The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” ~ Matthew 7:1-3

 

If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. ~ Galatians 5:15

 

These words of Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul from 2,000 years ago hit so hard right now. The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill is a post-mortem on the fall and destruction of one of the most prolific churches in the 21^st century. This was a tough one to listen to but I’m grateful I finally listened to it. It took me three years to consider listening and I’m glad I waited, because the lessons here sank deep. Chaulk full of 25 episodes with interviews and helpful and prescriptive contemplations, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill explored the death of one of the most influential and successful churches in America. It is also a convicting examination into my own heart and mind: the intentions, compromises, misunderstandings, and impulses. These are lessons for doing better in every space I operate in, with very real and well-intentioned people who operate in ways that are great examples of the very good, very bad, and very ugly. After listening to this helpful investigation, I had to find out who else was talking about it and how others were feeling about it. Carey Nieuwhof had one of the best takeaways I found, writing from a leadership perspective. I value good leaders, and being a good leader, so Niewhof’s lessons are prescriptive to me:

 

Originally published by Carey Nieuwhof

 

“Like so many leaders in the church space, I listened to The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast…To say it was hard to listen to is an understatement.

It took me a month or two to even decide whether I would listen to it or not.

For those who may not know, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill is a podcast produced by Christianity Today that chronicles the humble beginnings, explosive growth, and very public dissolution of Mars Hill, a megachurch that once had multiple campuses in Seattle, Washington (one of the most unchurched cities in the U.S.). 

Filled with interviews with former staff and church members, the focal point of the series is the leadership style of lead pastor Mark Driscoll.

Like many people I know, when I started listening, there were times when I shut an episode off, thinking I couldn’t go any further, only to resume it a day or a week later. The story is so painful for the multiple layers of hurt involved and yet crucial for what we can learn moving forward.

Eventually, I finished the series, but the ambivalence never really disappeared.

So, why this post?

Mainly because this is a leadership blog, and the patterns described around Mars Hill are not unique to Mars Hill. They’re not even unique to churches. 

The patterns can happen—and do happen—in varying degrees in many different churches and businesses.

While The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast isn’t a definitive account of what happened in Seattle (for example, despite attempts, former Mars Hill Lead Pastor Mark Driscoll didn’t agree to be interviewed for the show), it provided enough of a picture of the unhealthy happenings in churches and the dysfunctional happenings within leaders to convict me of my own sin (again).

For me, the most disturbing part of listening to the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill is that I saw some of myself in the story.

I recognized some of the same impulses in me.

There’s a shadow side of leadership, pride, and power lurking in most of us. Perhaps in all of us. At least, it definitely lurks in me.

And if you identify the unhealthy patterns in your own life, maybe you can catch it early enough to prevent it from harming others.

So, let me go first to say that everything I’m describing below is things I’ve had to wrestle down in my own heart and my own leadership. I hope and pray for progress and victory for all of us who lead, including the leaders and people who were part of Mars Hill.

Exposing the darkness in ourselves is one of the greatest ways to find more light.

Here are five reflections I’m processing after finishing the podcast.

There's a shadow side of leadership, pride, and power that lurks in most of us. Perhaps in all of us.

1. The Ends Actually Don’t Justify the Means

I’ve worked in a few places over the years: a law firm, at radio and tv stations, at a church, and for the last few years as an author, speaker, and a podcaster myself, running a small communications company.

You’d think it was easier to lead like the ends justified the means in a law firm or private company.

Nope.

It was easiest as a pastor.

For exactly the reasons described in the podcast, you end up saying things like:

• Well, more people are coming to faith than are leaving.
• I can’t be responsible for the consequences…that’s up to God.
• If it means more people come to faith, then let’s do it.

The church I led was not even close to the size of Mars Hill, nor did it have the influence of Mars Hill. But in the first decade of ministry, we became one of the fastest growing and one of the largest congregations in our denomination.

In the midst of all of that, some people got hurt. Often I moved fast and broke things. Sometimes I broke people.

Eventually, I realized that the ends don’t justify the means—that often different means produce much better ends.

I also realized that health and growth don’t have to compete with each other. You can have both. And if you can’t have both, choose health.

Listening to the podcast, I realized that what made those first few years of leadership so confusing was that great things were happening, and we were doing all of this ‘for God.’

