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38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Raw, Funny, and real, May 28, 2006
Raw.
We clicked because I drive a 1978 Chevy truck that gets single digits to the gallon and has a bacon air freshener and no functioning speedometer and because I fashion myself as the seld-appointed leader of a heterosexual male backlash in our overly chickified city filled with guys drinking herbal teal and rocking out to Mariah Carey in their lemon yellow Volkswagon Cabriolets while wearing fuchsia sweater vests that perfectly match their open-toed shoes. (p. 147)
Funny.
Scrambling for ideas, I agreed to cance a Sunday church service to let some of our long-haired public radio types take us outside to do a joint art project they had proposed....As a truck-driving jock who watches a lot of Ultimate Fighting, I can honestly say it was the gayest thing I have ever been a part of. (p. 71)
Real.
Emotionally, ministry proved to be more exhausting than I could have fathomed. Because I deeply loved my people and carried their burdens, the pains of our people's lives began to take a deep toll on me. Many nights were spent in prayer for people instead of sleeping, and even on what were supposed to be days off, my mind was consumed with the painful hardships and sinful rebellions of our people. (p. 68)
Mark Driscoll's latest book, Confessions of a Reformission Rev. Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church, is a fantastic look at life in ministry. I have a great deal of love and respect for Andy Stanley and Rick Warren, but their stories don't match my stories in ministry. Mark's story of the growth of his church is a wonderful and real look at a man on a mission, with strong theological convictions, and who loves Christ's church and the city of Seattle.
It is raw. He is blatanly honest. But if many could get away with it in ministry, we would do the same thing. He is a passionate man who doesn't have time to say things in flowery words. His story is real. It is an honest look at the hard life of ministry, and the pain and anguish we go through as ministers. And all the while, it's a picture of one sold out to Christ and his mission.
He is theologically conservative. He spends time unashamedly distancing himself from a hermeneutic that is liberal and relative. He believes the book, studies theology, and is passionate about teaching that.
Each of the chapters chronicle a period of time in the growth of Mars Hill. It is encouraging to see the struggles and the faith. It is encouraging to face many similar situations and see how others handled it.
I truly think this is a must read for all church planters and for those of us in ministry it should be highly considered. Few pastors are able to be real and transparent enough to let others see their pain and hardache and fears. Mark is a real man. And his story is compelling.
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46 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a needed second way in the Emerging chuch, October 14, 2006
I have read a thousand or two pages of "how to do church" books. I pastor at a church of about 900, and so it's par for the course. Most of them bore me these days. This one I read in three sittings.
There will be considerable criticism of this book. Mark didn't say what he was supposed to. He is pretty clear about what he thinks of Brian McLaren, the public pope of the Emergent church; and it isn't complimentary. He recommends both pragmatic evangelicals like Hybels and Warren and yet he affirms the work of their firm critics like Mark Dever and D.A Carson's work in his footnotes (a both-and I both agree with and am impressed with). He thinks masculinity should have content beyond plumbing, and even dares to refer to Grudem and Piper's book on the subject. That alone can get you stripped and beaten in some very loving evangelical circles.
He also says church people can be immature idiots and life sucking dead weight; like the Leech's two daughters that constantly cry, "give, give!" form Proverbs 30.
I was horrified.
I completely agree.
There will no doubt be many coming up with clever little shots at Driscoll and making pithy condescending remarks about the book. Mark has really opened himself up to that. I suspect he could care less, and I really appreciated that about his style.
No doubt many will find his style arrogant. It will be decried by the equally arrogant under the pretense of humility and nuances spiritual maturity. Many will be convinced. But it should be noted that Mark claims to have been arrogant and to be arrogant. He only claims that that doesn't necessarily make him wrong about what he is saying in this book, and about that he is right. Introspective indecisive hand wringing doesn't work as a dominant disposition when you're leading a church of more than a thousand people in the kind of context he is in. I know from experience. Nor does it particularly work in life unless you are interested in simply criticizing the position of others.
In terms of content, Mark has written his own leadership manifesto about making the hard choices, knowing your mission, learning from others, daring to be serious about the Bible's content in preaching and leadership decisions, allowing for messes, and focusing on spiritual growth if you want organizational growth.
Concerning his bits about the Emerging Church, perhaps his greatest bit was in a footnote. In that note that sprawls from pg. 203-205 he overviews looking into postmodernism as an epistemology, cultural phenomenon, the fruit of modern linguistic theory and post-structuralism, etc. He talks about reading in primary and secondary sources and finally concludes he's going to go ahead and stick with most of what Jesus was saying.
If you think that's simplistic, it's likely that either you're not in the subculture, are considerably more arrogant than Mark is, haven't read the literature or you don't have ears to hear (ie. have lost the will to find a culturally potent expression of Christian orthodoxy).
I have been in many social situations with Gen-X pastors or ministry folks who spoke with such arrogance in criticism of people who "just didn't get post modernism". I was sad because many of them knew more about postmodernism than the gospel
The greatest benefit of what this book is adding to is that there are now two clearly different options for those of us looking to the emerging church conversation for new ways to do church in the increasingly post-Christian West. Those of us that do not think Brian can get us where we want to go want another option. This is a much better one.
