Subtitle: “Mars Hill Global Cultivates the Giving Base.”
Like businesses and other organizations, megachurches like to brand things. They brand pastors (Mark Driscoll: “I am the brand!”), and brand ministries. Probably nothing really wrong with that if the brand accurately represents what is being done and offered. For Mars Hill Church, Mars Hill Global is a phrase that describes the Christian market outside of Seattle. According to the MHG web presence, Mars Hill has things going on in Ethiopia, India, and online which is everywhere else.
In addition to whatever else it is, MHG appears to be a source of funding for Mars Hill Church. In November 2011, Mars Hill Executive Pastor Sutton Turner sent a document to the Media and Communications Team touting Mars Hill Global as a way to cultivate the international “giving base.” The document is here:
Note the prime purpose for MHG is to cultivate donations to Mars Hill. The strategy involves what appears to be a lot of good things, but it is hard to escape the impression that the end game is an increase in revenue.
Mars Hill Global existed prior to this memo. However, this memo promoted a new strategy. As a part of that strategy, the Media and Communications team is urged to “Craft the Origin Story.” Everybody likes a good origin story. Perhaps Mark Driscoll really did receive letters requesting resources. But maybe he didn’t. It is hard to tell. I can’t tell from the current website what story was originally crafted.
Currently, MHG takes in about $300,000 monthly. This is a dramatic increase from when this memo was sent. Apparently, the sleeping giant is awake.
Tag: Sutton Turner
Mars Hill Church Wants $40 Million to Buy Bellevue College Building and Build New Church
According to a February 2014 communication from Mars Hill Church Executive Pastor Sutton Turner to MHC staff and elders that I obtained this week, Mars Hill Church is seeking to raise $40 Million to buy a Bellevue Community College building and build a new church. The building is in Bellevue, WA at 10700 Northup Way. Here is the pitch to buy the facility:
Why?
- Jesus has called us to be a Jesus-loving, Bible-preaching, multi-generational church.
- We want to see more people saved by Jesus, more people grow in Jesus, and more people be on Mission with Jesus for generations and generations.
- It’s all about Jesus.
How?
- We have a vision to plant 50 church across 50,000 people. It is a specific prayer of ours to see Jesus lead 4,000 people to get baptized in a single year.
- We must serve and love all of our churches more effectively. We also must train up the next generation of leaders. Finally, we must continue to stay rooted in and faithful to the Bible and to Jesus.
- It’s all about Jesus.
What?
- To do all of these things, it requires a Ministry Center that will house Mars Hill Schools (College and Seminary), Ministry Development, Leadership Development, and all Mars Hill support staff. It will be critically important that we are all connected and rooted in a local church.
- We need to raise $40M. This allows us to purchase the land, purchase the Ministry Center building, and build an 1,800 seat church building debt-free.
- It’s all about Jesus.
Who?
- Every staff member
- Every leader
- The entire Mars Hill family
- It’s all about Jesus.
Please earnestly seek the Lord’s guidance about how he is leading you to join in this generation-changing opportunity. Pray, and then here to sign in to your global account and make your pledge. As of today, all staff and elders have the ability to post your pledge. You should see this pledge box appear when you sign in.
Mars Hill has been looking for a large property in Bellevue since at least last year. The current location is slated to be the site of a massive project managed by the Rockerfeller Group. Since they need to move, MHC made an offer on a building owned by International Paper in 2013 only to find that Seattle Sound Transit had first refusal on the building. According to an October 2013 Seattle Times article, Mars Hill spokesman Justin Dean said the International Paper building was the property God intended for MHC to have. The church still has a page on the website where members can contact the Sound Transit Board to advocate for Mars Hill to purchase the International Paper building. The last tweet in the campaign #goodforbellevue was in November, 2013. I cannot find anything on the Mars Hill website which indicates that the congregation has been informed of the Bellevue College initiative.
I have asked MHC Executive Pastor Sutton Turner for comment and will add new information as it become available. A source with knowledge of the situation tells me that the real estate project could be jeopardized due to declining donations.
Note: Mars Hill removed most of the original links I used to research this post. I have saved many of the pages and have some archived pages substituted for the original links. It appears Mars Hill leaders would like to scrub the history of this incident.
Mars Hill Church Members Want to Know Why The Orange County Campus Violated Zoning Ordinances in 2012
On Monday, I established that Mars Hill Church in Orange County violated the city of Santa Ana’s zoning law for the better part of a year (2011-2012). In defiance of the city and at the direction of Mars Hill’s executive elders, Mars Hill Orange County continued to meet in a building which was not zoned for a church, even paying fines instead of moving to another location, or simply waiting until a suitable location could be found. Then when the church was facing enforcement, Mars Hill’s pastor Mark Driscoll claimed to lack understanding about the city’s actions.
