Mark A. Driscoll (born 1970) is an American evangelical pastor and author. He is the senior and founding pastor of Trinity Church in Scottsdale, Arizona, which was established in 2016.
In 1996, Driscoll co-founded Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington. By March 2014, Mars Hill Church had 14,000 members in five states and fifteen locations. He also founded The Resurgence (a theological cooperative) and co-founded other parachurch organizations, such as Acts 29 Network, Churches Helping Churches, and The Gospel Coalition. He has written for the "Faith and Values" section of The Seattle Times, OnFaith, and the Fox News website. Driscoll has also authored a number of popular Christian books, including A Call to Resurgence.
Driscoll has been described as "an evangelical bad boy, a gifted orator and [a] charismatic leader" who is "hip yet hard-line". A conservative evangelical, he favors "vintage" aesthetics and a "down to earth", "aggressive" preaching style. Controversy has surrounded his teachings on gender roles, his proven instances of plagiarism, and the culture of fear and abuse that allegedly existed during his tenure at Mars Hill.
In the summer of 2014, Driscoll faced public criticism and formal complaints from Mars Hill staff members and congregants due to abusive behavior. In August 2014, the board of Acts 29 Network removed him from its membership and urged him to step down from ministry. On October 14, 2014, Driscoll resigned from Mars Hill Church in disgrace. Within three months of Driscoll's resignation, Mars Hill Church was dissolved, leaving each church campus to either close or become autonomous. In 2021, Driscoll was the subject of a popular podcast called The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.
Early life Driscoll was born on October 11, 1970, Note, this is a self disclosure by the title subject, and therefore not considered a WP:RELIABLE SOURCE by Wikipedia. in Grand Forks, North Dakota. He was "raised "Roman Catholic in a rough neighborhood on the outskirts of Seattle", in the Riverton Heights area of SeaTac, Washington. As Driscoll has written, it was "a very rough neighborhood", where, Driscoll had noted, serial killer Ted Bundy had picked up victims. Citing . He is the oldest of five children and the son of a union drywaller. He has described a difficult family history of abuse and crime, writing: "The men on my father's side include uneducated alcoholics, mental patients, and women beaters. ... One of the main reasons my parents moved from North Dakota to Seattle was to get away from some family members when I was a very young boy."
In high school, he met his future wife, Grace Martin. Martin is the daughter of evangelical pastor Gib Martin. In 1989, Driscoll graduated from Highline High School in Burien, Washington, where he served as student body president, captain of the baseball team, and editor of the school newspaper. He was named as the student "most likely to succeed" in his graduating class. At age 19, as a college freshman, Driscoll converted to evangelical Christianity. The same year, according to Driscoll, "God spoke to me ... He told me to marry Grace, preach the Bible, train men, and plant churches ... I began preparing to devote my life to obey [God's] call for me." He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in communication from Washington State University with a minor in philosophy. Driscoll holds a Master of Arts degree in exegetical theology from Western Seminary.
Career at Mars Hill Church
After graduation, Mark and Grace relocated to Seattle, where they attended Antioch Bible Church and worked with that church's college ministry as volunteers. Mark was hired as an intern a few months later. Through his internship, Mark met Mike Gunn, who worked for an Athletes in Action ministry at the University of Washington, and Lief Moi, a radio show host. The three men began to discuss planting an "urban, postmodern" church in Seattle. Greg Kappas, the pastor responsible for Antioch Bible Church's new church planting ministry, mentored the three and helped them develop their plans.
Founding Mars Hill Church Driscoll, Lief Moi, and Mike Gunn founded Mars Hill Church in spring 1995 and officially launched it in fall 1996. The church first met in the Driscolls' home. By spring 1997, the church had relocated and expanded to two services. Driscoll later reflected that he was "not ready" when he planted Mars Hill at age 25.
Later in 1997, he was invited to speak at a Leadership Network pastors' conference in California. The speech he made inspired many within the nascent emerging church movement and, according to Driscoll, shifted the movement's focus from reaching Generation X to reaching the postmodern world.. "And it shifted the conversation from reaching Generation X to the emerging mission of reaching postmodern culture." As a result, Mars Hill Church and Driscoll were thrust into the national spotlight: he was interviewed on National Public Radio, and Mother Jones magazine published a feature on the church.. "I was not prepared for the media onslaught that came shortly thereafter. Before I knew it, NPR was interviewing me, Mother Jones magazine did a feature on our church, Pat Robertson's 700 Club gave me a plaque for being America's "Church of the Week" and did a television story on us, other media outlets started asking for interviews, large denominations were asking me to be a consultant ..." Mars Hill Church grew from 160 members in 1996 to 350 in 1999.
