Sounds Spartan but I guess if it has a male flavor, it’s good.

I agree with training kids from a young age. What makes me uncomfortable here is that they put more emphasis on training kids to fit seamlessly into Mars Hill culture than they do training kids to be like Jesus.

Go back and read all that stuff again and tell me I’m wrong about that.

What strikes me about MD/MH is that instead of being in the world yet not of the world (Jesus is the example), they seem to be bringing a communistic culture into their church. The purpose appears to be to bring glory to Mars Hill. What part will the Holy Spirit be given by MD? He appears to have no part. It appears that MD is the Holy Spirit when it comes to the Mars Hill style.

Yep – think of all the money they make as they get everyone to be uniform in their thinking!

I’d like to know what the doctrine IS that they will be teaching.

It is the same doctrine that is taught to the adults…from MD’s “Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe” book. If I hadn’t ripped all the MH notes out of my journal and trashed them I would tell you more…
Here is a link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/Doctrine-What-Christians-Should-Believe/dp/1433506254/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332532540&sr=8-1
If you click look inside and go to page 7, it will tell you the contents.

I now realize what a deprived childhood I had. When I went to Junior Church all I had was an elderly lady who had been a lifetime missionary overseas who opened God’s Word on her lap and taught us about Jesus from the Bible.

I have no idea how I ever grew up to follow Jesus considering all that I missed out on. I mean all I had was a godly servant of the Lord who read the Word to me, prayed for me, and modeled a life of serving Jesus.

(Excuse me now while I go vomit…)

Correction: one of the girls plays a keytar.

Still…!

Somebody pass me a barf bag!

Not my kids or grandkids!

Seriously, though, I’ve been studying how God’s chosen people could have had a direct rule of God, but begged for king like all the really cool nations had.

And I wonder if some of us at times do the same thing. We can have a direct relationship with Jesus Christ, but we set someone up as guru over us.

And then we wonder why it sours.

Linda

WTH – gee, just like Stalin and Mao!

All right, so we’ve got the children taken care of. Now for the real question: What do we have planned for the dogs?

I began going to church at an Acts 29 plant. I have many years experience in children’s ministry and was asked to help in that area. I attended a meeting where the pastor gave his vision of children’s ministry – men would roughhouse with boys and the boys would have fun and want to go to church and girls would sit quietly and learn from women.

I was flabbergasted. I have no idea how that guy could have recruited the people to do what he said.

He never got his weird children’s ministry off the ground.

Last night I watched an H2 channel story on Hitler and the Occult. It was a history of how Hitler built his kingdom, war machine. One of his main thrusts was to get the best and brightest children and train them from an early age to be faithful to him. — Tod M

“Give me your children for five years and I will make them mine. You will pass away, but they will remain mine.” — A.Hitler

They will be turning out baby Driscolls. — Dee

Complete with kewpie-doll faux-hawks, pudgy cheeks, “I Can Beat You Up!”, and oral/anal sex obsessions?

Mark Driscoll = Lenin
Mark Driscoll = Stalin
Mark Driscoll = Mao
Mark Driscoll = Hitler

I’m not seeing it frankly. (Mark’s way behind in the murdering of others)
But let the criticisms continue until E-Church is posted.

True, Jimmy, though Mars Hill hamartiology being what it is “You deserve Hell and anything short of that is a gift” a Mars Hill member probably would say that apart from Jesus Mark and everyone else deserves Hell as much as Hitler or Stalin or Mao or Lenin.

If Mark had at some point learned to dial done his, er, inflammatory rhetoric at some point in the last ten years I might feel more bad for him. Truth is I don’t feel bad for him even though I agree that the use of pure evil rhetoric is problematic.

I do still think five-year plans to reverse engineer your life are the domain of obsessive control freaks, though. 🙂 You can make a plan but you better not imagine the plan will come to pass. Nobody knows the future. I still remember a time when Mark said no individual church was going to get bigger than 120 congregants or so because past that size the thing got too impersonal. Heh heh …

http://fromlaw2grace.com/2012/03/23/mega-fridays-mars-hill-authoritarianism-run-amok/

See if you guys can pick out the YRR robots on this comment stream. Note the typical SGMese/MarsHillese language from both these YRR pastors. It is everywhere.