Apparently, Mars Hill members care about this issue because they asked about it during a recent “Vision Breakfast” where members could ask the executive elders questions. A May 18 email from Mars Hill leaders to members referenced the matter:
Turner’s reply to members is very close to the one he issued to me when I asked him when he became aware that the church in Orange County was in violation of zoning ordinance. Honestly, I don’t understand how the answer to that question would be influenced by a reconciliation with Kyle Firstenberg (the “person who is raising these issues publicly“). According to Firstenberg, he made Turner aware of his concerns on more than one occasion with no reply.
Furthermore, based on documentation supplied by the city of Santa Ana, it seems clear that the Mars Hill executive board knew that the church in Orange County was operating in violation of city ordinance. This is a matter of public record. I can understand why church members would ask about this and want their leaders to be accountable and transparent. As of now, that does not appear to be the stance of Mars Hill’s leaders.
Former Mars Hill Pastor: Mars Hill Leaders Ordered Violation of City Ordinances
I will have more to say about these posts later but for now, I want to provide the links to Kyle Firstenberg’s posts where he details his charges against Mark Driscoll and Sutton Turner.
Letter to Board of Advisors and Accountability
Charges Against Mars Hill Executive Pastors
There is much here but one surprising charge is that the Mars Hill leadership knew the Mars Hill Orange County church was out of compliance with the law but told the pastors there not to move, even authorizing the payment of fines.
A Former Mars Hill Pastor Speaks Out and Why Others Are Afraid: The Mars Hill Church Non-Disclosure Agreement
On Tuesday, Warren Cole Smith posted a brief note at World Magazine about the policy of Mars Hill Church to require staff to sign non-disclosure agreements in order to maintain their severance pay and health insurance. And then on Friday, Smith posted a copy of an agreement given to him by a former Mars Hill staffer.
I also have a copy of an agreement given to me by former pastor Kyle F. Kyle F. was executive pastor at Mars Hill Orange County until about a year and a half ago. You can read more about the situation in Orange County at Wenatchee the Hatchet’s blog.
Kyle also provided me with a letter he wrote to Mars Hill regarding his experience as a pastor in Orange County. Given what he is saying in his letter, I can understand why Mars Hill leaders want departing staff to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Often non-disclosure agreements are signed in the business/tech world to protect proprietary information from leaking out. In this case, the main reason appears to be to keep departing staff from candidly describing their bad experiences.
Reading the NDA, it appears to me that MHC leaders hope to use fear of legal action and loss of severance pay to keep former staff quiet. Some who have been watching the Mars Hill saga unfold have asked me privately why few have been aware of the incredible tensions, discord and significant staff turnover at MHC. Furthermore, I have been amazed at how fearful staffers have been to discuss their experiences. I think both of these observations relate to the fear that the massive engine that MHC is will come down on individuals who have relatively few resources to defend themselves.
According to the statement from the Board of Advisors and Accountability, numerous staff transitions have been acrimonious and they have made changes to “detrimental management patterns.” According to Kyle, no sustained effort has been made to address his concerns. And according to Dave Kraft, the statement involving him is inaccurate and ignores the totality of his claims and concerns. The BOAA statement also defends the use of the non-disclosure agreement which really causes me to wonder if the “detrimental management patterns” have truly been addressed.
I asked Kyle for his reactions to the BOAA statement. He began by questioning whether or not Mark Driscoll and other executive elders have really faced the implications of the massive staff discord and turnover over the last 2-3 years. Kyle: “How have they “owned” their part?” According to Kyle, “There has been no response or repentance from those leaders, in fact no response at all from this accountability group to the very elders that they have sinned against. How is that owning their part?”
Regarding the effort to address concerns of staff, Kyle asked, “Why was Pastor Dave the only pastor that supposedly received a response from the BOAA? What about the other pastors who wrote in. I know of at least two others including myself who never heard anything back.”
Finally, Kyle pointed to the BOAA’s defense of the executive elders (“We deeply appreciate their endurance through false accusation, their submission to authority, and their humility where regrettable decisions from the past have come to light.”) and asked, “What has been owned” by this statement?
As an observer, I am puzzled by the way MHC is governed. If the BOAA is a governing body, then it seems like a conflict of interest to have all three of the executive elders (Driscoll, Turner and Bruskas) as members. This seems especially relevant since numerous former staff are leveling serious and significant charges and the decision making board investigating those charges include those who are being charged. Given the reactions of former MHC pastors (Kyle told me that nearly all of the branch executive pastors who were in place two years are now gone), it seems that the BOAA has not come close to addressing the depth of the matter.
Read all posts on Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll here.