Posted on September 4, 2008 - by Stephen Murray
What Mark Driscoll Could Learn from Sydney
Since the spirit of spreading ‘friendly-fire’ is upon us I thought I’d chip in with a thought or two of my own. Driscoll’s ’skewering’ of Sydney got me thinking about his ministry and similar ministries from other missional-minded reformed peeps coming out of the States.
But first some disclaimers: First off, although I never heard Driscoll’s talk itself Gordon’s notes gave me a fair idea of where he went and what his criticisms were. As I’ve already stated I resonated with many of them as one who understands something of the Sydney paradigm of ministry. I also thought one or two of his points were probably wide of the mark or perhaps failed to understand the Sydney Anglican context well enough. All and all I greatly value his critique and hope that people will give it some serious thought.
What I was left wondering however, was what has Driscoll learned from ministry in Sydney? I hope he posts some reflections on his time there and what he has learned – but I thought that, until he does, I’ll mention something that I think he (and others like him) could benefit from in the Sydney paradigm of ministry.
I’ve been listening to his podcasts and podcasts from other Acts29 church planters for two or three years now. I’ve listened to some of their Sunday preaching and I’ve listened to their conference talks. I’ve been greatly encouraged and built up in the gospel through these talks and I’m going to keep on downloading them and enjoying them. What I have found a little concerning is the quality of bible handling on occasion. I’ve often struggled with the way narrative passages tend to get a bit spiritualized and moralized where it looks like hard work hasn’t been done on the text. Its clear that hard work has been done on the whole sermon but I sometimes wonder about the work on the text.
In this light I think Sydney ought to be applauded. Their commitment to hard work on the text, to text driven and directed preaching, is of the first order. Preachers like Phillip Jensen, John Woodhouse, John Chapman, Simon Manchester and others have provided me with great models of exposition in the past. Yes, I think Driscoll is right when he says that their (Sydney peeps in general) preaching is sometimes weak on application – I feel that too – but I don’t want to have to be in a situation where I pick one or the other, I want both. I think God calls us to both. So to Mark and the reformed missional crew I think you could learn something from Sydney here that would only make your ministries even stronger and more faithful.
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Stephen Murray
Christian, husband to my beautiful Robin, missional dreamer, pastor, church planter, Arsenal, Sharks and Springbok supporter, surfer (in the real sea), patriotic South African, Capetonian. Find out more about the church planting work I'm involved in at my support blog.
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September 4, 2008
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Sam Groves said:
I agree. Someone who heard Driscoll in Sydney- and raved about how easy he is to listen to for 90 minutes- said they reckoned that after a while one could get a bit bored and want some more depth due to the lack of deep theological reflections. But in contast to the Sydney Anglicans he was VERY strong on application. That’s why we need to learn from each other.
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September 5, 2008
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jennifer said:
I absolutely agree. I, too, have listened much to Mark’s sermons, have found much helpful, but have been concerned quite often with his use of the Bible. I think this IS an area he could learn much from those in Sydney you mentioned.
I, too, agree that at times these preachers can err to the side of not giving enough application. But I will tell you why, if I HAD to choose, I would choose the sound exegesis and settle for less application (though, as you say, the ideal is to have both).
I posted on your site recently that I was in a church for 15 years with a strong personality leader. He was very much the powerful orator – strong application. It took years for me to work out that there was wrong use of the text in the process. That combination is dangerous. It led in our case to the church coming under authoritarian leadership – spiritual abuse of the sheep by the use of “application” of the bible to us. Coupled with strong teaching on our need to submit to our eldership and leaders, our church slowly descended in the direction of a cult. The damage to people was enormous.
We left and began attending a church where we recovered and were taught well. Having now been out of that church for 11 years, and for that time under exegetical preaching.
The reason I would say the lesser of two evils is strong on exegesis, weak on application rather than the other way round, is that when the bible is taught correctly, the Holy Spirit is able to give you the application. When you are strong on application and weak on exegesis – people do not learn how to read the bible properly for themselves. Some applications that should be more generalised can become dogmatic. People learn not to think for themselves and take on what the preacher thinks they should do. They become dependent on men rather than God. Preachers can obtain a control over people which they can begin to abuse. Our first church didn’t start off the way it did. In the beginning there was much good and the drift was slow and (to us) imperceptible. Sorry for the long post! Its an area I’ve learnt much the hard way!