By the way, Jimmy, I do see the Irony that you have to pull out the worst dictator thugs of the 20th century to make Mark look nice. Did that tactic work with your mom?

Rene, maybe they’ll contract work to Robert Crumb for that section and for the story of the Levite’s concubine.

“Anon1 on Fri, Mar 23 2012 at 06:41 pm

By the way, Jimmy, I do see the Irony that you have to pull out the worst dictator thugs of the 20th century to make Mark look nice. Did that tactic work with your mom?”

My Mom’s deceased – 2006

The music video is stupid. Let’s compare that music video to the following excerpt from the Royal Wedding where the choir (all male including small boys) sing the very beautiful “Guide me oh thou great redeemer.”

My grandmother taught me my first song at three. It was “Love Lifted Me.” We sang hymns ALL the time. Since both my parents worked out of the home, I stayed with my grandparents until I could go to school. (I know, I know my mother and father were in mortal sin and although my parents confess Christ crucified they still may not be saved) My parents read the bible to me and we prayed together but my grandmother introducing those hymns to me, is the most impacting of all. Those hymns really first started teaching me the Gospel and I plan on doing the same with my son.

On another note, Dee, I read a fascinating blog called oldlife.org which is written by a reformed man. He wrote an interesting piece about MD and I learned something interesting about Piper as well. Take a look and tell me what you think.

I have absolutely nothing intelligent to add to this conversation.

In fact, every time I look in to see what is going on, I see the word Robotics and all I can think of is Dr. Robotnik.

So I present to you, in honor of Evangelical/Calvinista’s favorite Narcissist, Dr. Robotnik, video games’ favorite Narcissist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS0AKzzD0wA

I agree with Estelle. Young kids (*especially* 2, 3, 4 years old) shouldn’t be taught by video. Kids learn through connection with an actual *person* who is teaching them, and who is able to give them some attention back. Actually, this is a little subtle I guess, but as a Sunday School teacher I personally feel like the video-teaching is the control-freak part. (Not that I’m crazy about “training up two-year-olds as future leaders” either.) He’s doing it because he can’t assure consistent quality control in such a large group of Sunday School teachers, so the answer is to centralize and standardize and have everyone across four states watching the same video, at the expense of personalization and personal attention for the kids. In other words he’s not willing to trust those Sunday School teachers because he won’t have time to personally vet them all, and that’s just not good enough. Centralization, and not trusting the people on the ground, *never* works out well. It always has a mechanizing, deadening effect. It’s been seen in a lot of school systems as well.

The other problem is, it’s one thing when it’s literacy. It’s another when it’s Doctrine and how to live your life. It does seem like the goal might be making everyone the same.

sad observer, you know what else is weird? putting two year olds in community groups where they have them pray for each other. What is the point? In the MH world they can’t be church members and they don’t have infant baptism or a covenant theology that children of christians are grafted in. Why have them pray for each other since if one of them died they would rot in hell anyway and God isn’t listening to those little worms prayers either. I guess he is teaching them some rote material so that when they finally do get saved they will already know MH speak.
If I hear one of these types renounce liturgy again or say something about those formal Anglicans in dresses I am going to SCREAM. What does MD think he is doing? ….it is a LITURGY MH style.

Y’know, in my kindergarten Sunday School class, we made things and learned songs like “Jesus Loves the Little Children.”

And the older ladies who taught the class told us about how much Jesus loves us.

Sounds like a plan, no?!

“By the way, Jimmy. I do see the Irony that you have to pull out the worst dictator thugs of the 20th century to make Mark look nice. Did that tactic work with your mom?”

My Mom’s deceased – 2006”

So is mine-2004.

Now, would that tactic have worked with your mom when you were a teen?

Here’s another possibility since not all readers read in the same way–Jimmy was pointing out that comparing MH/MD to Hitler, Stalin and Mao as others already did here shows that MD hasn’t had people liquidated. 🙂 It’s easier to recognize cognitive biases in other people than in yourself, right?

“So that when the kids grow up, they don’t do like most kids and just leave after high school, but they realize: “Well, I’m ready for the Doctrine class. I can become a member. I’ve been doing this curriculum since I was 2! Of course I’m going to join a community group: I’ve been in one since I’ve been in a diaper. And I know how to sing songs, and I’m okay with video because that’s what I’ve been doing for a really long time—so I’m an old-school, 18-year-old veteran.””