Mark Driscoll and Dan Kimball are needed to secure that second voice. And this book was needed to give some steam to that conversation. Mark Driscoll has done the church a service.
P.S.- I have no tattoos, I do wear pants, I do not carry a handgun, I am a Christian, and I'm a pastor in a mainline denominational church that is 98 years old. I'm only 29 though.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A friendly kick in the pants, September 26, 2006
Mark Driscoll is a pastor who finds himself at the center of controversy in Christian and non-Christian circles. His most recent book Confessions is "the story of the birth and growth of Seattle's innovative Mars Hill Church, one of America's toughest mission fields. It is also the story of the growth of a pastor, the mistakes he's made along the way, and God's grace and work in spite of these mistakes."
Why the Controversy? Driscoll doesn't fit in any category neatly. Tim Challies writes, "I am not the only one confused by Driscoll who is varyingly described as emerging, missional, Reformed, sarcastic and vulgar (all of which are true of him)." At times it looks like Driscoll goes out of his way to offend everyone. On the other hand, Driscoll is refreshingly candid and bold. I love it, but it seems to be too much for some.
The story of many "successful" churches have been tidied before going to print. Not here. Driscoll says, "I have made so many mistakes as a pastor that I should be pumping gas for a living instead of preaching the gospel." He begins with "Ten Curious Questions" designed to help clarify the church's identity, gospel, mission, size, and priorities. For instance, he asks which gospel we will proclaim: "a gospel of forgiveness, fulfillment, or freedom?" "Do you have the guts to shoot your dogs?" (He advises: "Dogs are idiotic ideas, stinky styles, stupid systems, failed facilities, terrible technologies, loser leaders, and pathetic people...Be sure to make it count and shoot them only once so that they don't come back and bite you." Now you know why he's controversial.)
For the rest of the book, Driscoll tells the story of Mars Hill from its start to the present and even his hopes for the future.
Takeaways and Memorable Quotes
"Attractional churches need to transform their people from being consumers in the church to being missionaries outside of the church." (p.27)
"The more I read the Bible, the more deeply the Holy Spirit convicted me that I had grievously erred by trying to figure out how to do church successfully by reading a lot of books, visiting a lot of churches, and copying whatever was working. Instead, I needed to first wrestle with Jesus like Jacob wrestled with Jesus and then discover what Jesus' mission was for Seattle and repent of everything else..." (p.44)
Developing biblical leadership to define, direct, and defend the mission is key (p.48). This requires toughness. "Sadly, the weakest men are often drawn to ministry simply because it is an indoor job that does not require heavy lifting." (p.54)
"I had to focus all of my time and energy on growing Mars Hill as a missional church for Seattle. Therefore I had to stop doing all other ministry work that was not accomplishing this objective." (p.52)
"I decided not to back off from a long-winded, old-school Bible preacher that focused on Jesus. My people needed to hear from God's Word and not from each other in collective ignorance like some dumb chat room...There is enough power in the preaching of God's Word alone to build a church from nothing" (pp.77-78)
"I have learned that sometimes the most important thing a leader can do is to create strategic chaos that forces people to pull together and focus on an urgent need, thereby subtly getting rid of all their other missions and complaints in a subversive way." (pp.82-83)
"My answer to everything is pretty much the same: open the Bible and preach about the person of Jesus and his mission for the church." (p.86)
"We were deciding if Mars Hill Church was to be defined by the size of its mission to reach the lost or by the number of people we could gather at one time in one room." (p.94)
In congregational ecclesiology, "The staff and the pastor are essentially seen as employees of the congregation, to be fired if they do not meet the expectations of their employer, the congregation. As I studied the Bible, I found more warrant for a church led by unicorns than by majority vote." (p.103)
"Over the years, I've just accepted that if I do not quickly open the back door when God is trying to run people out of our church, I am working against God by keeping sick people in my church so they can infect others. Indeed, the church is a body, and one of the most important parts is the colon. Like the human body, any church body without a colon is designed for sickness that leads to death." (p.131)
"We learned that unchurched people tend to be the most traditional when it comes to church." (p.132)
"Preaching is like driving a clutch, and the only way to figure it out is to keep grinding the gears and stalling until you figure it out." (p.133)
"Slowly, the church will begin a cycle of decline unless it intentionally reinvents itself missionally to continue to grow by taking risks in an effort to reach lost people for Jesus." (p.141)
"The goal of the management phase is not to get the church organized and under control. Rather, the management phase is needed to eliminate the inefficiencies and barriers that are keeping the church from focusing back on the creative phase and creating a whole new set of problems to manage." (p.142)
Bottom Line - This book isn't for everyone. I enjoyed it, and saw it as a friendly and encouraging kick in the pants. If the above quotes appeal to you, then Confessions is a book that will help you in your ministry.
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