Several sources (current Mars Hill members, current pastors) have informed me that church pastors are telling members of the congregation that Mark Driscoll plans to make a “big announcement” on Sunday, August 24. The community groups have been informed to watch for it but there is nothing specific about the announcement as yet.
The month of August has been difficult for Mars Hill and Driscoll. Among other items, two church board members resigned, Acts 29 Network removed Driscoll and the church from membership, several groups have canceled appearances by Driscoll, and 21 former pastors filed charges against him with the allegation that Driscoll has disqualified himself as a pastor.
Based on the calls to resign, some have speculated that his announcement will be to take a sabbatical. Other speculation revolves around the church governance. Perhaps, the church will return governance to the council of elders as opposed to the Board of Advisors and Accountability.
The Stranger’s blog has some speculation and a poll you can take to vote for what you think Driscoll will announce.
For more articles on Mars Hill Church, click the link.
Tag: Mark Driscoll
KOMO News Features Co-Founder of Mars Hill Church in Report on Charges Filed by 21 Former Pastors
One of the other co-founders of Mars Hill Church, Leif Moi, spoke out to KOMO News late yesterday about the charges recently lodged by 21 former Mars Hill pastors. Watch:
Moi was dismissed as an elder in 2007. I have spoken to him several times this year and have a sense that coming forward was difficult. According to Moi, he has made several efforts to make amends with Driscoll and the church.
Twenty-One Former Mars Hill Church Pastors Bring Formal Charges Against Mark Driscoll
On the heels of what was arguably the worst week in the history of Mars Hill Church, twenty-one former Mars Hill Church pastors brought charges late last week against lead pastor Mark Driscoll. Accompanied by a cover letter, briefs on workplace bullying and a summary of the powers of Mars Hill elders, the charges are being leveled by well-respected former pastors and are in the possession of the Mars Hill leadership. These documents greatly expand on charges brought by former pastor Dave Kraft. Those charges were dismissed by the Board of Advisors and Accountability. The cover letter states:
We have submitted to the Mars Hill board of advisors and accountability the attached formal charges of Mark’s disqualification from the pastoral office. We have signed these charges and intend to stand as witnesses. There are additional witnesses whose names have been withheld for their protection, but who also intend to testify in an investigation of these charges.
The link to the charges is above, but I want to point out that the pastors are concentrating on disqualifying actions since 2010. A rumor flying around Mars Hill Church is that Driscoll’s dismissal by the Acts 29 Network was due to offenses prior to the last three years. In this recent letter, the former pastors make a point to stress the current nature of their concerns:
While the primary evidences for these charges are the personal experiences and testimonies of the signers and witnesses, we want to make it clear that these experiences are tied to many concrete events. The following is a small selection of examples that illustrate a pattern of disqualifying behavior. The signers of these charges and the additional witnesses are prepared to provide details for these examples along with many more examples when interviewed as part of the investigation of these charges.
Please note the recency of the events below. We have selected more recent examples to challenge a prevalent impression that while Pastor Mark may have sinned in these ways in the distant past, he has been a changed man in more recent years. To the contrary, we know of recent evidence that strongly indicates disqualifying patterns having continued into recent times. Dave Kraft’s formal charges were submitted in May 2013. At that time, several of the examples listed below were current.
Some of the charges are as follows:
October 2011—Mark said in a meeting that he did not want a certain staff elder (who was not slim) to take on a certain prominent leadership role because “his fat ass is not the image we want for our church.”
May 8, 2012—In a meeting of the Full Council convened to vote on the slate of nominees for the new board of advisors and accountability, Mark was explaining to the elders that under the newly revised bylaws, the Full Council would have the right to review any changes by the board. One elder corrected Mark with his own understanding that the new bylaws, in fact, allow the board to make decisions without running it by the Full Council. Mark’s response to that elder was bullying, with some elders present recalling language to the effect of: “I don’t give a shit what you think. I’m trying to be nice to you guys by asking your opinion. In reality, we don’t need your vote to make this decision. This is what we’re doing.”
Summer 2012—Domineering and arrogant—In an all-MEDCOM [Media & Communications team] meeting discussing his displeasure over the way the team had been marketing R12, Mark said, “You think you’re the Resurgence. But, you’re not the brand. I’m the brand!”
March 2013—Violence: Threatened to tear down a former elder’s church plant, saying “I’ll tear his church down brick by brick.”
July 2013—Mark commanded MEDCOM staff to redirect marketing for R13 with the branding and messaging of his book, “Call to Resurgence.” At least one staff member fought back on the principle of conflict of interest—Mars Hill, being a non-profit org, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to push a book that Mark makes personal profit from.)
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.
On the last charge above, I obtained invoices which demonstrates knowledge of Result Source in October, and I have seen an email which indicated Driscoll’s awareness as early as July, 2011. The letter asks Mars Hill leadership questions which contain further concerns and the pastors believe, if investigated, will prove disqualifying. For example:
Is Pastor Mark guilty of plagiarism? If so, what is an appropriate consequence for him?