Hmm….what I see here is pure ideological indoctrination. This is not about teaching them to know and be know by Jesus. This is teaching them to be followers of MD. This is really disturbing. This kind of indoctrination can lead to taking MD’s “going OT on someone” literally and having one of these kids, as a teen or 20 something, start ‘breaking the noses’ or worse of people that criticize MD.

ah yes. This will sell like hotcakes, sadly. Every church we visit lately has the same “kids curriculum” churned out by Andy Stanley’s church. (not that it is bad – it’s just EXTREMELY marketed)

This is just…chilling. I hope it doesn’t come to much. I have one-year-old niece at MHC.

For those people looking for the machete story, this article states that the incident occurred Oct 8, 2006, so that might help you narrow down the truth of the matter.

*digs around a little more on the machete attack story*

OK, here’s what I found. All later reports of the event state that it took place at a MH evening service on 8 October 2006.

The earliest reference I can find to it anywhere on the internet is in this Driscoll sermon delivered on 18 March 2007. Before that date, Google fails to turn up any results at all for the terms “Mark Driscoll” and “machete”. The transcript of the sermon says:

Around the 31 minute mark

Sometimes, too, it becomes very real threats. We had a guy in the 5:00 service last year – I was talking about how you need Jesus to go to Heaven, and he pulls out a machete, tries to make a run at the stage to turn me into a shish kabob. Yeah. I mean that’s the down side of the job, right? You’re like, “Dude. You need Jesus, man.” Some people are really determined to make sure that Jesus is not lifted up and the God of the Bible is not proclaimed. And sometimes they bring weapons to church.

So far, I can find no other eyewitness accounts of the alleged attack, so we only have Driscoll’s word to go on. Journalist, I call upon you to attempt to verify this claim. If Mark Driscoll’s pants are on fire, the world should know about it.

Wenatchee,

Your information posted last year has been duly noted in the post I put together about the incident. Thank you. Yours is the closest I managed to find to actual confirmation of what happened.

Skjaere

There may have been some volunteers or law enforcement attending at the time. The rumor I’d heard was that because the assailant turned out to be someone with some known history of mental illness who happened to be there rather than somewhere else that local law enforcement decided to return the man to psychiatric evaluation rather than press charges since nobody actually got hurt.

Deb,

According to Driscoll’s account of the incident published in his book Vintage Jesus, the police were the ones who tackled the guy:

For example, while I was preaching the sermon on which this chapter is based, a man attending one of our evening services pulled out a machete and tried to get onto the stage, apparently to run me through for saying that Jesus alone is God. He was screaming that Jesus is not God, until tackled and taken away from the premises by the police.

This is the most extreme version I’ve seen of the events of that day. Which is to say, I don’t really believe a word of it.

Skjaere, which chapter was that?

Thank you, Deb, for the heads up on the Cognitive Discopants blog. I’d never heard of it before.

I’m feeling very sorry for MD, et. al. There is no excuse for neo-authori-patri-compli-calvinism, and it needs to be refuted in the strongest way possible, but something deep inside these people must remain horribly broken for them to be believing and doing these things.

I’m feeling very sorry for them indeed. I’m actually in tears! I don’t think they know the peace of the true gospel. They’re trying to save themselves, sanctify themselves, heal themselves. They have no rest in the Lord. They claim the name of Christ but seem to have no assurance of their position in Christ. What a desperate place to be! Dear Lord, grant them peace.

With Mars Hill mood lighting and my vision I wasn’t well situated to see whatever happened at the time but I knew people who were connected to the incident who related a few things to me.

I don’t know why the church would have wanted to downplay that church propery was being vandalized by gun fire six years ago.

Deb,

I actually wouldn’t be surprised if you were right. I’m not a naturally paranoid person, and I’m not prone to conspiracy theories, but the more I read by and about Driscoll, the less credibility he seems to have, and the more full of himself he seems to be. I get the impression he would do or say almost anything if he thought it would make himself look good, his critics look bad, or garner his church some publicity.

