Tag: Mark Driscoll

Memo: Mars Hill Church Staff Worried That Real Marriage Campaign Would Benefit Mark Driscoll More Than Church

According to the charges filed by the 21 former Mars Hill Church elders, Mark Driscoll told current elders in May 2014 that he was unaware of the details of the ResultSource agreement which artificially landed his book Real Marriage on the New York Times bestseller list. The former elders alleged:

May 2014—Mark told elders that he was not aware of the ResultSource agreement but had chosen to admit knowledge of it for the sake of the team in his letter to the church, and that others had made the decision to work with ResultSource. He claimed that another elder and Mark’s publishers made the decision to work with ResultSource without his knowledge. He insinuated that he had learned about the ResultSource agreement only after the story broke on World magazine. In fact, Mark agreed to work with ResultSource on the Best Seller Campaign for Real Marriage as early as July 2011.

What did Driscoll know and when did he know it? The letter to the church mentioned by the elders was sent by Driscoll via The City (Mars Hill’s closed web community) in March 2014. In it, Driscoll said:

First, a marketing company called ResultSource was used in conjunction with the book Real Marriage, which was released in January 2012. My understanding of the ResultSource marketing strategy was to maximize book sales, so that we could reach more people with the message and help grow our church. In retrospect, I no longer see it that way. Instead, I now see it as manipulating a book sales reporting system, which is wrong. I am sorry that I used this strategy, and will never use it again. I have also asked my publisher to not use the “#1 New York Times bestseller” status in future publications, and am working to remove this from past publications as well.

The wording of the statement makes it difficult to know when he became aware that the ResultSource scam was manipulative. Did he become aware of it after the story broke in World? Or sometime before that? Or did he know it all along? According to the former elders, Driscoll implied he didn’t know until after World broke the story. Since Driscoll is not talking to the media now, it is not possible to get his side of that story. However, there is evidence that Driscoll was warned about the nature of the ResultSource strategy before Sutton Turner signed the contract.
Regarding the July 2011 date mentioned by the former elders, I have seen an email which appears to support that date although I am not at liberty to print it. However, I have recently obtained an internal memo which indicates that Mars Hill staff were concerned about the Result Source agreement well before Sutton Turner signed the deal. The memo below provides additional evidence which supports the claim that Mark Driscoll was aware of the ramifications of the ResultSource strategy before the church leaders agreed to the terms of the contract. RMGiving1pager According to sources aware of the situation, the Mars Hill communications staff raised questions with the executive elders (Mark Driscoll, Sutton Turner and Dave Bruskas) about the wisdom of the ResultSource agreement prior to October 2011.  The above memo was written in September 2011, prior to the ResultSource contract dated October 13 and signed by Sutton Turner, apparently on October 17. In May 2014, I posted October 18, 2011 invoices from ResultSource which were addressed  to Mark Driscoll.
Driscoll told the church in March that he thought the ResultSource strategy would “reach more people with the message and help grow our church.” However, the memo above raised important questions regarding potential harm and loss which could result. The memo writer raised two important issues to the executive elders. Would the church lose money on the arrangement and is it acceptable for the church to pay retail price for Real Marriage when Driscoll could get them at a substantial discount and allow the church to sell them at a higher price.
The large giving campaign referred to in the memo above was launched on November 22, 2011 with a announcement to the church that Driscolls’ Real Marriage book could be secured via a $25 or more donation:
Give25getRMbook
The pitch to the members is described at the bottom of the page (since removed by Mars Hill Church; this is an archived copy of the page) Give25getRMbookB The links (in tan letters) lead to RealMarriageBook.com. This website was referred to in the Result Contract with Mars Hill: ResultSourceWebsiteRMB   That website is archived (November 19, 2011) and looked like this: ResultSourceRMBlanding
With this foundation, one can understand the concerns expressed in the memo more clearly. Real Marriage was being offered for a minimum price of $25. Since the books had to be purchased from retail outlets at the retail price ($20 or more)  in order for the books to show up in the New York Times sales count, the profit to Mars Hill Church was meager compared to what it would have been if Driscoll had exercised his option to purchase bulk quantities at a vast discount ($7).  Presumably, he made his usual royalty from the books purchased at retail. What is unknown is whether or not Driscoll donated any additional money from his royalties for the books sold in relationship to the entire campaign.
In light of this information, let’s review the worries expressed in the memo: RMMemoIsAcceptI have been told that the giving campaign did not achieve “sales” expectations. Successful or not, the campaign was set up pursuant to the ResultSource contract and managed by them. The campaign was set up to achieve Driscoll’s rise to the top of the NYT bestseller list and may have resulted in significant financial gain. The website said that purchasers were helping the ministry efforts of Mars Hill Church. Unknown to them, they were also helping Mark Driscoll get to #1 on the NYT bestseller list with all of the resulting benefits.
Finally, the memo implies that Driscoll was warned about the problems with running the ResultSource campaign through the church. The church Board of Advisors and Accountability spent money unwisely in order to benefit Mark Driscoll both via elevating his personal status and by purchasing books at retail price when those same books could easily have been secured at a substantial discount. While Driscoll said he was sorry he used the strategy, he has not directly addressed the financial consequences of the deal to the church. If the BOAA desires to repair lost trust now, I believe they need to issue a full accounting of money spent on the entire campaign, along with the resulting royalties, profits and losses.

