Tag: Mark Driscoll

Update on the Lawsuit Against Mars Hill Church

Just a little while ago, an update appeared on the GoFundMe page designed to raise money for a lawsuit against Mars Hill Church.

This campaign has ended. 

You can still help by clicking on the following link:http://www.gofundme.com/MarsHillLawsuit

Thanks to all who participated.

Rob Smith

The new page begins:

It is time for Christians everywhere to stand up and say, “Enough!! We will no longer put up with pastors who reach for honor for themselves and who enrich themselves at the expense and harm of those they claim to be shepherding!” 

When leaders in the Church choose to stay silent, others must speak up. Paul’s mandate to Timothy regarding leaders who persist in certain sins (1 Timothy 5:19-20) must not be ignored by the Church. Most of those who were leaders at Mars Hill Church have chosen to remain silent.

Please help us discover and make clear the truth about what happened at Mars Hill Church by contributing to this fund for a RICO lawsuit against the former top leaders of Mars Hill.

The funds already raised have gone to the attorney who did preliminary work on the suit. Brian Fahling constructed the RICO action and presented the requests for mediation to the church.
The president of Mars Hill Church is now Kerry Dodd. Dodd has not replied to requests for comment regarding the church.
Information about the lawsuit can be found at /2014/12/26/letter-the-legal-case-against-mars-hill-church/.
 

The Mars Hill Church Mailing List Was Being Distributed By…John Doe?

Not really, but that was the name given to register Churchleaderslist.com. You’ll remember that churchleaderslist.com was the website used to offer Mars Hill Church’s The Resurgence mailing list to the public. Churchleaderslist.com was pulled from the web and from twitter after it was learned that the list still belonged to Mars Hill Church. Craig Gross who purchased and used the list told Christianity Today that former Mars Hill Church spokesperson Justin Dean had sold him the list and then refunded the money after it became public knowledge that the list was still the property of Mars Hill Church.
After being offline for about a week, Justin Dean resurfaced and issued a vague apology about the mailing list. In his apology, he did not take churchleaderslist.com or say that he was responsible for offering the list to the public. I asked Dean several times if he was behind churchleaderslist.com from the beginning without any answer.
The identity of the registrant of churchleaderslist.com was hidden via privacy shield supplied by a Whoisproxy.com Ltd. This is a common manner of shielding addresses and phone numbers from the public. However, such shielding is not supposed to be done for unethical or illegal purposes. Last week, I wrote the privacy company about the matter. I was informed that the privacy shield would be removed which it was earlier today. Here is the registration information now:

Domain Name: churchleaderslist.com
Registry Domain ID: 1906809784_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.rrpproxy.net
Registrar URL: https://domains.google.com/
Updated Date: 2015-03-24T03:11:45.0Z
Creation Date: 2015-03-03T17:54:03.0Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2016-03-03T17:54:03.0Z
Registrar: Google Inc.
Registrar IANA ID: 895
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: registrar-abuse[at]google.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.877-237-6466
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited
Registry Registrant ID: 
Registrant Name: John Doe
Registrant Organization: Doe
Registrant Street: 1234 Doe
Registrant City: Beverly Hills
Registrant State/Province: CA
Registrant Postal Code: 90210
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Phone: +1.7145551212
Registrant Phone Ext: 
Registrant Fax: 
Registrant Fax Ext: 
Registrant Email: [email protected]

John Doe? By law, information provided in the registration of a domain is supposed to be factual. However, I doubt John Doe residing at 1234 Doe in Beverly Hills is the real owner. According to a contact at Google, there is no additional underlying information available. A search of the domain history turns up nothing more of interest. From the beginning of March, when the domain was registered, the owner was protecting the identity of John Doe.
As it turns out, [email protected] may actually be a working email. A search for this email on Google reveals the email attached to a domain owned by Justin Dean since 2013 — churchcomm.com. If you place this address in the address line of your browser, you will be redirected to the website of Ministry Communicators Association, a non-profit founded by Dean. Dean has apparently changed the registration information since March 28 because one needs to go to the Google cache to find the [email protected] address.