In my heart of hearts, I believed that whatever we did that resulted in more people coming to Christ was a good thing.

Over time though, I realized that how you do what you do is just as (if not more) important as what you do.

In the church, more people is a good thing. But more love is even better.

As you have probably figured out, more love often leads to more people. But if it doesn’t, you’re still left with more love.

2. The Body Count Matters

I won’t go into the details outlined in the podcast, but one of the recurring themes was the body count at Mars Hill—the people who ‘fell off the bus’ or got pushed off the bus as it moved to new places and new heights.

For a season in my earlier years of ministry, we were growing quickly. But the underbelly of that season of growth was that we were simply growing faster than we were losing people.

It got so bad in some rapid growth years that I have a distinct memory of telling my team not to use pictures older than six months since there were too many people in the photo who had left.

I wince when I think about that now.

I don’t know why everyone who left ended up leaving (high growth and high churn seasons can be like that), and not everyone who left was mad or hurt—many tried it for a while and realized what we were doing wasn’t for them—but I do know that in all the churn, I started to form callouses around my heart.

When people leave or criticize you, it hurts.

The natural thing to do is to grow cynical, to stop listening to the disappointments and the complaints. And for a season, I did just that.

Had I let that go further, it’s likely I was only a few steps away from allowing the churn to be a badge of honor. Ugh.

Fortunately, I burned out after a few years of very rapid growth. I say ‘fortunately’ because, even though my burnout was the deepest pain I’ve ever gone through personally, I realize now that God was re-forming me in the midst of it.

I now think of my burnout as a divine intervention of sorts.

On the other side of burnout, I became much more sensitive to the pain and hurt I was causing, especially unintentionally. Often as leaders, we don’t mean to hurt people or even realize we’re doing it. Or we harden our hearts because we can’t stand the pain of people rejecting us.

I realized (and am still learning) how much of a mistake it is to close your heart to people or act like their leaving doesn’t matter. It does.

And while caring is hard, the ultimate damage of not caring is far greater.

Caring carries risk. So, leaders, please hear me. Your heart will get mangled, and you’ll be tempted to stop caring and trusting people altogether. Don’t.

So, you might ask, does opening your heart and caring about people stop people from leaving?

Nope. People still leave. Maybe not as many, but still, people leave. And it still hurts. (Toxic people are a different category, but most people aren’t toxic people. They just see things differently than you do).

People who disagree with you should be treated well and loved regardless of whether they are ‘with you’ or not. It’s not about you or me. It’s just not.

After I burned out and started to recover, we launched Connexus Church.

I look back on some of those launch photos a decade and a half later and smile. To my surprise and delight, most of the people who helped us launch are still with us.

And for those who left…well, if people were valuable to you when they came to your church, treat them as though they are just as valuable when they leave.

3. Charisma is a Double-Edged Sword

Culturally, we use the term ‘charismatic’ to describe leaders who have a magnetic pull to their personalities.

Leadership tends to attract and reward charismatic people. In the case of preachers, I imagine the concentration of charismatic leaders is even higher than in the marketplace as a whole.

Why? Many preachers are excellent communicators, and the ability to communicate is a significant factor in charisma.

So, what’s the challenge?

The good thing about being a charismatic leader is that people follow you. The bad side of being a charismatic leader is that people follow you.

As a charismatic leader, you have the potential to lead thousands of people to a much better future and the potential to lead thousands of people right off a cliff.

From the time I was young, people told me I had charisma. Honestly, I didn’t know what that meant at that point, but having led for decades now, I realize charisma is a double-edged sword.

The temptation to use your charisma to consolidate power and use it to your benefit is real. Another temptation is to form an inner circle of fans, sycophants, and enablers who won’t challenge you or pose a threat to your viewpoint.

I got to a point early in my leadership where I was so sensitive to criticism that I felt the impulse to create an inner circle like that.

Fortunately, prayer, counseling, and people who knew me and loved me enough to help me see the truth helped me realize that ultimately that’s a path that leads to death, not life.

This brings us back to the original meaning of ‘charisma’ for all of us who at some point have been called charismatic leaders.

Charisma is a Greek transliteration into English; it means both ‘gift’ or ‘favor’ and carries a sense of having a grace given to you by God.