A 2008 Caution About Mark Driscoll From Australia

Martin S.* is a Presbyterian pastor from Australia who attended a training put on by Acts 29 and Mark Driscoll in 2006. In response he wrote an article with a polite but clear warning about Driscoll to his fellow Presbyterian pastors. Given some of the charges, and discussion about eldership at Mars Hill, I thought this would be an revealing item to review. The article became a letter to the editor of the Australian Presbyterian magazine (Sept. 2008). Start reading at Uncultured Culture:
AustralianPresbyMartin
 
Not sure where “dude stuff” is in the NT criteria for the position of elder.
The initial submission is here, used with permission of Martin.
The charges filed by the 21 former pastors makes reference to an invasive interest in the conjugal lives of elders. Furthermore, the line “If you come after me, they won’t find your body” seems to depict the macho attitude toward elders described by the former and current elders.
*Martin preferred that his last name not be used in the write up.
Additional note: To address confusion about displaying the name of the author of the letter, I deleted the last name from the image of the Australian Presbyterian. Of course, his name is printed at the link.
 

Megachurch Methods: Mark Driscoll’s Content Management System

Subtitle: Pastor Mark is a Spurgeon for our time.

Most people realize by now that Mark Driscoll and perhaps most megachurch pastors use research help in order to write their books, blogs and columns. Even though the celebrity pastor’s name is on the label, several other writers have been involved in the finished product. When Driscoll issued a statement about plagiarism in his study guide on I & II Peter, he faulted his “content development process.” To many, the statement, which included the famous phrase “mistakes were made,” appeared to pass the buck to those unnamed researchers and writers employed in the development of content.

I have obtained a 2013 proposal for an expansion of the content management system at Mars Hill. I am pretty sure that very little of this is in place now after the recent round of layoffs. In fact, internal sources tell me that Mars Hill Music and The Resurgence is essentially unstaffed. Since it is a proposal, it is not clear how much of this came into being, but it provides an interesting insight into some of the stories which have emerged over the past year.  Here is the front page which provides the rationale for spending time and money promoting Mark Driscoll’s written works.
MarkDriscollCMS2013

Some content would be written by Driscoll but some content would mainly have his thoughts and voice.
Driscollcontentmgtcolumns

I can imagine that having a person dedicated to your publishing business and advancing a personal brand would be a worthy undertaking for an individual who makes his/her living from speaking, writing, and commenting. In other words, if your personal business is growing, surely you need a person who can help manage various projects. What is interesting and may be specific to the megachurch environment is that the church donations and tithes pay for this. Here is the financial aspect of the proposal.
driscollcontentmgtbudget
Budget appears to call for well over $100k once the producer is hired. Some of these expenses were already in place. When the plagiarism scandal first broke in November 2013, Docent Research was in the spotlight for awhile because Driscoll initially implied the researchers were responsible. Thus, Mars Hill members were paying for research which ended up in Mark Driscoll’s books. The royalties from those books eventually ended up with Driscoll.

This information raises questions about how much church funds should help to establish an individual’s ministry. I am not saying I have the answer; perhaps $120k+ is fine given Mars Hill Church’s size. However, even on executive elder — Sutton Turner — expressed reservations. In his 2012 memo to his fellow executive elders, Sutton Turner complained about pastors using the church to do this. It is hard to see the content management system as anything but an advancement of Driscoll’s “communications ministry.” I’ll close with two quotes from Sutton Turner in 2012:

Many times these personal ministries are done during staff time and using church resources. This actually encouraged when I first came on staff as it was explained to me that staff was able to take MHC time to do consulting work to supplement their income. At the very highest levels of the organization this was taking place and reproduced throughout the organization. So as a result, all staff members saw this as acceptable and now the established culture within Mars Hill Church.

and

It is my belief that the reason we have such poor giving by our Church is the lack of stewardship in the Church staff. Churches with excellent stewardship see greater giving because people know that every dollar they give will go towards the mission of the Church. It is very clear this has not been the case at Mars Hill Church.

Rob Asghar at Forbes on Mars Hill Church: The Enron of American Churches

Forbes’ contributor Rob Asghar takes no prisoners in his articles today on Mars Hill Church.
The first titled, “Mars Hill: Cautionary Tales From The Enron Of American Churches” analyzes the situation from the perspective of toxic leadership, and the second titled, “How Toxic Followers Enable Toxic Leaders” takes a hard look at the precursors to the recent decline at Mars Hill Church and wonders why so many missed the signs.
While hindsight has a distinct advantage over prophecy, Asghar pulls out some of Driscoll’s statements that have repeatedly been raised by ex-members. For instance:

In his investigation, Welch cited a public boast by Driscoll that should have been an adequate preview of unattractions to come. “There is a pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus, and by God’s grace, it’ll be a mountain by the time we’re done,” Driscoll said. “You either get on the bus or you get run over by the bus.”

There are several links to this blog as well as the Seattle Times Sunday article by Craig Welch.
All in all, if you are following this saga, the article is a must read. Asghar ends with a guarded prognosis:

Mars Hill’s story is far from finished. It need not end up being another Enron. But it does face enormous challenges to recover any sense of health and stability.