Looking just like the Mars Hill Church website, Mark Driscoll has launched MarkDriscoll.org.
Incorporated in Texas, the bio begins:
Pastor Mark Driscoll is a Jesus-following, mission-leading, church-serving, people-loving, Bible-preaching pastor. In 2010, Preaching magazine named him one of the 25 most influential pastors of the past 25 years. He’s grateful to be a nobody trying to tell everybody about Somebody.
Pastor Mark is the author of many books, has written for CNN, Fox News, and The Washington Post, and has been featured as a columnist for The Seattle Times.
I suspect the first line will really inflame the Mars Hill in exile folks. The more complete picture includes a church-leaving, elders’-avoiding ex-pastor. I know anyone can take the title pastor but one often thinks of it in relationship to the pastor of a church.
This line is ironic since Driscoll was removed from the network earlier this year:
He is the co-founder of the Acts 29 Network, which has planted over 400 churches in the US and 13 other nations.
Then there is this line:
With a skillful mix of bold presentation, accessible teaching, and unrelenting compassion for those who are hurting the most—particularly women who are victims of sexual and physical abuse and assault—Pastor Mark has taken biblical Christianity into cultural corners rarely explored by evangelicals.
I’ll let readers react to that one.
Pretty amazing really to start the make-over so quickly.
Reminds me of the ServPro commercials; like it never even happened:
[youtube]http://youtu.be/BghyifwhQ4c[/youtube]
An interesting about the website: it is registered to Mars Hill Fellowship (go here and look up the domain name).
Domain Name:MARKDRISCOLL.ORG
Domain ID: D104853693-LROR
Creation Date: 2004-09-07T15:38:06Z
Updated Date: 2014-12-10T02:19:44Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2015-09-07T15:38:06Z
Sponsoring Registrar:eNom, Inc. (R39-LROR)
Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID: 48
WHOIS Server:
Referral URL:
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited
Registrant ID:24938753-NSI
Registrant Name:Mars Hill Fellowship Seattle
Registrant Organization:Mars Hill Fellowship Seattle
Registrant Street: 7758 Earl Ave NW
Registrant City:Seattle
Registrant State/Province:WA
Registrant Postal Code:98117
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.2067066641
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email:[email protected]
The domain was created in 2004 but renewed this month. The email contact uses a domain name not now used by Mars Hill Church. According to Wenatchee the Hatchet, Mars Hill Fellowship may be separate from Mars Hill Church. I don’t understand the legal issues here, but this information makes me wonder if Mark Driscoll might make a come back as pastor of a Mars Hill Fellowship.
This information also increases the pressure on the church to explain how they are stewarding their present resources. They just spend thousands to investigate Driscoll and found that he should step down and enter a restoration program. Now he shows up with an asset registered to what looks like was the forerunner of the church. Dud they hand over the domain to him? Mars Hill Church is still listed as the contact.
On the site, Driscoll asks for “tax-deductible” gifts which apparently go to something called Learning for Living, described as “an application-pending registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. All donations are tax deductible in full or in part.” Nothing by that name comes up in a search of charities in Washington state.
I suspect this news adds new urgency to the recent challenge by former elder Jon Krombein to release the Driscoll investigation results.
Click here to read the incorporation paper. The attorney is Anthony and Middlebrook, who represented them in their fuss with Santa Ana, CA when the church refused to obey the city’s zoning laws.