In other words, to the extent you possess any, your charisma is a gift and a favor from God to be used and stewarded not for your glory but God’s.

Of all the character traits we can cultivate, humility might be the greatest when it comes to stewarding charisma. As I’ve learned, again and again, only humility can get you out of what pride got you into.

If you find yourself surfing off your own giftedness, humble yourself.

This takes quite a bit of intentionality. But I’ve learned you can get to humility through two paths:

1. Voluntarily
2. Involuntary

How does involuntary humility happen? Simple: When you’re humiliated by others or a situation.

Humiliation is simply involuntary humility. When you won’t humble yourself, others are happy to do it for you.

I’m trying to take the voluntary path moving forward. I don’t always get it right, but I’m trying.

4. Your Character Needs to Grow Faster Than Your Platform

As I listened to story after story during the podcast, I realized that the real issue is character. It was at Mars Hill and it is in all of our lives.

The challenge is that in an age of instant celebrity, your platform can grow faster than your character.

I think that’s one of the reasons so many megachurch pastors fail (here’s a post with some thoughts on why it keeps happening).

As we’ve seen too often in the church (so painfully), all the competency in the world can’t compensate for a lack of character.

Character is the great leveler. You may be smart, but if people don’t trust you, they won’t want to work with you. You may be the best preacher in your city, but if you treat others as less than, people will stop listening.

Lack of character kills careers, shatters families, ruins friendships, and destroys influence. And even if you never get fired or divorced over the compromises you make, your lack of character will limit the intimacy, joy, and depth you experience with God and with people.

Competency gets you in the room. Character keeps you in the room. As a result, it’s character—not competency—that determines your capacity.

Although I hear the argument all the time, I personally don’t believe there is anything inherently bad about a large church or organization.

But there is something inherently difficult in it. And to some extent, the larger something is, the harder it is.

Please know, this doesn’t mean leading a small church or venture is easy. I have led small churches. I get it. Few things in leadership are easy.

But I’ve also led some larger ministries and organizations, and the larger it is, the greater the pressure and the more there’s at stake.

I remember when our church grew past 300; my mind was blown. Now, it’s five times the size.

Or look at this blog or my podcast. Honestly, 100,000 readers or listeners was inconceivable a decade ago. Then millions showed up.

Nothing gets you ready for that.

It’s way too easy for your platform to outgrow your character. And that’s where all the danger lies.

Add to it one more fact: You and I are not naturally made to lead thousands or millions.

It doesn’t mean you can’t do it. It just means you’ll have to grow your character faster. Much faster.

5. Many Leaders Want to Be Celebrities—And The Internet is the Bullet Train

The podcast focused a lot on pride, narcissism, and the desire for celebrity.

It’s super easy to point the finger at a leader like Mark Driscoll, but that still leaves us with four fingers pointing back at ourselves.

And even if you don’t have a platform of your own, it’s easy to get a platform (a big one) by criticizing and destroying other people.

Before you deny that this applies to you, do a little gut check. Ask yourself, How good would you be with complete obscurity, with an irrelevance so deep nobody notices you or cares? 

Yep…very few of us are good with that. After all, God designed us to be social creatures and to live lives of meaning and purpose.

Interaction and making some kind of a difference are core to a meaningful life.

The challenge becomes, of course, that the internet is the bullet train to celebrity. Just ask any 12-year-old YouTuber.

There’s more than a little irony that The Rise and Fall of Mars Hills podcast criticized Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill for using the internet and social media to rapidly grow their ministry, while The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast itself was using exactly the same platforms as it became the most listened-to podcast in the Christian space.

And before you or I claim innocence or protest too loudly, well, you’re reading this blog post and perhaps you listen to my podcast or follow me on social and you’ll leave your comments online and…

You see?

Yeah.

It’s easy to criticize people with bigger platforms than yours, and in doing so let yourself off the hook.

A better approach is to dig deep and probe your own motives.

After listening to the podcast, I found myself asking questions like Why do I like the fact that my podcast gets downloaded so much, or how many people read my blog/buy my book/come to my talks?

There’s something ugly under that.

Alternatively, you can be so allergic (and self-righteous) about remaining obscure that your option becomes what…do nothing? Say nothing? Attempt nothing? That’s not faithfulness either.

