Disclaimer: This entry contains the views of an SSU member, and does not necessarily represent the views of the Secular Student Union.

Financial:
In October of last year, the church purchased the building that formerly housed the Tabella nightclub for $3.95M, keeping all details secret from the congregation until the deal closed. Why? Whose money were they spending? Who is this church serving, if it needs to bully its members? The church leadership had stopped publishing and distributing weekly financial updates to the congregation, and while members worried, they were given no details on the churches financial situation…until…

Last December this appeared on the church website:
“Multiple pastors request prayers for our financial state. With the deep deficit, it is a test for all the staff to choose Jesus over anxiety when ministry funds are cut short and the possibility of lay-offs and additional budget cuts is on the horizon. Please pray for repentance by those who are disobeying God in their giving, and pray to Jesus to make generous and faithful hearts of our body.”
Manipulative. Ludicrously manipulative, passive aggressive, just childish…

Mars Hill Bylaws
In September of last year Mars Hill fired one pastor and placed another on probation. At the time the church was in the process of rewriting the church bylaws. According to Mark Driscoll, these two men “curiously were among the least administratively gifted for that task, and chose to fight in a sinful manner in an effort to defend their power and retain legal control of the entire church.” In a sermon shortly after, he also talked about the men: “There are a few guys right now, if I wasn’t going to end up on CNN, I would go Old Testament on ’em. There’s no, like, attorneys and blogging, just like I punched you in the mouth, now shut up. That’s clean; it’s simple.”

Here is a discussion of the bylaws point by point from a legal perspective:
http://prayingheart.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/lets-discuss-the-new-by-laws-of-mars-hill-church/

The author provides a summary of what the bylaws do:
*The full council of elders has been reduced to only 5 ruling elders.
*These Ruling 5 are self-appointed and serve for life without effective accountability.
*There is no effective oversight of Mark since he serves as his own supervisor on the Ruling 5.
*These by-laws were voted in by the former full council of elders thus revealing the inability of these men to critically read, voice any comments, or express any substantive opinion.
*Since a quorum is only 50%, effectively only 3 Ruling elders govern the church.. These Ruling 5 may only be supervised by those whom they hand pick, as they also control the slate of those who may be appointed.
*No scriptural basis is necessary to discipline any member of the Mars Hill body.
*There remains no protection and no recourse for any member so disciplined, as has already been demonstrated when our very leaders have been subjected to having their character inpugned in public.

My personal favorite quote from the bylaws:
“Please respect the sensitive nature of a document like this and do not distribute it outside of the membership. There is nothing to hide, but our intent is to answer the questions of our members only, and not take the massive number of hours that would be required to also answer the questions regarding our legal governance to people for whom Mars Hill Church is not home.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zm1vzM2FAc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6mmTXVTil8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kayRXtITyw&feature=related

I don’t think I need to go into some of the serious issues with this form of church governance. Secrecy, unquestioned authority, unchecked power…

Tags: Mars Hill

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