Driscoll was a new and exciting voice, championing the need for new, missionally minded churches to be planted. He was embedded in a city known for being both unchurched and superhip. He was dynamic and inspiring.

Mark Driscoll came into my life because of two of my obsessions: podcasts and church planting. My first taste was through some of the early resources from Acts 29. They had recorded and podcasted huge amounts of content on church planting. Driscoll, featured heavily in “Church Planting Boot Camp” recordings had this sarcastic charm to him, as if Han Solo had come to Jesus. He had the ability to teach deep theology, sometime talking for over an hour, without losing my attention.

Driscoll was inspiring. It suddenly seemed possible to plant thriving churches in unchurched cities. His church seemed to be overwhelmingly hip, yet with an unparalleled focus on teaching the Bible.

After ingesting everything I could from Acts 29, The Resurgence and Mars Hill, three alarms went off.

First was his unrelenting focus on Calvinism. All Western Christians owe a debt to Calvin and his followers for modeling a thoughtful approach to faith. Yet, it is often twisted into a “might makes right” attitude. If you are predestined, then how can you do anything wrong?

Second was an almost equal focus on himself. At first, Driscoll’s constant references to his conversion, his wife and his kids were endearing. Laying out his personal philosophy of everything from parenting to diet seemed to be nothing but helpful examples. However, after listening to him speak for awhile, it seemed like he mainly just wanted to talk about himself.

Third was an attitude that sounded a lot like authoritarianism. Driscoll’s tendency to be instructive started to sound like he was giving orders. He would shame young men for their habits, and then tell them what to do. It seemed to be his goal to make people feel bad, in hopes t they would adopt his conservative gender roles and politics.

Pastor Mark seems to be losing his golden boy status. He is no longer heading up Acts 29. His call for a violent Jesus stirred up an increasingly vocal Anabaptist crowd. Now, a plagiarism scandal may brand him untrustworthy and intellectually lazy.

When I saw this clip posted by Zach Hoag, of a now grizzled Pastor Mark whining to Mormon talk show host Glenn Beck, it just made me sad. The once promising missional leader sounded like just another television fear monger. I looked down and said “Farewell, Mark Driscoll.”

This is sad because we need people like Mark Driscoll.

I don’t mean the sexist, neofundamentalist hyper-Calvinist straw man he’s become.

We need that guy who got people excited about church planting. We need the guy who preached entire sermons for single people because that is who lives in his city. We need what we thought he was back when Alan Hirsch quoted him for about how many candles they used in the early days of Mars Hill.

We need communicators and strategists. We need missionaries, willing to go into unpopular places and try new things.

Driscoll once said that it was his goal to have “a boring testimony.” He meant that he didn’t want a dramatic fall from grace. He’s not there yet, but he’s dangerously close.

I’ve known Christian Celebrities, and it doesn’t have to be like this. Apparently George Bush is hiding on a ranch somewhere making still life paintings of dogs. Perhaps Pastor Mark could try something similar.

Go away for a while. Stop talking. With enough time, the world might actually be willing to listen again.

The post I Miss Mark Driscoll appeared first on Chris Morton.

about 44% of new members at megachurches are from other local churches– not 60%, not 70%, and definitely not 95%. I hear people saying 90% and I agree that’s a myth. (But it is still way too high… just like so many other churches.)

I wish it were 0%, and every person that joined a megachurch was formerly without Christ, but the fact is that people do transfer between churches. Yet, I don’t know of any research or real evidence (beyond “but I KNOW it is true, Ed”) that megachurches transfer more out of local churches, destroying them while benefiting their own growth.

Fitch argued that the data was suspect, but ceded the point that small churches are just as guilty.  His larger point was that

The real proof that mega churches are merely playing in a game of Christian musical chairs is the fact that on a macro basis, the percentage of Christians attending a church over the whole country is still on a slow decline.

So in their friendly debate, they could agree that there were too many church transfers.  The immediate question I asked is why is it people don’t want to stay?  Why are they not so passionate about their community and their role within it that they can’t imagine being anywhere else?

Fitch and his team over at the Reclaiming the Mission blog have been kind enough to post my thoughts on “Three Ways to Keep Your Sheep From Getting Stolen.”  Here’s a slice:

It would be easy to write off church hopping as a cultural phenomenon.  You could even cite the individual for a lack of spiritual maturity.  But churches have a responsibility as well.

Imagine if your sheep were so deeply committed to your church that it would be hard to accept a job offer in a new city.
Imagine if there was such a level of commitment that they would be willing to put up with poor preaching and bad music.

Church hopping and sheep stealing doesn’t have to be inevitable.  But it will require doing at least three things differently.
(Read the rest here.)

What about you have you ever left a church?  Why did you leave?  What would make a church worth staying at?

Updated: The article was reposted here by churchleaders.com, which inspired a great discussion.

The post How to Keep those Pesky Megachurches from Stealing Your Sheep appeared first on Chris Morton.

The bulk of the book shows how the basis of American Protestantism, primarily concepts like sola scriptura and the nuclear family, have been broken down a “century of emergence.” 

The most valuable material comes at the end, where she creates a visual respresentation of American Christianity, divided into four quadrants: Liturgicals, Social Justice Christians, Conservatives and Renewalists.  “The Great Emergence” is what’s happening in the center, where divisions are breaking down.  She includes the explosion of charismatic movements and the vanilla-evangelical megachurches as the forerunners of a newly emerging Christianity.  Now Pentecostals are using liturgy, Social Justice people are rediscovering personal morality, evangelicals are passionate about clean water in Africa, etc. 

Emergence left me with the following question: If post-modernism, globalism and technology have redefined what it means to be human how must we redefine what it means to be the church?

The post Greatly Emerging appeared first on Chris Morton.