“Nehemiah was beating up members of his church. What do we do with that? I’ll tell you what I’d like to do with that. I’d like to follow in his example. There’s a few guys right now, that if I wasn’t gonna end up on CNN, I would go old testament on ‘em. Even men in leadership of this church” -Mark Driscoll speaking to his church family and people laughing the whole time.
After this sermon Mark called an impromptu meeting with two pastors who were also elders and fired them on the spot because they looked at the new bylaws and didn’t immediately pass them without reading them. They wanted to read them and make some potential edits, which is what they thought their lobs were as elders. The rules said Mark could fire them as employees but he couldn’t take away their elder status so he tried to intimidate them into resigning or he would open up investigations against both of them hoping they would go away quietly. They refused and welcomed the investigations. They were found innocent and still got kicked out and the church was told to shun them and treat them as an unrepentant unbeliever. Imagine what their kids felt like watching the adults at their church do these things to each other.
Accountability vs Speed when it comes to church governance and checks and balances. What’s the best Church hierarchy or structure? Moses model with one guy calling all the shots? Elder run? Complete democracy with all members voting?
So many things Mark says in this episode sound so level headed. "I’m just one vote among many. I submit to my senior pastor. This is not a dictatorship. Jesus is our senior pastor. I’m not saying I’m the spiritual leader… you do what I say. I think that’s very abusive. When one person is the spiritual leader”. But that’s exactly who he became and anyone who got in his way got railroaded. So, the question is did he ever mean what he said and he lost his way or was he lying so he could trojan horse the church and seize control when the right time came?
Back then Mark’s church was “Elder Ruled” and without denominational oversight. and Mark talked negatively about Pastor as CEO run churches and ripped on pastors who were too big to even know their members. But that’s exactly who Mark became.
Mark equated submission to Christ to submitting to the church leadership, which he aimed to take over. Dictators use the ability to declare a state of emergency to centralize power into smaller and smaller circles “until the crisis is over”. For Mark the constant emergency was people going to hell if the church didn't grow. If a church stops growing at 5,000, 10,000 or 15,000 people then people will stop being reached for Jesus. People will stop coming to Christ. As if Jesus or the Kingdom only needed you and your church to reach people. So, if you pumped the breaks on making decisions and weren't making decisions at breakneck speeds you were aiding and abetting Satan and helping him send people to hell. You were the anti-Jesus Antichrist.
“too many guys waste too much time trying to move stiff-necked stubborn and obstinate people. I am all about bless and subtraction. there is a pile of dead bodies behind the mars hill bus and by God’s grace it will be a mountain by the time we are done. You either get on the bus or you get run over by the bus, those are the options but the bus ain’t gonna stop. Yesterday we fired two elders for the first time in the history of Mars Hill last night. They’re off the bus. under the bus. they were off mission so now they’re unemployed. this will be the defining issue as to whether you succeed or fail. I’ve read enough of the new testament to know that occasionally Paul put somebody in the wood chipper.“ Mark Driscoll speaking at a pastors conference the day after he fired two pastors.