Driscoll - Confessions...6a (Chapter 4)

"...an older woman who always wore purple because it is the biblical color of royalty, brought a praise flag, and carried a tambourine with ribbons flowing from it...jump on stage and play with the punk rock band as the Spirit led. One night I put my face in my hands during worship, asking Jesus to rapture her immediately." (page 100).

This is what can be expected when you open the doors of the church to culture and let them all come in. While the story is humorous, I like the fact that Mark never stopped her from doing this. Might have been hard for him to do, but the ability to be "open" to something like this happening is what has helped Mars Hill grow. True it was probably distracting and people lost focus on the worship and music, but all in all, was she being demonic? Was she stopping the church? So Mark was tolerant, but you see his human side with the rapture comment. It is this "human" element of Mark that is so real. He'll admit (confess) his sins to any and all and make the changes that need to be made. He is human like anyone of us and when the crazy lady got up one Sunday evening and was led by the Spirit, Mark prayed for the rapture. So very human.

Mark opens Chapter 4 telling of the community and ordinance headaches the church began to experience as it grew into the 200 people range and even split into 2 services. They had parking problems (people's cars were getting towed during service because they had to park illegally) and noise problems (many neighbors complained about the noise so much that the church bought a noise meter and had people watch the meter and regulate noise during the service).

Mark explains that has the church reached 150 and he expressed to them they were going to split into 2 services to keep growing, many in the congregation were concerned they would lose the small community feeling.

"What they were really saying is that they wanted to be a small community and not a large community of multiple smaller communities." (page 94)

So Mark preached through the first couple chapters of Acts and showed how in one day 3,000 were added to a little church of 120 in a upper room. Mark made it clear that "limiting the size of the church for our convenience was a sin and that we should be a church that always exists more for the people who are not yet saved than for people who are." (page 94).

To which I say AMEN, AMEN, AMEN, AMEN, and AMEN.

Now, for those that are familiar with Mark's preaching style, you know he usually picks a book of the Bible and goes through the whole book in a systematic way. Occasionally he preaches a series sermons on a topic rather than a whole book, but a majority of the time it is start at chapter 1 of a book and go to the end (but as Mark points out "move through the Bible books fairly quickly" to avoid people losing the overall theme and purpose of the book). He gives some insight into how and why he started this.

1. Christians should learn all of Scripture and not just topics
2. It is important for Christians to understand how to study a book of the Bible and realize the inspiration God had in organizing and inter-connecting it all.
3. So many new people come and go from Mars Hill, it is easier for people to follow along and not get lost while jumping all over the Bible.
4. BECAUSE ALL SCRIPTURE IS GOD-BREATHED AND FOR OUR BENEFIT, THERE IS NOT A PAGE OF SCRIPTURE THAT IS NOT HELPFUL TO OUR FAITH, SO WE SHOULD EXAMINE IT ALL. (my emphasis)
5. This forces controversial and tough subjects to be addressed that would/could be otherwise ignored.

So, where dd Mark begin this style of preaching? None other than the Song of Songs. The book in the Bible devoted to sex and pleasure. To say he didn't do this on purpose to drum up some controversry is to be naive, but to deny how smart it was is also naive. As Mark did not hesitat to preach on marriage, foreplay, oral sex, sacred stripping, and outdoor sex ("just as the book teaches"). By the way, all of these sermons can be heard at marshillchurch.org.

A pastor using the words "penis" and "oral sex" is going to start a buzz and it did as people from all over began pouring into the church. From here, Mark begins to the tell story of how he began the friendships with notable Christian leaders and authors as many showed up at his church and he began to travel the country going to pastor confereces. These men included Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz, where Mark is known as "Mark the cussing pastor", Searching for God Knows What, and Through Painted Deserts), Rick McKinley (Jesus in the Margins and founding pastor of Imago Dei church in Portland, OR), Chris Seay, David Crowder, Dan Kimball (The Emerging Church), Doug Pagitt, and Brian McLaren (A Generous Orthodoxy).

Mark writes extensively about his relationship with Brian McLaren. This is in light of the "cyber-fight" they had a few months ago over some comments Mr. McLaren made in regards to homosexuality. Do any google search on Mark Driscoll and one of the first hits you will get is on that cyber-fight.

Anyway, Mark gives the history as they all came together, but then sadly, they began to break apart as they began to differ on doctrine and such subjects as the sovereignty of God, God's knowledge of the future, whether Jesus dies as a substitute for our sin, and many others. Mark explains that he became very frustrated by having to argue over very explicit teachings from he Bible that some young pastors disagreed with. He did not want to leave and seperae from this group of people, but conviction should always beat community.

Next I will finish with the second half of Chapter 4.

As an aside, I am enjoying this book the deeper I get into it. I know the reason is that it is becoming more of a history book and a running commentary on Mark's growth as a Christian and church leader while also providing some great insights into how the whole Emerging Movement (which Mark claims over and over he is NOT a part of) and the Reformed Movement (which Mark claims over and over he IS a part of). Being relatively new to both "movements" it helps to understand the history of both and understand how all the men mentioned above connected together and wove together. Anyone that travels the blogosphere within the "movements" has read a whole lot about these guys and been to all their websites (blogs). So this helps connect some of the dots.