Once again, humility and character are the keys here.

So what do you do?

Work twice as hard on your character as you do on your platform.

If we all did that, our posts would be more kind, our comments more grateful, our content more purely motivated.”

Source: https://careynieuwhof.com/some-reflections-on-the-rise-and-fall-of-mars-hill/

God Heals By Humbling

 by John Piper

“I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners, creating the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace, to the far and to the near,” says the Lord, “and I will heal him.” (Isaiah 57:18–19)

In spite of the severity of man’s disease of rebellion and willfulness, God will heal. How will he heal? Isaiah 57:15 says that God dwells with the crushed and humble. Yet the people of Isaiah 57:17 are not humble. They are brazenly pursuing their own proud way. So, what will a healing be?

It can only be one thing. God will heal them by humbling them. He will cure the patient by crushing his pride. If only the crushed and humble enjoy God’s fellowship (Isaiah 57:15), and if Israel’s sickness is a proud and willful rebellion (Isaiah 57:17), and if God promises to heal them (Isaiah 57:18), then his healing must be humbling and his cure must be a crushed spirit.

Isn’t this Isaiah’s way of prophesying what Jeremiah called the new covenant and the gift of a new heart? He said, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel. . . . I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jeremiah 31:31, 33).

Isaiah and Jeremiah both see a time coming when a sick, disobedient, hard-hearted people will be supernaturally changed. Isaiah speaks of healing. Jeremiah speaks of writing the law on their hearts. And Ezekiel puts it like this: “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).

So the healing of Isaiah 57:18 is a major heart transplant — the old hardened, proud, willful heart of stone is taken out, and a new soft, tender heart is put in, which is easily humbled and crushed by the memory of sin and the sin that remains. 

This is a heart that the lofty One whose name is Holy will dwell with forever.

Memorial Day 2019 – What We Remember About the Greatest Generation

The article below is by Retired Rear Admiral John Kirby. 
May 25, 2019

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       The heavenly virtue of humility seems vastly foreign to modernity.  I value this article by retired Rear Admiral John Kirby for the detail and reckoning of upheld values realized across a generation of men and women who lived through some of the most indelible periods of history.  A major takeaway for me is the conclusion he gathers from Veteran Charlie Nease: 

“Perhaps we ought not to strive for lives of success, but rather lives of value. And it has to start with what you actually do value. The old man valued love and loyalty and duty. He didn't say that to me, of course.” 

       As a believer, this is a major theme in life to take note of.  Of all people, the disciples of Jesus Christ must be men and women of value.  Something else that strikes a chord in my own heart about men and women of Nease’s generation is their humility.  Events surrounding World War 2 were so much bigger than the United States itself and it was considered an accomplishment just to survive or come out alive from any combat theater.  I know what that’s like.  Combat experiences do not exactly evoke bravado, because it is likely that those who brag about combat or war have maybe actually never been in war.  War breaks the mind and can crush the soul.  For those who live through combat, the mental scars are worse than physical scars. 

       I am thankful we serve Jehovah who is constantly victorious.  It is no wonder He is not as concerned with earthly affairs as He is intensely concerned for our eternal estate.  If war does something, it makes us profoundly more aware of both our mortality and immortality.  The saying goes, “There are no atheists in foxholes.”  It is true – the fact that there MUST be life after this temporary hell, and it only takes a piece of flying metal to snuff out my physical being. 

The old man said he didn't do anything. I only half believed him. 

       People of his generation say that all the time, especially when they talk about their service. 

That's one of the reasons we call them the "Greatest Generation." It's not just because they won World War II. It's because even in that most ultimate of victories, they remained humble. 

       Anyway, the old man kept saying it over and over. "I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything." 

And then he wept ... openly, valiantly. And then he said it again. And I stood over him, all decked out in my dress blue uniform, ashamed for the first time to be wearing it. I'd been invited back to my hometown of St. Petersburg, Fla. in the spring of 2013 to give a speech, and I wanted to stop by the local veterans' hospital to pay my respects. But who in the hell was I to be in his presence? What could I possibly say to such a man? 

