Seattle megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll announced he resigned as the senior pastor of 13,000 person Mars Hill Church. This announcement comes after months of a leave of absence and years of controversy. Driscoll’s rise to fame in the Christian world has now been be marked by poor leadership, bad behavior, and manipulation of book sales to get on the New York Times best sellers list.
Mark Driscoll was a media attraction because of sermon and book topics. The NYT even called him, “The cussing pastor” who spoke about biblical oral sex. After years of his controversial ministry, it was not his critics who sank Mark Driscoll. Mark Driscoll sank Mark Driscoll.
The leadership of a pastor needs to be marked by humility, passion, Christ-like service, and spiritual focus. Driscoll had trouble with all those things. Pastors from his church started to leave and the church suffered. The church did not suffer because of other pastors leaving, but because of the inability of Driscoll to lead his congregation in a healthy way. A chief concern of those who departed Mars Hill was that Driscoll was domineering, deceitful, and would push anyone out of the church who did agree with the pastor.
It is difficult to speak or write critically about any pastor and a church. A church is suffering. However, there are lessons here that need to be learned because of the weight of poor leadership evidence:
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