Driscoll with Learning for Living:

Directors 
Mark Driscoll
Greg Kappas
Tope Koleoso
23632 Highway 99, Suite F517, Edmonds, WA 98026 USA

As Garrison points out, Kappas (if it is the same one) is head of Grace Global Network. He has been with Driscoll since the beginning of his ministry, according to Wenatchee the Hatchet. Koleoso preached at Mars Hill’s best sermon series and is pastor of Jubilee Church in London. He was the speaker at Bellevue when former members protested outside that Mars Hill location.  The address is a post box (517) at the UPS store there.

Top Ten Posts of 2014

It should be no surprise that all of the top ten posts relate to Mars Hill Church in some way. Here they are:

  1. Acts 29 Network Removes Co-founder Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church From Membership (UPDATED)
  2. Twenty-One Former Mars Hill Church Pastors Bring Formal Charges Against Mark Driscoll
  3. Mars Hill Church Board of Elders: Mark Driscoll Resigned Instead of Entering a Restoration Plan
  4. The Storm at Mars Hill Church: Mark Driscoll Explains It All
  5. Mars Hill Church Board Reacts to Being Removed from Acts 29 Network (UPDATE)
  6. Announcement: Mark Driscoll Will Take At Least Six Weeks Off (UPDATED) (AUDIO) (VIDEO)
  7. Nine Current Mars Hill Church Elders Take a Bold Stand
  8. A Former Mars Hill Pastor Speaks Out and Why Others Are Afraid: The Mars Hill Church Non-Disclosure Agreement
  9. Acts 29 Pioneer Ron Wheeler Send Open Letter to Mark Driscoll, Asks Him to Resign
  10. Mars Hill Church Deletes Mark Driscoll’s Teaching on Jesus Making Mistakes

You can read all of the articles on Mars Hill Church here.
The most popular post this year written prior to 2014 was a 2009 post on the relationship between child abuse and homosexuality. Another popular this year written in the past was a post on David Barton’s distorted story about Congress and the first English Bible printed in the United States.
 
 
 
 

The Final Sunday at Mars Hill Church: Rick Warren, Broken Trees and Unfinished Business (Video) (Audio)

Not long ago, Rick Warren finished preaching the last sermon to the remaining locations of Mars Hill Church. I may have more about the sermon later, but for now I want to pick out one phrase:

Even in God’s garden of grace, broken trees bear fruit.

According to someone who heard the message, Warren said this while showing a picture of a fallen tree with eight new trees growing out it.
For many, Mars Hill Church was not a broken tree. They made their nest in that tree and are mourning today as it will no longer function as it once did. For others the tree was diseased and broken, a source of pain. While some of them may celebrate, I suspect that most of those who had anything to do with the church will also feel some sadness and grief. In all my interviews, I have met only a handful who wanted to see the church close. Most wanted to see change and stories of redemption and correction.

Actually, the church doesn’t cease as an entity on December 31. There are buildings to sell and resources to distribute. There might be mediation or a lawsuit to settle. There will be donation statements to mail out. Speaking of money, there will be offerings to count and process. My source said that one of the pastors stood up and asked for money after Rick Warren’s sermon.

Fitting.

But videos will go away and churches will become local. Over time we will find out how many of those trees growing from the fallen one will live.


Below is about two minutes near the beginning of the sermon. There may be more of the message later. (edit: these audio clips were lost during a blog move)

At the end, just before communion and singing the last three songs, Alex Ghioni leads the request for offerings.

Here is audio of the entire sermon (no video except the title):

Some readers have pointed out via email that the “broken tree” image might not square well with Jesus’ images of the fruit produced by good and bad trees in Matthew 7:17:

Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

In fairness, I know the concept he was going for but the image doesn’t work well for those who believe Mars Hill was, on balance, not a good tree.

Mars Hill posted the video on their You Tube channel:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/HAcegtdWCRA[/youtube]