book review: confessions of a reformission rev by mark driscoll

July 13, 2006

to prune or not to prune
It’s time to follow up on a promise.

About three months ago, I received, for free, a pre-release of Mark Driscoll’s [Mars Hill Church-Seattle] new book, Confessions of a Reformission Rev: Hard Lessons From a Emerging Missional Church.

The pact was: get a book for free from Mark, review it and post the review online. I, of course, jumped at the opportunity to get a free book [who wouldn’t] and now, three months later, find myself needing to report on Confessions.

But first, my confession is that I did not read it until a month after I received it, a week after the Reform & Resurge Conference at Mars Hill in Seattle in May. But I did read it. In a couple of days. And frankly, I couldn’t put it down. But some have. See this.

Over these last few months, individuals who also received this book gratis have posted reviews on their blogs. Most have been positive, but a growing number have shown serious reservations about one particular issue that has seemed to overshadow the book’s underlying brilliance: Driscoll’s, at times, uncensored verbiage. See this and this and this. Because of this, I have been reticent to enter the fray.

Personally, I like Mark Driscoll. A lot. Maybe I shouldn’t. But I liked this book. [I'm not alone. See this.] And I guessed I feared that liking this book meant liking how everything was said in this book.

More on that later…

Okay, on to the review.

The general premise for the book is seven chapters that chronicle the challenges and conquests Mars Hill Church experienced as it grew from its start as a small group of about twenty people, in what Driscoll describes as an “epically awful youth room,” to a multi-site church of over 4,000 people. The chapters break down like this:

• Chapter 1: 0-45 people
• Chapter 2: 45-75 people
• Chapter 3: 75-150 people
• Chapter 4: 150-350 people
• Chapter 5: 350-1,000 people
• Chapter 6: 1,000-4,000 people
• Chapter 7: 4,000 people-10,000 people

[Note: Mars Hill is currently sitting at a little over 4,000 people. The last chapter is one in which Driscoll ‘dreams’ about the future of Mars Hill Church. 10,000+ people is Driscoll’s ‘hope’ for the growth of the church]

Sandwiched around these seven chapters is: 1) an introduction or as Driscoll calls it, ‘Chapter 0,’ [these postmoderns; always trying to find new ways to say old things] that asks ten ‘curious’ questions, 2) two appendices; one dealing with answers to common questions and distinctives of larger churches, and 3) an extensive bibliography.

I look at Confessions as an ‘umbrella.’ The aim of the book is to help the reader understand the ‘umbrella’, or the overarching philosophy, of being a ‘missional’ church. The ‘handle’ of the ‘umbrella’ is the practical implications that ‘hold up’ the ‘missional’ church philosophy.

Here are some nuggets from the ‘umbrella’ and its ‘handle.’

‘Umbrella’ nuggets:

• Reformission begins with a simple return to Jesus, who, by grace saves and send us into Reformission. Jesus has called us to 1) the gospel [loving our Lord], 2) the culture [loving our neighbors], and 3) the church [loving our Christian brothers and sisters-Chapter 0
• Emerging and missional churches see the church’s primary task as sending Christians out of the church and into culture to serve as missionaries through relationships, rather than bringing lost people into the church to be served by programming-p. 26
• Without a clear definition of what a missional church community is and does, tragically, community will become the mission of the church-p. 32
• A missiologist studies the city who leads a church filled with missionaries who reach the city and with pastors who care for the converts-p. 51

“Handle’ nuggets:
• The Bible was not interested on focusing on people between certain birthdays but rather bringing the Gospel to everyone who is breathing because those are the kind of people God has called us to reach-p. 64
• You will need to decide if your church will be defined by the size of its mission to reach the lost or by the number of people who could gather at one time in one room-p. 94
• Because all Scripture is God-breathed and for our benefit, there is not a page of Scripture that is not helpful to our faith, so we should examine tough and controversial issues that we may otherwise ignore-p. 95
• Bring on staff to help with church planting because a church cannot be missional if it isn’t planting churches-p. 182

If there are any weaknesses to this book, Driscoll’s language notwithstanding, I would state two things.