Is Pastor Mark guilty of sexual harassment in the form of sexual immorality in speech (Eph. 5:3)? We are aware of a number of credible reports of inappropriate sexually-oriented comments that Pastor Mark has made to and about other men’s wives, particularly in casual social settings.
My impression is that these matters have been raised repeatedly and are a part of the concerns which animated Acts 29 Network to take action. Clearly, Rev. Driscoll and Mars Hill leadership are under fire and I will post any response to my request for their side of things if they reply.
Executive Salaries at Mars Hill Church
Do you want to know how much your megachurch pastor makes?
Some current and former members have expressed to me that they want to know what Mark Driscoll and the other executive pastors make. I will disappoint them right up front and say I don’t know the answer to the question but I want to explore it a bit.
Rob Smith at Musings From Under the Bus provided the CEO salaries and annual revenue of 5 large non-profit/parachurch organizations (e.g., Samaritan’s Purse, World Vision). The average annual revenue for the five organizations is nearly $290 million. Smith reported an average of $309k/year for the CEO’s total compensation. Driscoll is rumored to get much more than that as lead pastor/CEO of an organization with around $20 million in revenues. But again, those are rumors. Only a handful of people know. His congregation doesn’t know. One fellow asked and he was let go.
I have obtained the compensation study used to calculate the executive elders salaries for Mars Hill executive elders for 2012. The company performing the study, CapinCrouse, provided a range of incomes along with church attendance and annual budget. There wasn’t much of a relationship between compensation and results. The salaries ranged from $265k to $1.1 million yearly (should any church pay a pastor a million dollars?). The minister with the largest church budget made $330k/year. In other words, other factors besides size and budget went into salary decisions. That study did not come to a conclusion about what to pay the Mars Hill executive pastors. The Mars Hill Church Board of Advisors and Accountability is charged with that duty.
Denominations often provide a formula to aid churches in figuring salary. To illustrate, examine the extensive guidance provided by the Church of Christ. There is a formula using years of experience and size of church to help calculate a base salary.
Smith believes the executive pastors salaries eventually will be known. This is sometimes a touchy subject in churches. I have been in churches where the pastor did not want the details of his compensation package discussed widely and others where it was all transparent. I grew up with my father’s salary printed in the paper because he was a public school administrator. However, many people have hangups about it. My current thinking is to lean toward transparency and the use of a formula to arrive at a figure. I certainly think people in the pews have a right to ask and should get some idea of the range of compensation they are paying for.
Generally people who pay the bills want information to help them decide if the money is being spent well. Mars Hill members have neither information nor input. Such a situation is different than how we relate to our government. In that domain, all salaries are known and we often praise whistleblowers who disclose fraud and abuse of public funds. Most of us want that kind of transparency for our government but the situation seems murkier in church.
Although the ECFA has been reluctant to apply them, the organization’s guidelines require more transparency than seems forthcoming at Mars Hill. When it comes to executive compensation, the ECFA’s guidelines on compensation require specific board actions for pastors making over $150k. Although it has not been possible to verify, Mars Hill’s BOAA claims to follow the ECFA guidelines on the setting of compensation.
Another topic which is germane to executive compensation is the use of Mars Hill Church by the executives for personal enrichment. James Duncan has explored the prospects that the church expends much member dollars on advancing the brand of Mark Driscoll. I think most would agree that the Real Marriage campaign was an illustration of that. Anyone who cares about Mars Hill should read Duncan’s analysis of the Real Marriage campaign. Duncan lays out the money trail and illustrates how being a lead pastor with a product can enrich that pastor at the expense of the church. An unexamined aspect of the Real Marriage debacle is the amount of money expended to pay church employees who worked on promoting the book. The Mars Hill Media and Communications team promoted the book, set up the seminars, and ran Driscoll’s social media (they still do ), all on the church’s dime. Is it all about Jesus for Driscoll to use church resources to acquire and maintain half a million Twitter followers? Sell more of his books? Enlarge his status? While these questions could be asked about many megachurch pastors, they seem particularly relevant in the present case. Using the church to enrich one’s brand seems like a lot of benefit that doesn’t show up in a salary figure.
To be fair, some will respond that anything that advances the pastor’s work also works to the benefit of the church and then ultimately the greater good (expanding the Gospel). I suppose at heart that is what I wonder about – to what degree does the corporatization of the church work to the benefit of the Good News? The Mars Hill situation, and megachurches more generally should cause us to reflect about what is most consistent with the Bible’s teachings on pastors and churches in the context of “the present distress.” There is a tension here and the Mars Hill case should cause us to reflect on what can be learned from it.
Whatever Happened to the Mars Hill Church Jesus Festival? And the $3 Million?
Wenatchee the Hatchet asked the question on August 1, but I don’t see an official answer anywhere. Asking around, a former member who was in training to become a Community Group leader told me the Jesus Festival (slated for August 22) was canceled in the Spring after the news broke about Mark Driscoll’s New York Times scandal. I can find no official announcement but there has been no publicity about the event since Spring. The Jesus Festival was one of the reasons why Mars Hill needed to raise $2 million “over and above” tithes at the end of 2013. According to Mars Hill website:
During these 40 days of prayer and 5 days of fasting, we are praying for $2 million over and above our donors’ tithes to fund these endeavors in 2014. We believe Jesus has given the vision, so we trust that he will graciously provide the means to do it through his people. If the Holy Spirit leads you to give during these focused days of prayer, please visit marshill.com/give.
