As a rule, I generally read books much slower and later than most of my smartie friends. The book must be engaging and humorous with a slight flare of intelligence as the hidden lick-and-stick tattoo in the Cracker-Jack box. Otherwise, I simply “mock read”, where I hold up heavy books in front of my face, shifting my eyes from left to right until I pass out only to be awaken by a thousand pages of head knowledge denting my protruding nose.
Luckily for me, Mark Driscoll’s, Confessions of a Reformissional Reverend, is only two hundred pages and loaded with crazy stories about the founding and growing of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church. In reading this book (a year after first hearing about it), I was struck by the courage of Mr. Driscoll’s conviction and the diligence he devoted to being biblical in all aspects of being/doing church (although I’m not convinced by many of those convictions).
I am hesitant to write anything bad about Mr. Discoll for fear that bursting tears would wet his boot when he shows up at my house to call me a “chickified mama’s boy” for folding laundry. I’ll just have to trust that he won’t be in the neighborhood any time soon, not that he would care to read the ramblings of a testosterone deprived sissy boys like me anyway.
Mr. Driscoll tells early on of the mission of his church; to reach the lost of Seattle for Jesus. Nothing wrong with that. It’s something I think more churches need to have as a mission; that is a focus on lost Christians and non-Christians. However, Mr. Discoll was constantly filleting fatty flanks of parishioners who were not prime membership meat. It seems that at times Mr. Driscoll was strategically asking the lost of Seattle to “get lost” because they were not committed enough to the mission or because it would be too difficult to disciple them into the standard maturated meat. It is quite the paradox.
The reason for Mr. Driscoll’s strategery is because, “the needs of the organizational mission, not an individual in the organization, must continually remain the priority if there is to be continued success.” These words are very telling. I can’t help but wonder if I would have been ecclesial choice meat for Mr. Driscoll or filleted flubber looking for another church (I’m probably closer to SPAM or whatever comes in a Big Mac). Worse still, I couldn’t imagine being in the position of deciding who is worth investing in and who is worth sending elsewhere.
I leave Confessions hurting for the “imbeciles” left out in the Seattle rain, but do not pretend to understand the difficult decision pastor’s of intentionally growing churches have to make. As much as, Mr. Driscoll seeks to be biblical in his methodology, I wonder if his organizational mindset is not lanced with the same corporate ethos of any large business in secular America. This is not to suggest that Mark Driscoll is not biblical but simply that I feel dissatisfied with the idea of assigning worth/value to the very people I am trying to minister to. I know I’m too ideal to compromise, but I long to find in the Christian church something unique, found no where else in society. A place where even chickified imbeciles can be loved and discipled without being pushed back to the fringes, where the love of Christ causes us to do dumbest thing; love and befriend for people we have no other reason to care about.
Luckily for me, Mark Driscoll’s, Confessions of a Reformissional Reverend, is only two hundred pages and loaded with crazy stories about the founding and growing of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church. In reading this book (a year after first hearing about it), I was struck by the courage of Mr. Driscoll’s conviction and the diligence he devoted to being biblical in all aspects of being/doing church (although I’m not convinced by many of those convictions).
I am hesitant to write anything bad about Mr. Discoll for fear that bursting tears would wet his boot when he shows up at my house to call me a “chickified mama’s boy” for folding laundry. I’ll just have to trust that he won’t be in the neighborhood any time soon, not that he would care to read the ramblings of a testosterone deprived sissy boys like me anyway.
Mr. Driscoll tells early on of the mission of his church; to reach the lost of Seattle for Jesus. Nothing wrong with that. It’s something I think more churches need to have as a mission; that is a focus on lost Christians and non-Christians. However, Mr. Discoll was constantly filleting fatty flanks of parishioners who were not prime membership meat. It seems that at times Mr. Driscoll was strategically asking the lost of Seattle to “get lost” because they were not committed enough to the mission or because it would be too difficult to disciple them into the standard maturated meat. It is quite the paradox.
The reason for Mr. Driscoll’s strategery is because, “the needs of the organizational mission, not an individual in the organization, must continually remain the priority if there is to be continued success.” These words are very telling. I can’t help but wonder if I would have been ecclesial choice meat for Mr. Driscoll or filleted flubber looking for another church (I’m probably closer to SPAM or whatever comes in a Big Mac). Worse still, I couldn’t imagine being in the position of deciding who is worth investing in and who is worth sending elsewhere.
I leave Confessions hurting for the “imbeciles” left out in the Seattle rain, but do not pretend to understand the difficult decision pastor’s of intentionally growing churches have to make. As much as, Mr. Driscoll seeks to be biblical in his methodology, I wonder if his organizational mindset is not lanced with the same corporate ethos of any large business in secular America. This is not to suggest that Mark Driscoll is not biblical but simply that I feel dissatisfied with the idea of assigning worth/value to the very people I am trying to minister to. I know I’m too ideal to compromise, but I long to find in the Christian church something unique, found no where else in society. A place where even chickified imbeciles can be loved and discipled without being pushed back to the fringes, where the love of Christ causes us to do dumbest thing; love and befriend for people we have no other reason to care about.
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