Every time he talks about something dramatic happening, my first thoughts are cynical. “Did that really happen? Where’s the proof? Who saw it?” When my sister mentioned bullet holes in the church’s nursery windows, I wondered if it wasn’t an inside job. Such an act casts the church in a sympathetic light with the general public, while at the same time causing the congregation to circle the wagons, so to speak, and go on the defensive. It’s a win-win for Mars Hill, and all it would cost them is a few windows. It’s not like they can’t afford it.

Skjaere

Dee-

I wish I didn’t think you were right about the children of favorites being chosen as apprentices. That takes abuse to a whole new and tragic level, in my book.

Bridget2–

As far as I could determine–and this was ten years ago–the only difference between Sunday School and Children’s Church was the time in which they met. BBC had just put their in-house Sunday School curricula up for wider sale, and if I remember correctly, they had units for preschool, elementary, and teens. The lessons were written for a 60-minute time slot. This would have worked fine if we were using it for our Sunday School hour, but we already had a curriculum we liked. We were looking for something that was heavy on object lessons that we could use during the 30-45 minute sermon period in the worship service–our kids stayed in the service for the singing and prayers and then went to Kids’ Worship during the sermon so that they could have a lesson they could understand. Apparently BBC has no problem with age-graded Sunday School but feels very strongly that children should remain with their parents in the sanctuary for the entire worship service (personally, I think the option for a children’s church should exist but the final decision–to send their children out or not–should rest with the parents). The curriculum is still available and now has “suggestions” which I have not seen for adapting it to school or home use and to shorter meeting times. I guess my naive mistake was being upfront with the sales rep about what we wanted to use the material for and asking for suggestions. Had I simply relied on the teachers’ resourcefulness to adapt the material, no one at BBC would have been any the wiser and they probably would have sold it to us. After I got the “how dare your church send children out of the worship service” reply, I decided it wasn’t worth pursuing further.

It’s probably a good thing Mark Driscoll doesn’t think the girls are important. If he did I wouldn’t put it past him to hire an author to write a Twilight inspired series of bible stories for girls. He could then turn them into a movie franchise only to be seen at Mars Hill and sell shirts that said, “Team Jesus” and “Team Holy Spirit” on premiere night.

Dee,

Oh, I’m not saying things like that don’t happen, but I severely doubt someone targeted them for their doctrine. I’d think it was much more likely to be random, or people causing trouble for “fun”. I my experience, Driscoll’s critics are not the window-breaking types; they’re much more likely to use words than acts of violence or vandalism to get their point across. They rarely even threaten to punch anyone in the nose! (For the record, my sister goes to the Ballard campus, not downtown.)

So at our church the 2 years olds just play in the nursery except for a 15 minute time period when they’re invited (not forced!) to join the 3 year olds for Bible Story Time. And guess what happens during that time? Two older women tell a story using a flannel board! And the kids love it, esp. when it is their turn to go to the board and put a picture up. In case one might think they’re not getting much out of it, one time when my daughter was leaving story time to return to nursery, she waved goodbye and said loudly, “Bye bye Jesus!” She knew the point of being there.
I’m not opposed to using music to teach-we use it to learn Bible verses, times tables, geography. It’s quite effective. But for MD to have the kids just sit and watch a video (as one commenter posted why do they need more tv time??), he’s completely taking away the relationship the kids would have with their teachers. This is exactly opposite of what Jesus was all about-he was about the relationship.

Bridget2 – Back in 2001, I had a *very* weird e-mail convo with someone from Piper’s site who took me to task over a whole bunch of things. I had to cut off the exchange of messages (by not replying) because it was going nowhere. (Since whoever the BBC/DG person was, they thought I needed to be schooled!)

This all came up because I asked a question (and sent a comment) about their then-new logo.

It was a definite red flag… but I didn’t catch on to the real weirdness until a few years later. I used to go to the DG site periodically and read in their archives, and as I did so, I kept running across material that really troubled me. (Often related to sex – hah!) I felt like some of the things Piper was saying were seriously off – even (in some cases) coming across as if there was something wrong (mentally) with Piper.

*

Deb, re. 1998 – there are lots and lots of comments over at sgmsurvivors about the sequence of events per neo-calvinism and LT’s leaving. Though honestly, SGM was way into the discipleship/shepherding thing when LT was still there, so I’m not certain that he did any favors for the members, in that sense…

Random comment:

Speaking of gender issues, I just noticed this (was at the bottom of the page) on amazon.com: The Boys Bible. (No apostrophe in “boys.”)

