One complaint that has arisen about Mars Hill in recent months from some of those former members who have spoken out is that Mars Hill is run more like a business than a church. Yesterday, I posted the Mars Hill approach to bringing formal charges against elders and today I want to note a policy about to go into effect at Mars Hill regarding email retention. As of this Friday, emails and church related documents may only be stored for 90 days before being deleted. Also, staff must delete any Mars Hill related documents from personal computers or other storage. See the policy here.
Let me point out what I think will be a controversial aspect to this policy:
What exactly is the risk of storing old emails unnecessarily? I asked an IT friend who told me this looks like a move by Mars Hill to try to keep employees from maintaining documents which could harm the church. If storage was the issue then deleting materials from external hard drives, or other storage would not be necessary. Some organizations implement such policies but as risk management moves.
I imagine this will not be a popular policy. Some projects last more than three months and it is convenient to keep emails in a folder or just in an inbox for reference. I suspect this will add work without much real protection against the “risk of storing old emails.”
Tag: Mars Hill Church
Megachurch Methods: Filing Formal Charges at Mars Hill Church
On March 26, the Mars Hill Board of Advisors and Accountability referred to formal charges filed against lead preaching pastor Mark Driscoll in May 2013. According to the BOAA statement, the charges, which were filed by former pastor Dave Kraft, did not lead to Mark Driscoll’s disqualification. However, Kraft’s charges appear to have led to something else: a change in how formal charges may be filed.
In August 2013, new procedures were approved by the Board of Advisors and Accountability which made the process of bringing formal charges more difficult and actually eliminated the ability of former employees to file such charges if they failed to do so during their employment.
You can review the entire document here. I have mixed reactions to it. On one hand, I think it is right to protect people from false and frivolous allegations. On the other hand, this document places some powerful disincentives in the way of those who have legitimate concerns. My stance with this post is to provide the information and serve as a forum to discuss the role of formalized (some would argue extra-biblical) procedures in the megachurch environment.
One additional opinion I will express is that the success of this procedure will depend on the ability of the leaders to act in good faith and the willingness of the people to believe that the leaders will do so. For instance, this document requires that an accuser must submit a letter of resignation along with the complaint. If the allegation is found to be “groundless, sinful, or otherwise divisive,” the resignation could be actualized.
If the people trust that the leaders can distinguish between what is truly “divisive” and what is a legitimate problem brought with sincere intent, then people might be more likely to risk the many hurdles found in this process. If the people worry that any complaint will be viewed as “divisive” then legitimate concerns will smolder under the surface and likely lead to other problems. I’ll leave it to current and former Mars Hill members/leaders to decide what kind of climate exists there.
Two Weeks: No Answer from Mars Hill Leaders to 20 Former Mars Hill Pastors Who Want Mediation
Two weeks ago, twenty former Mars Hill pastors, led by Dave Kraft and Kyle Firstenberg requested mediation with the Board of Advisors and Accountability of Mars Hill Church. As of this writing, no answer has come from the BOAA.
Ten days later, the BOAA issued a letter to Mars Hill leaders saying the board was “hungry for reconciliation” but did not mention the initiative by the 20 pastors. Two weeks later, the BOAA is apparently not hungry enough to address the people who are calling for a response.
There are nearly 170 members of a group calling for the exoneration of Paul Petry and Bent Meyer. There are over 50 members of a similar group calling for repentance. No members have described contacts from the BOAA. Recently, a website was launched with four former pastors including co-founder Lief Moi, expressing sorrow over their actions while at Mars Hill. These gentlemen also seem hungry for reconciliation. Many of these individuals have sought reconciliation privately with no response to their efforts. See especially, Kyle Firstenberg’s information.
I have asked Mars Hill communications director Justin Dean for MHC’s side of this matter with no response.
The Mars Hill Orange County Discrimination Narrative: The Rest of the Story?
In June 2012, Mark Driscoll told the media and his church that Mars Hill Orange County might be the victim of religious discrimination because the city of Santa Ana said the church was in violation of the city’s zoning ordinance. According to the OC Weekly via a Mars Hill video, the church was lawyering up:
Driscoll said the church has hired lawyers to look into the matter, and “if we do find that we’re just getting bullied by a political discriminatory agenda against Christianity and the church, we’ll hold our ground. If we find out as well that it’s just somebody on a council somewhere with an axe to grind against Christianity, we’ll hold our ground.
The May update and June 2012 video of Driscoll telling the congregation about the matter has been removed from the Mars Hill website and is now private on You Tube (the update from Mars Hill Orange County lead pastor Nick Bogardus is on the Internet Archive).
Now the Executive Pastor of Mars Hill Orange County at the time Kyle Firstenberg claims that he had made Mars Hill leaders aware of the zoning problem months prior to the June article.
Several months after being sent down to Orange County to help launch the OC location of Mars Hill as the Executive Pastor, I identified a new location for the church to meet. It was at a night club called the Galaxy Theater. Shortly after we began meeting there, I discovered that the City of Santa Ana prohibits churches from meeting in that part of the city, regardless of the building. I notified Pastor Sutton and the Development Team of my findings and suggested we start planning for a move. I was told by Pastor Sutton that we were not going to move because we had no place to go, even though we could move back to the building we were using months before.
