FROM THE ARCHIVE · WED NOV 4
Mars Hill: the rise and fall of a megachurch
A Seattle church grew to about 13,000 people, then dissolved in 2014. What the record shows.
Mars Hill Church began in Seattle in 1996. At its peak it had an estimated 13,000 to 14,000 people at 15 locations in five states. In 2014 its founding pastor, Mark Driscoll, resigned, and the church announced it would dissolve.
THE RISE
Driscoll preached in jeans, spoke bluntly and held conservative Calvinist views in a city not known for church-going. His sermons were shown by video at the church’s other locations. He also helped found Acts 29, a network that has started hundreds of churches.
2014
In March, Driscoll apologized for a marketing campaign that helped his book Real Marriage reach the New York Times best-seller list, calling it “manipulating a book sales reporting system, which is wrong.” Over the same months, former staff and pastors accused him of bullying, and critics accused him of plagiarism. In August he stepped aside while the church’s Board of Overseers investigated.
WHAT THE BOARD FOUND
The findings were mixed. The board said Driscoll had “at times, been guilty of arrogance, responding to conflict with a quick temper and harsh speech, and leading the staff and elders in a domineering manner.” It did not find him disqualified from ministry, said “Pastor Mark has never been charged with any immorality, illegality or heresy,” and called some accusations “altogether unfair or untrue.”
Driscoll resigned in a letter dated October 14. In it he wrote that “aspects of my personality and leadership style” had been “divisive within the Mars Hill context.”
THE END
Giving and attendance had already fallen. The church had closed or merged several campuses, reported a budget gap of nearly $650,000 in August, and weekly attendance was reportedly about 7,600. On October 31 it announced it would dissolve. Its buildings would be sold or taken over by local congregations, and each location could become independent, merge or close. At the start of 2015, eleven former Mars Hill congregations began as independent churches under new names.
Driscoll started a new church, The Trinity Church, in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 2016.
Two readings
Accounts differ on what mattered most: how far the church reached, or how it was led. Both are part of the record.
COMING MONDAY, NOV 9
Our new long video on Mars Hill goes up on Monday, Nov 9, on the Professor Archive channel. This letter is the short version.
Photo: Mars Hill Church, Ballard campus, Seattle, 2012, by Frank Brown (cropped). CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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