However, I gotta give them marks for talking about how this Bible will help boys “be like Jesus.” (In publishers’ blurb)

*And* it’s NIV!

Numo–

2001 would probably have been the year I had my weird exchange with DGM. Wonder if we were talked at by the same person?

Yesterday evening Anon1 linked this article about the Martian Way and pointed out YRR commenters there:

Mega Fridays: Mars Hill & Authoritarianism Run Amok

I just read, and see one commenter still going long and loud about the evils of gossip, and how the blogger was encouraging gossip by sharing details and links to the Petrys story. This commenter never says, “I’m a YRR pastor, so I’m seeking to deflect criticism away from RBDs and onto the critics (evil gossipers that they be).”  

But if you go the pastor’s own blog, you there see favorite resources of Mohler, Piper, 9Marks, CBMW, T4G, etc.  A few minutes ago he finally posted his bottom line, which I’m confident he’d also apply to all articles here on TWW concerning the Martian Way:  

” 3) In the end, I think you are overestimating the impact your blog is going to have on Mars Hill and on Driscoll, himself. Ultimately, God doesn’t need you or anyone else to discipline or blow the alarm on Driscoll or Mars Hill. ”

In other words, we should all just give up and shut up and then God will, I guess, give Mark a miraculous vision to set him straight.  Then Mark will admit mistakes were made, but the responsible parties have been fired.

Wow, its amazing how this particular type of tyrannical pastor has so much in common with all the rest of his kind…I know of a church with a pastor who is like a senior citizen version of MD- and darned if one of the important things wasn’t that they had to design their OWN kids Sunday School curriculum and constantly emphasize that “their” kids were special, more spiritual, above other kids…

This also lead to young adults often proclaiming that the pastor was more of a father to them than their biological father…

We were sometimes treated to anecdotes of their honeymoon that came dangerously close to TMI. I thought of that when reading about MD telling his wife that he wanted to follow her around the store so that he could “look at her butt”. Does he think this is a profound thought? Do we need to know this? Is he giving husbands permission to “look at their wives butts”? I don’t think we need MD’s blessing to enjoy a sexual relationship with our spouse!

I have also been wondering, given the unusual way MD suggests wives might lead their husbands to the Lord (a new interpretation of 1 Peter 3:1?), if he would have Grace recommend a similar approach for husbands to use in ministering to their wives???Just wondering…

“In other words, we should all just give up and shut up and then God will, I guess, give Mark a miraculous vision to set him straight. Then Mark will admit mistakes were made, but the responsible parties have been fired.”

Dave, thanks for going over and reading that. Know why I linked it? Because it is a real live YRR pastor doing their thing and I wanted more people to read it to recognize the tactics. He really believes he is right. The “gossip” part comes when we name names. Nevermind the Petry blog is public (duh) The parsing of scripture, shaming and even shaming another “pastor” (who is much older than the one commenting) for putting it on his blog. The pastor of the blog handles it well because he is a former lawyer, himself.

As to the paragraph above, the irony is they will whip out Paul and twist it to shame you to death. However, when it comes to one of their own, the Epistles are not to be used. Let God handle it. So, I guess that means the Epistles never needed to be written.

This reminds me of the mega churcn pastor who was approached by a woman one Sunday Morning while his bodyguards looked on suspiciously. She was having serious problems and he said to her after listening for a minute, I kid you not: “God will protect you if you pray”. The the bodyguard came forward and told him they had to go. Amazing! (Guess he does not pray?) But they cannot see the hypocrisy. They live in a bubble and cannot see it.

Yes, I remember that. It is horrible. When/if that daughter ever comes to her senses (whether her husband does or not) she will regret that the rest of her life. And resent her husband, too. That is why this false gender doctrine is horrible for marriages in the long run.

What can she tell her child? Not that grandma was a druggie. Or an alcoholic. Or murderer. Nope, Grandma simply did not professes Christ the same way we do so we had to stay away from her and keep you away from hr. Seriously, do people not think? And they wonder why kids roam away from the faith when they get older. There is no LOVE or Mercy with these people who proclaim to follow Him.