I began searching for another place to meet and discovered a comparable venue to the Galaxy Theater. I notified Pastor Sutton and the Development Team and was told that we didn’t want to lose momentum and growth by moving and that we were not going to move until the city kicked us out. Sutton said the city wouldn’t do that because they don’t want the bad PR of kicking out a church that is trying to make a difference. I made it very clear to Pastor Sutton and the Development Team that I was not OK with staying, as we were breaking the law. The decision was made and I was advised to not challenge it.
A short time later I discovered that we as a church needed to have a business license in the city of Santa Ana to operate legally as we had separate office space in the city. I completed the paperwork and advised Pastor Sutton and the Development Team that I would be submitting the application. I was told not to submit it because it would draw attention to us and they would discover that we had not moved as instructed by the certified letters that we had received from the city. The decision was made and I was advised to submit to my leaders. I challenged that decision along with the previous decisions that our very actions were disqualifying us from pastoring this church, not to mention the non-Christian landlord we were trying to be a witness to was encouraged to participate with us in our defiance of the law.
I continued to raise my concerns on a weekly basis for several months as the city continued to send certified letters to cease and desist and started fining us. As a previous law enforcement officer and a pastor of Jesus’ church, I had extreme ethical issues with these decisions and my name was on all official documents for the Orange County location. At that time, I requested that my name be removed from all official church documents with the city, as I did not want my name associated with this civil crime.
I also continued to provide alternative meeting locations that were turned down. Some months later, as the City of Santa Ana increased its fines, the decision was made to plan for a move. Sutton then removed me as the lead overseeing the property search and told me it was because I was not all in and not available 24/7. I believe this occurred because of my vocal push back to our breaking the law and continued pushing for us to make a move. I stepped aside and assisted where I could.
The Firstenbergs left Mars Hill OC in mid-2012 about the time the religious discrimination theory was being floated to the media. Eventually, the church moved as fines were being paid to the city for being out of compliance with the ordinance.
Firstenberg raises some extremely troubling questions for the leadership of Mars Hill. According to Firstenberg, the leadership of Mars Hill knew the venue was not zoned for a church long before Driscoll commented about it to the church and media. If Mark Driscoll really did not know what the problem was then who is responsible for that? If he did know, then why tell the media/church that he didn’t understand. One may disagree with an ordinance, but that is a different matter than not knowing the problem. The picture painted by Firstenberg is that Mars Hill leaders knew the OC church was out of compliance, ordered subordinates to continue in non-compliance, willingly paid fines using church money, and then appeared to distract attention by raising the possibility of religious discrimination.
I would be happy to provide any alternative explanation or facts that Mars Hill might provide.
Update: Kyle Firstenberg provided me with an email which supports his claim that the Executive Elders of Mars Hill knew the situation with the Orange County property around the same time as Mark Driscoll was telling the media and MHC that the situation might be religious discrimination.
From:
Date: Friday, June 1, 2012 9:25 AM
To: “[email protected]” <[email protected]>
Subject: Woodbridge
Kyle
Sutton would rather us keep looking, and meet in a park if need be, than have only an afternoon time slot. It sounds like this is the opinion of all 3 EE, no just Pastor Sutton. I pulled the plug on the LOI. We’ll keep focusing our efforts on other options.
The correspondent here was a person in charge of handling properties at Mars Hill. Firstenberg had provided numerous other possible sites and then in this one about a particular venue, the answer was still no. Firstenberg’s impression from this communication was that all three Executive Elders were agreed.
Former Mars Hill Pastors Repent at New Website
A new website devoted to repentance among former Mars Hill leaders has opened up at Repentantpastor.com. Repentant Pastor is about:
We built this site to provide a safe place in which we can confess our sin and share the stories and experiences we had while serving and attending Mars Hill Church. Our hope is to bring about repentance for ourselves and reconciliation with people whom we have hurt. If you are one of those people please connect with us personally through email. You can also comment on the posts. Each one of the people who has written in the confessions section has an email address at this url. The email addresses are [email protected] Thank you for reading our confessions, letters, stories, and apologies.
Each of these posts are confessions from Mars Hill leaders and members who agree that the culture of Mars Hill has many problems, and that more could have been done by each of us to challenge those problematic attitudes and behaviors. In staying at Mars Hill, we were complicit in those structures, and problems whether we employed them or not. We recognize and confess that Mars Hill has hurt many people within the Mars Hill community, as well as those outside the community including those who don’t believe Mars Hill’s religious beliefs, and we want to acknowledge the hurt we may have caused. We humbly ask your forgiveness. These are our individual confessions, letters, stories, and apologies.
With posts all dated today (3/29/14), former Mars Hill Orance County executive pastor Kyle Firstenberg, former Leadership Pastor Dave Kraft, former Mars Hill Everett Pastor Scott Mitchell, and Mars Hill co-founder Lief Moi have provided a powerful call to re-examine events in Mars Hill’s history. In particular, the change in bylaws and firing of Bent Meyer and Paul Petry take center stage.
On March 17, twenty former Mars Hill pastors approached the Board of Advisors and Accountability with a request for mediation. Thus far, no direct response to this call and those who made it has come.
Firstenberg’s official charges are stunning and can be read here.