Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45708 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Synopsis
This is the story of the birth and growth of Seattle's innovative Mars Hill Church, one of America's fastest growing churches located in one of America's toughest mission fields. It's also the story of the growth of a pastor, the mistakes he's made along the way, and God's grace and work in spite of those mistakes. Mark Driscoll's emerging, missional church took a rocky road from its start in a hot, upstairs youth room with gold shag carpet to its current weekly attendance of thousands. With engaging humor, humility, and candor, Driscoll shares the failures, frustrations, and just plain messiness of trying to build a church that is faithful to the Gospel of Christ in a highly post-Christian culture. In the telling, he's not afraid to skewer some sacred cows of traditional, contemporary, and emerging churches. Each chapter discusses not only the hard lessons learned but also the principles and practices that worked and that can inform your church's ministry, no matter its present size. The book includes discussion questions and appendix resources. "After reading a book like this, you can never go back to being an inwardly focused church without a mission.

Even if you disagree with Mark about some of the things he says, you cannot help but be convicted to the inner core about what it means to have a heart for those who don't know Jesus." - Dan Kimball, author, "The Emerging Church". "...will make you laugh, cry, and get mad...school you, shape you, and mold you into the right kind of priorities to lead the church in today's messy world." - Robert Webber, Northern Seminary.

Customer Reviews

Confessions
Mark Driscoll is a sinner. A sinner that God has used in one of the least Christian cities of America to bring glory to his name by founding and leading a church, Mars Hill. Driscoll's latest book is Confessions of a Reformission Rev, the story of how he led the church from its humble beginnings to where it is today, there are much better reviews of this book available in the blogosphere from, far more discerning men than I and I encourage you to read them. Tim kindly lent this book to me and I felt that I'd like to offer some thoughts about this book.

Confessions is an exciting read and one that is hard to put down. It is brutally honest about leading a church in a post-modern culture and dispels any image that one might have that leading a church is an easy, almost romantic duty. From what Mark Driscoll depicts, it is anything but easy or romantic and I for one am not the sort of man who could manage such a task. In the short ten-year history of Mars Hill, Driscoll has variously faced: post-modern craziness, dreadful worship leaders, eviction from the church buildings, marital issues, demonic attacks, tambourine wielding charismatics and preaching through the Song of Songs. Yet by the grace of God he has survived such trials and brought the Gospel of love and freedom to the many `unreachable' of Seattle.

Throughout Confessions you cannot fail but to see how much Driscoll loves Jesus and how much it pains him when those around him either reject Jesus or detract from his glory. It is also clear that Mark is a sinner, like I am a sinner and it is truly remarkable how God has used him despite his shortcomings.

Reading Confessions has certainly deepened my respect for Driscoll and that said I do have some concerns about Driscoll. Firstly Driscoll places a lot of emphasis on church growth and numbers in the congregation. He backs this up by saying that churches that aren't growing or seeking to grow are sinning by stifling their evangelistic efforts. I don't agree, I think that there comes a point at which a church should split and plant other churches for the work of the gospel before it becomes too big that it stifles the love and community that a church should provide, all whilst not stumbling on its commitment to evangelism.

I also feel that Driscoll's image of what masculinity is too crude. He advocates men as being individuals who should be able to skin an animal with their teeth.If they can't? Well they're written off as girly men. Men unfit to lead in the church. By Driscoll's definition, I must be a girly man but I certainly object to this!

All said I enjoyed reading Confessions and would recommend it to someone interested in the workings of a church and how a church should relate to the culture around it. I would be hesitant to recommend it to most students however, as whilst it is an enjoyable read, I figure that there are much more useful and relevant books that they could be reading such as Contending for Our All by John Piper.

Conservative and Emerging
In the US, though not so much in the UK, a distinction is sometimes made between emerging church and emergent church. Mark Driscoll places himself in the emerging camp (as opposed to, say, Brian MacLaren who is emergent).

Mark is the pastor of Mars Hill in Seattle (www.marshillchurch.org). This book tells the story of the development of Mars Hill from its tiny beginnings to its current 4000+ megachurch status. It raises all sorts of questions for me since some of Driscoll's assumptions--that size matters, that real men are macho, that women cannot lead, that Biblical truth requires one particular way of reading the Bible, and so on--are ones which I cannot share. Yet it is always good to read books which challenge one's assumptions and `Confessions' certainly does that.

Where the book is really strong is in its detailed account of the trials and triumphs of leading a church into growth. Mark is especially brave in laying bare his own weaknesses and prejudices. Although he clearly has a strong sense of his own importance to the church he is not afraid to expose himself as someone who is often tempted and needs a lot of support. If only more church leaders were able to do this!

If you are into apophatic theology (God cannot be known through the mind but only encountered as a person); if you are a fan of postmodern Bible reading; if you are convinced that Jesus came to preach kingdom rather than personal salvation; then do read this book. It offers an important witness to the fact that it is possible to build a missional church with an `old-fashioned' conservative reformed theology--at least in the US.

I can't say that I enjoyed the book, it often seemed too dogmatic and intolerant for me, but I was certainly stimulated by it and some of Mark Driscoll's principles are worth pondering in any context.

Rocket fuel for the soul
Over here in the UK the emergent church is beginning to rear its head, so it is a great relief to read the story of someone in the US who got out of emergent, embraced solid truth but built a church that is culturally radical. Reformed theology and Holy Spirit annointing - what an awesome combination! This book is also amazing because the story it tells has happened in such a short time frame. If you need some rocket fuel for your soul, or some clarity about how church should be, read "Confessions".