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September 5, 2008
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Sam Groves said:
Stephen, it’s sad to hear of cases like Jennifer’s above. Do you think that the Acts29 Network provides enough accountability to prevent something like that from happening with it’s members? What would happen if Driscoll went dodge? I’d be interested to know if Jennifer thought that it could’ve been prevented if there was some genuine accountability taking place?
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September 5, 2008
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jennifer said:
We were in the baptist denomination, Sam, but the church (as is the case much moreso than we’ve seen in the Anglican or Presbyterian that we have been involved in since) operated pretty much independently. There was a strong belief in the autonomy of the local church, so there wasn’t much chance of intervention from having denominational accountability.
Within the church the main pastor gathered a group of men around him and taught a plurality of eldership. However, those men were really handpicked by him and were yes-men who served to make it look like he was accountable but in reality was not. It showed me that having fellow-elders is no guarantee that there is true accountability.
The only way it could have happened was if one of them had stopped fearing man, but it never happened. It was very sad – and thankfully by God’s grace many people came out from it eventually and back into the freedom of the gospel. Hope that helps.
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September 5, 2008
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John said:
I read Driscoll’s notes as well and other stuff. Somthing that concerns me is he seems to have an underlying assumption that big is better. Even if he does try to qualify it at times, I certainly get the impression that for Driscoll big is better. What do you think?
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September 5, 2008
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Stephen said:
Sam – Driscoll has a ton of elders who are supposed to keep him in check at Mars Hill. Acts29 promote elder(plurality) driven church which I think is a good thing. But like all groups our sin will always find a way in if it wants to.
John – I’ve picked this up too. I think Driscoll thinks of big primarily in terms of number of converst (especially in Confessions of a Reformission Rev.) – that’s obviously not a bad thing and something which we should all desire. When this gets confused with certain structures then I think problems start to develop.
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September 6, 2008
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dave bish said:
Good analysis. I think the careful concern for the text is something the whole church globally can learn from the Sydney Anglicans, and I think it is something they have been teaching to a lot of us. And I say that disagreeing with other aspects of the SA approach, but you can’t beat them on this.
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September 8, 2008
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John said:
Stephen, I agree that Driscoll is definitely into big through conversion. But I think perhaps for him the best expression of the church is one big gathering, as the best expression of church. Now this is a valid expressions but I think he perhaps needs to hold his commitment to big gatherings/church a little looser? Missional is bigger than one style/strucure and I have become uncomfortable because I am not sure this is always the message I hear from Driscoll.
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September 18, 2008
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Grant said:
Howzit guys. Re. Sydney and their Plastic Jesus: Can anyone tell me where to find this talk that everyone except me seems to have listened to?
I’d like to hear it. From what I have read I can’t figure out what audience Driscoll had in mind. Some of his reported comments seem aimed at unbelieving Sydneysiders but most of the buzz seems to be that he “skewers” the brothers in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney.
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September 18, 2008
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Stephen said:
I think the Sydney Anglican site has posted it but its not free – and me, I’m a freebe kind of guy so I haven’t listened to it yet either. Click on the link to Gordon’s notes (above) to get a feel of what he said in the talk.
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September 18, 2008
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girlpreacha said:
I began listening to Mark Driscoll about 7 years ago, and have been over to Mars hill, Seattle, and my husband has been on their Church Planting boot camp. We’ve kept track of the development of Mars Hill through a few large changes and elders disagreements etc and
having been at Oakhill College in London, who tended to look to, and model Sydney anglicans in many ways, his 18 points are spot on. And I know academics won’t like this, but he’s fairly hard to criticise easily unless you’ve built a church up from your living room to a few thousand over only several years! He’s the person who’s most shown me the real Jesus.
It’s exciting how God is using him worldwide now, and I pray often he won’t fall.
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September 18, 2008
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girlpreacha said:
Sorry. Forgot to add:
On the who holds him accountable. Well John Piper and Don Carson do.
As well as God, his wife, the Holy Spirit in his conscience, and the elders of course.
Blessings
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October 17, 2008
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James Cary said:
It’s well worth actually listening to the talk. Gordon’s notes are very useful – but actually make the talk sound harsher than it was. I was surprised when listening to it that Driscoll’s tone was thoughtful and considered – rather than shoot-from-the-hip. So take some time to listen, if you can.