       Here he was, at the end of his life, dying -- and ready to go, I might add -- a hero, a man who landed at Anzio with the 179th regiment of the 45th Army Division. A man who by his own account spent 91 consecutive days in combat. A man who, along with his unit, pushed on past that deadly beachhead at Anzio in the winter of 1944 and eventually took Rome back from the Germans. A man who proudly -- no, reverently -- showed me the picture of a beautiful young woman he knew he would marry before he even knew her name. And she was a beauty, too, let me tell you. Her name was Shirley, and she was a nurse. 

       I joked a little, asking how in the world a homely guy like him could score such a babe. The truth is, he was still a fine and handsome man, even as he lay in that hospital bed. The years had furrowed lines across his cheeks, but they hadn't dimmed those blue eyes. They hadn't stolen his charm. He reminded me a little of screen legend Richard Widmark. A movie critic once called Widmark a man of "unconventional good looks," who "boasted a chiseled face, all angles and shadows." 

That was the old man, too. The blond hair had grayed, but he still had a chiseled face. 

       There wasn't any doubt in my mind how he won Shirley's heart. He must have bowled her over. 

Anyway, the old man shrugged and giggled and said as honestly as I think anyone could say that he had no idea how he won Shirley's heart. He just knew she was the one. And he handed that little metal picture frame to me like it was gold ... like it was her. 

       Here he was, a man -- a dying man -- whose proudest achievement in life, he told me, was the life he and that gorgeous young nurse gave their kids. He had helped set Italy free, helped free the world of Nazi tyranny, but the biggest legacy he believed he was leaving behind was his children. There's a lesson there, I reckon. Perhaps we ought not to strive for lives of success, but rather lives of value. And it has to start with what you actually do value. The old man valued love and loyalty and duty. He didn't say that to me, of course. He wouldn't stoop to say such a thing, not someone of his generation. Those things were simply expected. They were the norm. They were the things that got you through the sheer terror that was combat. 

Anzio 

"I didn't do anything." 

       Well, he survived Anzio, and that was surely something. If you haven't read up on Anzio, you should. The battle was a bloodbath, "hell itself" according to one soldier in the old man's regiment. 

       The whole idea was to conduct an amphibious landing on the Italian western shore, outflank German forces there and then attack Rome. The success of a landing at that location, in a basin that was basically reclaimed marshland and surrounded by mountains, depended on the element of surprise. Any delay at all would result in German occupation of the mountains and Allied entrapment down below. 

And that's exactly what happened. 

       Week after bloody week the German army pounded away at Allied troops stuck in the basin with nowhere to hide. The shelling and the bombing were relentless. It was said that any man who claimed he had been around Anzio two days without having a shell hit within 100 yards of him was just bragging. 

       "Sometimes you hear the shell whine after you've heard it explode; sometimes you hear it whine and it never explodes," wrote Ernie Pyle of the battle. "But I've found out one thing here that's just the same as anywhere else, and that's that old weakness in the joints when they get to landing close ... your elbows get flabby and you breathe in little short jerks, and your chest feels empty, and you're too excited to do anything but hope." 

       I'm certain there were many days and nights and in-betweens when Charles Nease, Private, U.S. Army, was too excited to do anything but hope. My guess is that he simply willed himself onward, driven not by some sort of superhuman courage but by the fear of letting down his buddies, of failing in his duty. I can't imagine that he ever did fail, though. 

A disappearing generation 

       Charlie Nease died a few days after I visited with him in the hospital back in 2013. He was 87 years old. His children were there to see him off before he met back up with Shirley, the only nurse he really wanted to see.  We're losing World War II veterans at a pretty fast clip these days. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, fewer than 500,000 of the 16 million Americans who served during the war were alive in 2018. 

       Next month sees us commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Normandy landings. So, it's important for us to remember them and their stories. It's important for us to put a human face on history, to remember that once, a long time ago, they were young and scared and brave and in love. 

I know Memorial Day honors those who were killed on the battlefield. And Private Nease surely wasn't, though many of his friends surely were. And yet, right around this time of year, I can't help but think about him. The more I do, the more I think he was right after all. He didn't do anything. He did everything, everything a man could hope to do with his life and still call himself a man. 

       And we are all richer, whether we know it or not -- whether we choose to appreciate it or not -- for having had people like him walk the earth. That seems one hell of a memorial to me. 

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/24/opinions/world-war-two-veteran-said-he-didnt-do-anything-kirby/index.html