First, I am concerned about the delicate balance between being a large church and being in covenant community with a local body. I am probably speaking more about the inability for elders to spiritually oversee so many people. I am not sure how to reconcile how a church member can be in true covenant community in a church of over 1,000 people.

Can you cap a church’s attendance? Of course not. But is there a framework in which you still can have covenant community in a large church? In my opinion, it has to go beyond just having small groups. John Piper has some insightful comments regarding this. See here.

Second, I am not sure about the multi-site video venue idea. Much has been written in the blogosphere about the pros and cons. See Driscoll's words here. I think both sides make good points. [See the positive here. See the negative here.] But I just can’t square how video venues meet postmodern rule #1: authenticity.

Now back to the cumbersome issue that has clouded Confessions: the ‘Markisms.’

Honestly, I don’t know why Driscoll feels like he needs to, at times, talk the way he does in Confessions. His first book, The Radical Reformission, in my opinion, was a far cry linguistically from Confessions.

Some say he is using the street language of those he preaches to in Seattle or like in the Old Testament, is a brash prophet. This doesn’t add up. I listen to Driscoll’s podcasts every week and he doesn’t talk with the disproportionate amount of extremities he did in Confessions. At the Reform & Resurge conference, Driscoll did not strike me as one with no discretion. He’s not afraid to tackle controversial issues with his unique reformed and missional perspective, but I find his preaching exceptionally refreshing compared to the monotony that exists in preaching in evangelicalism.

I do believe this though. For Driscoll to have an enduring impact on evangelicalism [which I think may be in God’s plan as he has ‘promoted’ Driscoll ‘voice’ in the emerging church dialogue], he will have to tame his irreverence, especially if his next book is, as he has stated, is on the atonement.

Did Driscoll intermittently cross the line in Confessions? Yes. But do I wish he would write with the truthfulness and tact of a John Piper, a Charles Stanley, or a Charles Swindoll? In due time, probably. But right now, I don’t think so. What Driscoll loses in juvenile language, he gains in giving ‘permission’ to young pastors to be self-assured, missional, and reformed.

[In addition, I do think it is important to make a distinction between irreverence and bad theology. Bad theology, i.e. liberal theology, demands a more biting verdict than does juvenile sarcasm or low tact]

In SoulTsunami, Leonard Sweet sums up my thoughts about this issue, when he said:

I can enjoy and quote Nobel Prize-winning author Elias Canetti without embracing his sincere belief that he was never going to die. I can learn from and be instructed by the theology of Martin Luther without embracing his beliefs about the evil of Jews or his rejection of Copernicus. Ninety percent of Isaac Newton’s writings consist of treatises on theology, alchemy, and mysticism. Does that mean that his scientific colleagues should have dismissed his scientific work? Any visit to the Christian Hall of Fame [Hebrews 11] reveals a gallery of greats who didn’t have it all together or get it right, either.

In the last part of Chapter 7, Driscoll states that for Mars Hill to continue to thrive there will continue to be a need for ‘more pruning.’ Even though he has been ‘promoted’ to a ‘prophetic’ voice within evangelicalism today and with that comes responsibility, let’s not assume it is our job to do this act of ‘pruning’ [which bloggers feel is their unalienable right].

Can I have an opinion? Yes. But can I demand immediate change because of his ‘position’ within evangelicalism? No.

In other words, since I don’t know Driscoll personally, I can’t realistically sharpen his ‘iron.’ In time, God will use Driscoll’s wife, elders, fellow trusted pastors, trials, etc. to help ‘smooth out’ the coarse edges of Driscoll’s language.

Until then, let’s grant Mark grace for the journey.

Posted in books, church, culture, missiology, pastoring, review