Whois Record:
Domain Name: CHURCHCOMM.COM
Registry Domain ID: 1824012583_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.enom.com
Registrar URL: www.enom.com
Updated Date: 2014-07-30T00:16:13.00Z
Creation Date: 2013-08-28T15:39:00.00Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2015-08-28T15:39:47.00Z
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Registrar IANA ID: 48
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [email protected]
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.4252982646
Reseller: NAMECHEAP.COM
Domain Status: ok
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: DOMAIN GUY
Registrant Organization: DOMAIN GUY
Registrant Street: 123 DOMAIN WAY
Registrant City: DOMAIN
Registrant State/Province: IA
Registrant Postal Code: 50126
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Phone: +1.1234567
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: [email protected]

Since Dean is also registrant for several Mars Hill Church websites (including marshill.com), this information does not prove that Dean operated on his own or that Mars Hill or former officer of Mars Hill wasn’t involved. According to the Church Leaders List website, several Christian leaders helped maintain the list. It is plausible to wonder about the possibility that others (either at the church or formerly with the church) were also involved in order to derive some benefit from the mailing list.
The practical significance of this is that Mars Hill continues to operate as a non-profit entity with even less transparency than before the church stopped having public services. Millions of dollars of assets are in play paid for by former members, some of whom were forced out because they asked too many questions. I asked the current president of Mars Hill Church, Kerry Dodd, for comment but have received no reply.

Mark Driscoll's Website Gets a Makeover; Learning for Living Becomes Mark Driscoll Ministries

UPDATE: See the update below…
The comeback appears to be percolating.
Mark Driscoll’s “admin” sent out an email today with news of a revamped website and a new “application-pending registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization” — Mark Driscoll Ministries. Mark Driscoll Ministries has the same address as Living for Learning, the other “application-pending registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization” described on the former version of his website. The new Mark Driscoll Ministries has the same address as Living for Learning – 23632 HWY 99, Suite F 517 Edmonds, WA 98026, which is a UPS store. Possibly Driscoll changed the name because Living for Learning was trademarked.
Driscoll says he will be speaking at the upcoming Hillsong Conferences. Recall that Brian Houston released a statement that Driscoll would not be speaking but rather being interviewed along with his wife Grace.
Driscoll is also working on new material.
Driscoll’s email is below:

It Is Finished!: Jesus’ Death and Resurrection

Hi NNNNN,

We want to say thank you for your prayers

We want to sincerely thank those who have been praying for and supporting us as we work to get Pastor Mark Driscoll’s past and future Bible teaching online.

In this season of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we are grateful to make this new web site available. It includes the free E-book “It Is Finished!: Jesus’ Death and Resurrection”. The content for this e-book was originally published as chapters 8-9 in the book Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe written by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears.

  • If you want the free E-book click here.
  • If you want us to notify you of new Bible teaching click here.
  • If you want to support the ministry click here.

We are praying for you

We pray that Jesus would encourage you in His love during this season, and give you opportunities to tell others about the good news of His death and resurrection for our salvation. In the meantime, here’s what we will have for you soon, Lord willing:

  • past sermon videos coming back online.
  • past sermon series that have been offline in recent years returning.
  • NEW Jesus-centered Bible teaching from Pastor Mark.
MarkDriscoll.org Admin

 Makes you wonder who the admin is.

UPDATE: A couple of readers brought to my attention that Driscoll’s website is not secure for donations. When I went to the support page just now (https:markdriscoll.org/support attempting to confirm a secure connection), this is what happened:

DriscollsnewwebpageSSL

While I am still looking into the security of Driscoll’s website, those who might want to donate to Driscoll’s ministry (and I am not advocating this) could use this link which appears to be secure. This information came from a reader in the comments section.