What were the endeavors?
1) MARS HILL GLOBAL
Pastor Mark first met church planter Pastor Arjuna Chiguluri in 1998, and Mars Hill Church has been working with and supporting Pastor Arjuna and Vision Nationals in India since 1999. In the last couple of years, we have expanded our Global efforts and are privileged to support church planters and evangelists in Ethiopia who have shared the gospel with over 11,000 people, of which 890 people have been saved. Over the next decades, we want to see Mars Hill Church grow into a worldwide movement and see 1,000 churches planted throughout India and Ethiopia. This is an ambitious goal, but as Jesus said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26). For more information, go to Marshill.com/global.
The page linked here is the Mars Hill Global page. In this description of Mars Hill Global, there is no mention of church plants in the United States, just India and Ethiopia. In fact, mention of Mars Hill expansion comes later in the appeal. If the money was always supposed to go to Mars Hill expansion in the U.S., then why not mention it here?
2) JESUS FESTIVAL
In the summer of 2014, Mars Hill will be hosting an evangelistic, outdoor outreach, aptly titled The Jesus Festival, at Marymoor Park in Seattle. This will be a family friendly event with activities for the kids, music, and amazing gospel preachers. This will be a great opportunity for outreach in the community and to build unity among the Bible-teaching churches in the Seattle area.
Apparently, the money came in (closer to $3 million), but the festival is off, called off months ago. Shouldn’t the people have been consulted? They gave toward a festival but didn’t get one. As late as February, Mark Driscoll was still promoting the festival as a free event. In a February 5 email to the church, Driscoll wrote:
From Pastor Mark Driscoll: Heaven is going to be a party and we need to practice for that party. Over the next few months, you’ll be hearing a lot more about our first-ever Jesus Festival, August 22 at Marymoor Park near Seattle. Everyone at Mars Hill churches far and near is invited for this unique opportunity to grow together and evangelize within the surrounding community. We’ve never done anything quite like this event, but picture a huge outdoor celebration with live bands, food trucks, fun stuff for the kids, open-air gospel preaching, baptisms, and a summer night filled with the worship of thousands of brothers and sisters praising Jesus together. Pastor Dustin Kensrue will be leading us in worship, and as the date gets closer we’ll announce some special guests who will be joining us as well. Thanks to your generosity as a church, the whole thing will be free, which will make it very easy to invite non-Christian family and friends.
Keep on picturing.
3) LEADERSHIP TRAINING The two key missional distinctives of Mars Hill Church are planting churches and making disciples. In order to reach the world with the good news of Jesus, we need biblically literate, gifted leaders. In order to train these leaders, we need a school. In the fall of 2014, we are hoping to offer a 1-year Bible certificate program. Eventually, it will be a fully accredited Bible seminary to help train future leaders and to grow existing leaders in knowledge of the Bible and sound theology
This apparently is going to get underway this Fall. Nonetheless, this is a puzzle. Why does the church need money for this since the schools are supplying the professors and Mars Hill has the space. Presumably they are getting rent. If anything, this should be a money maker for Mars Hill Church.
4) 5 MARS HILL CHURCH PLANTS/REPLANTS
In the new year, our Mars Hill family will be replanting churches in Olympia, Tacoma, Everett, and Huntington Beach to move them into bigger and better buildings, and we are planting a brand new location in Phoenix. Our hope is that thousands will come to meet Jesus at these churches and become disciples.
According to the Mars Hill website, Mars Hill Global Fund helped pay for these campus expansions. Everett and Tacoma have sent “thank you notes” to the Global Fund, and the Fund FAQs also mention funding for Phoenix, Bellevue, and Spokane. So the $2 million went to these churches too?
5) OUR MOST EVANGELISTIC CAMPAIGN
As the Western World becomes more secularized, the Church is becoming more ostracized. Simply put, Christianity is a threat to many of the sacred cows in American culture. Pastor Mark is currently working on a sermon series and book that will tackle many of these issues, including gay marriage, the exclusivity of Jesus, the authority of scripture, etc. This series springboards from an extensive sociological study on thousands of Americans’ opinions on Christianity that was conducted by a top research firm, and will focus on the objections that real people really have.
This must be a reference to the now-postponed book, The Problem with Christianity. The book was slated to be released in the Spring, then it was pushed back to the Fall and now there is no date for release while Tyndale is waiting for “the best season.” The research for this book was done in Spring 2013 and already paid for by the time of this appeal so it is unclear to me how this campaign would require additional donor funding. If anything, according to the messaging about Mark Driscoll and his books, the sales of the books should provide additional income to the church. Unless they don’t. In any case, this isn’t happening this year either. All in all, I suspect the main beneficiary of these donations (as with the Global Fund) was U.S. expansion of video franchises.