Founding the Acts 29 Network In 1998, Driscoll and David Nicholas founded the Acts 29 Network ("Acts 29"), a church planting network, in response to people approaching Driscoll for advice on planting churches. The goal of this parachurch organization was to plant 1000 new churches around the world "through recruiting, assessing, training, funding, and coaching." Acts 29 started slowly under Driscoll's tenure, with 11 churches at its inception and 17 by 2003. At that point, it began to grow rapidly, reaching 50 churches by 2006 and 410 churches by 2011. The majority are still located in the U.S., with 38 churches in 16 other countries.
According to Salon, Driscoll structured Acts 29 to match his own "strict orthodoxy and views" on theology and politics, while allowing latitude in cultural specifics.
Mars Hill Church reorganization (2006–2007)
Rationale
Driscoll, Mars Hill's first paid pastor, had been its main preaching pastor and public face since its inception. As the church grew, he began to train other elders and deacons, moving himself into a more executive role in setting vision and continuing to preach. By 2006, the church counted 4000–5000 weekly attendees at three campuses in the Seattle region. In that year, Driscoll claimed that he had reached a personal crisis due to his "overwhelming workload"—at this time he was the principal authority in Mars Hill, president of Acts 29, president of The Resurgence, an author, and an international traveler with speaking engagements. He was, by his own account, sleeping only two to three hours per night and began to fear that he would die early from a heart attack. Ultimately, in 2006–2007, he began to restructure the church and claimed he was going to divest power. Within Mars Hill, he publicly stated that he resigned as "legal president", president of the elder board, and chief of staff, while retaining his roles as public face and preaching pastor.
Prior to the reorganization, Mars Hill was governed by a full council of two dozen church elders (including Driscoll) who had equal voting authority and voted on major decisions, and a five-member council of "executive elders" (also including Driscoll) who handled daily operations but deferred to the full council for major decisions. According to then-Mars Hill pastor Paul Petry, in summer 2007, Driscoll "replaced the [executive council] with yes-men" and began to make major decisions—such as purchasing a $4 million new building—without consulting the full council.
Proposed bylaw changes Driscoll proposed changes to the bylaws that would grant indefinite terms of office to the "executive elders". Driscoll and proponents of the changes argued that the church had outgrown its original governing structure, while opponents contended that the changes consolidated power with Driscoll and his trusted lieutenants. Paul Petry and another pastor, Bent Meyer, both dissented from the changes. In response, Driscoll fired both from their jobs. A Mars Hill forum posting reported—without naming the pastors—that one was fired for "displaying an unhealthy distrust in the senior leadership" and the other for "disregarding the accepted elder protocol for the bylaw deliberation period" and "verbally attacking the lead pastor [Driscoll]."
The morning after Petry and Meyer were fired, Driscoll said to his pastors and other church leaders at a conference: "Yesterday we fired two elders for the first time in the history of Mars Hill. ... They were off mission, so now they're unemployed. This will be the defining issue as to whether or not you succeed or fail. I've read enough of the New Testament to know that occasionally Paul puts somebody in the wood chipper."
In addition to the loss of their jobs, both were put on ecclesiastical trials to review their church membership. Petry was charged by Driscoll and the other elders with "lack of trust and respect for spiritual authority" and "improper use of confidential information", the latter charge because Petry had discussed the bylaw changes with church deacon Rob Smith, who was not part of the council of elders but had been asked to join. Petry was permitted to respond to the charges, but was not allowed to attend his full trial. The elders came to a unanimous conclusion that Petry was no longer qualified to be a church elder. Driscoll urged his congregation to shun Petry's family.
Meyer was given a "gentler" ecclesiastical trial but chose to resign. Rob Smith had written an email to the elders calling for a fair trial for Petry and Meyer; Smith said that in response, Driscoll told his congregants to stop giving to Agathos, an independent economic development charity that Smith also ran, causing donations to drop by 80 percent.
Repercussions
In 2014, Petry, Smith, and Moi all joined—and, in some cases, organized—online protests against Driscoll. Commentators linked the summer 2014 "unrest" at Mars Hill to the structural changes of 2007, along with other developments in Driscoll's career.
ABC Nightline special (2009)
In March 2009, Driscoll was involved in an ABC Nightline debate entitled, "Does Satan Exist?" Driscoll and Annie Lobert, founder of the Hookers for Jesus Christian ministry, argued for the existence of the devil against the author Deepak Chopra and Carlton Pearson, a former fundamentalist minister and author of The Gospel of Inclusion. A commentator described the debate as "contentious", with all participants taking "uncompromising" positions. Driscoll argued that a belief in both Satan and God was an essential tenet of Christianity. Driscoll has also been featured on the program discussing other topics including the Ten Commandments and sex.
Haiti relief (2010)
After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Driscoll and James MacDonald founded Churches Helping Churches to help churches rebuild after catastrophic natural disasters. They helped to rebuild dozens of churches in Haiti and Japan. Driscoll first flew to Haiti shortly after the earthquake, and set up a partnership between his church and Jean F. E. St. Cyr, a Haitian pastor. Mars Hill Church donated $1.7 million in medical supplies.
Resignation from Acts 29 and The Gospel Coalition (2012)