And some claim he preaches the Gospel. Guess they are going to have to define what they mean by that word.

Deb, I’ve thought a lot about the personalities of people who fit into the MD mold of how families should be. My husband, for instance, is a quiet guy who is quite content with me sharing responsibilities. If I came in and said I wanted him to make “all” the decisions, he would be really annoyed because when I am involved in certain decision making, it takes a lot of stress off him since he already works 60+ hours a week. I think a lot of these guys that are going OT style on everyone would act like that whether they were a Christian or not. Simply, it is their personality, and MD has effectively formed the gospel around his own personality.

Anon1,

It seems to happen a lot with these celebrity pastors:) I think most of these guys are type A personalities who probably don’t get along with people unless those people are doing what they want. If MD were in the business world, he would be the most cut throat and would brag about how he was the best because of his work ethic and impressive resumé.

Pretty soon MD will be screaming for people to repent because they aren’t behaving the way he does. The gospel will literally be the transformation of MD. What madness. I think this is why Martin Luther wouldn’t stop talking about the “whole Gospel being outside of us.” Until we American’s stop obsessing over the transformation (which is a product of the gospel not the gospel). we will constantly be led down the C.J. and MD paths over and over again. They love the gospel just long enough to get you saved, and then it is nothing but obsession over how holy you are becoming a la SGM or MH style.

Diane: He’s literally selling her out through that book. Did she even agree to the final edit? Or maybe he’d drilled the idea that she was a ‘frigid sinner’ so far into her head that she went with it.

“….and MD has effectively formed the gospel around his own personality.” — Anon1

“I tell you one and one make three —
I’m the Cult of Personality!”

“You give me glory
You give me fame
You give me Power in your God’s name
I am all that you want Me to be —
I’m the Cult of Personality!”

It seems to happen a lot with these celebrity pastors:) I think most of these guys are type A personalities who probably don’t get along with people unless those people are doing what they want. If MD were in the business world, he would be the most cut throat and would brag about how he was the best because of his work ethic and impressive resumé. — Robin

Kind of like Deadwood‘s version of George Hearst with a Christian coat of paint?

Dee – there’s another comment re. “sociopathic narcissist,” though…

Lee –

Why do you say “unfortunately” in your comment regarding using Desiring God materials for elementary age children? Could you elaborate if you are familiar with the material? I understand if you can’t or don’t care to though.

Lee –

I am not either. I was just wondering if there was something in the materials themselves that you found troubling. Such as, are they teaching “complementarian” beliefs to children. There is concern that they would make this a foundational issue with children since they make it one with adults.

Concerning children’s materials, some messages can be subtle (although not my hyperscrutinizing eyes).

For example, I remember seeing my daughter’s handout from sunday school some years ago that she brought home. The topic was from the book of Acts, about Apollos being taught by Aquila and Priscilla. The picture on the handout showed Apollos seated at one end of a table listening intently, and Aquila seated at the other end of the table emphatically speaking and gesturing.

Guess what Priscilla was doing? She was standing elsewhere, arranging flowers in a vase, eyes down, mouth tightly shut in a closed smile. There was no seat for her at the table.

A powerful message in that one, filed into a child’s mind.

Elastigirl –

I agree. That is why I was asking. I am concerned about Desiring God materials for kids because of Piper’s strong stance on complementarianism. Will his beliefs on gender be taught in the materials?

Mars Hill Refuge now on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mars-Hill-Refuge/200648863365905?ref=ts&__adt=2

Wow! These responses are just ridiculous and sinful; as is this post. The argument that you all are making doesn’t even follow the premise. If you all are indeed Christians, then I suggest you repent. This is just prideful. Oh, and before you jump on me for being a Mars Hillite, understand that I am not a Mars Hill member, I live in Alaska, and I am a member (and audio director) of a fundamentalist independent Baptist church. So, even though I am a world away from Mark Driscoll’s teachings I, as a Christian in full-time ministry, appreciate the sacrifices that Mark has made and look up to his leadership as the teaching pastor at one of the nations largest growing churches. I am thankful that Mars Hill has taken a personal responsibility for God’s great commission. I am disgusted that you all find this ministry as something to bash and belittle.