Who Runs Mars Hill Church? An Update

When Mars Hill Church closed the doors for the last service, the corporation Mars Hill Church did not cease. However, it has never been clear who remained in charge of the organization on a day to day basis. By by-law, the church’s Board of Advisors and Accountability has the power to create a plan of dissolution but the church has not disclosed who remained on that board. While I don’t know all involved in that capacity, I do know now who is the president of the church. Also, one person often speculated to still be involved is not.

According to documents filed last week in the King County court house, Chief Financial Officer Kerry Dodd is referred to as the president of the corporation. Dodd was hired by Sutton Turner early in Turner’s tenure as executive pastor. According to a 2012 memo to fellow executive elders, Turner considered Dodd to be a capable CFO. As president of Mars Hill, he signed documents recently in the sale of the Mars Hill Ballard building to Quest church.

The other update involves former executive pastor Dave Bruskas. Yesterday, Bruskas informed me via email that he resigned all of his roles and duties at Mars Hill Church, including his corporate role, on December 31, 2014. Under the Mars Hill bylaws, executive pastors have a position on the BoAA. As of the end of last year, there were no publicly named executive pastors.
At the time of the last service, remaining BoAA members were Matt Rogers, Larry Osborne, Michael VanSkaik, and Jon Phelps.

Who runs Mars Hill has become relevant again due to the ongoing questions surrounding the use of Mars Hill email lists by a shadowy group/individual doing business as “Church Leaders List.” After xxxchurch director Craig Gross purchased what former Mars Hill public relations spokesperson Justin Dean called The Resurgence mailing list, Church Leaders List essentially left public view by shutting down its website and twitter account. Now there are concerns that Mars Hill had not sold the list to anyone, raising questions about how Church Leaders List secured it. Efforts to get comment from the attorney who is responsible for selling The Resurgence assets have not yielded direct comment. No one from Mars Hill Church has offered comment as well.

Meanwhile, Justin Dean’s website has gone into maintenance mode and is unavailable; his twitter account has been removed.

Craig Gross summarized his involvement and what he believes about the situation in a new post today.

How Did Church Leaders List Get Mars Hill Church's Email List?

Initially, the story of Craig Gross buying an email list from Church Leaders List seemed like a marketing story gone sideways. However, there appears to be much more to the matter.
At the end of Christianity Today’s article on this, Bob Smietana wrote:

On Tuesday, Dean apologized for his part in the drama over the list. He admitted that he’d been involved the initial sale of the list to churchleaderlist.com (screen cap of page now removed from the web).

Now Justin Dean’s website is down (and his Twitter page has been removed) and so that statement is not available (except via Google cache) and screen cap below.
DeanApologyCLL
 
According to Craig Gross’ explanation, Dean’s involvement may have been that Dean was churchleaderlist.com. I asked Dean yesterday and today about his dealings with Church Leaders List but have not heard back from him. Gross wrote:

I found  it interesting that as soon as I posted this that Justin Dean posted a blog on his website that he somewhat apologized for distributing the list to me. Lets be clear, he sold the list to me. He didn’t broker a transaction. He sold me the list along with several other people who paid $1350-$1500 for the list.

I asked the lawyer that was in charge selling the assets for 100k earlier in 2014 and he said that no one has purchased the rights to sell these assets yet.

I have seen communications which indicate to me that Mars Hill Church has not sold The Resurgence email lists. Thus, if the lists have not been sold by Mars Hill Church, then how did Church Leaders List get them?
From my conversations with former Mars Hill staff, I believe there is a limited group of people who have access to the lists.
Mars Hill Church is still a viable entity but has not responded to repeated requests for information or comment. Given the non-profit status of the church, the public and former members still have an interest in their operations. If the church is selling member emails without permission, then they should come forward and acknowledge this. If not, then the question remains, how did Church Leaders List get that information?