Re: Brian Houston: Let's Talk Leadership

[Dave]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

The Mark Driscoll/Mars Hill saga holds some very important lessons for the Christian community at large, and even more specifically for our dear brothers and sisters in the Local Church, I believe.
Driscoll is an extremely talented and powerful teacher, with a penchant for making the Gospel and Scriptures "culturally relevant" to a younger, unchurched audience. He used this talent and force of personality (mostly in a positive manner) to take a fledgling church of 20-30 people meeting in his apartment, all the way to a multi-site megachurch of over 5,000 - all in his 20s and 30s. Eventually, Driscoll's influence and powerful mega-personality became more powerful and influential to the leadership, and by extension to the rank and file members, than the message and work of the Gospel which they strove to proclaim. All the other sordid details of the Mars Hill meltdown are probably not as important to note, at least for us on LCD, as the fact that the person and work of Mark Driscoll became more important than the Person and Work of Jesus Christ (aka The Gospel).

Now to maybe the most important lesson. At some point Mark Driscoll, either through his own initiative or on the behest of others, created an elder council or board, which was empowered to discipline, and remove from leadership if necessary, any church leader, including Driscoll himself. So when the mega personality of the megachurch became a mega distraction to the main mission of the church (preaching, teaching and practicing the Gospel) Driscoll was placed under mandatory discipline, and rather than coming under the biblically mandated discipline mechanism which he himself helped create, he chose to take the easy way out and resign. There is very little doubt, that without this bilbically mandated discipline mechanism in place, Dricoll would have continued to do what he had apparently been doing for years - ignore the biblical and godly input from the elders of the church. God is not mocked. He will NOT share his glory with another, not even with the the mega personality of a megachurch. He may replace you, or he may just leave your house desolate. Either way he will get the glory.

If you listen to Ron Carpenter it seems he is following the same route or do you think he has taken a different turn? Obviously you may be more sensitive about Mark since he was the founder of Acts 29.