Even Though Mark Driscoll May Take a Sabbatical, the Church Resurgence Idea Must Go On

You may have noticed that we have added Mark Driscoll to the selection of thought leaders and bloggers on BCNN1.com. We have also added the other pastors who spoke at his Resurgence conference in 2013 —  James MacDonald, Crawford Loritts, and Matt Chandler. (Rick Warren was already listed as a blogger.) We did not include Judah Smith because, frankly, we do not know how to take him yet.

Now, I personally have never been led to follow Mark Driscoll. To me, he has always come across as rather arrogant and having a Napoleonic complex. Of course, we do not condone his actions in the recent controversies that have come up regarding the use of church money to pay for an advertising campaign to get his book on the New York Times bestsellers list, and concerns regarding plagiarism. Even though his church has voted that these are not offenses that should force him to resign, we believe he certainly should take a long sabbatical to get back on track. And I am sure he will do something like that. However, one thing Brother Driscoll got right, which we do agree with him on, is the need for a “resurgence” in God’s church. Frankly, the Resurgence conference that he put together last year along with the speakers that he invited, including James MacDonald, Crawford Loritts, Rick Warren, and Matt Chandler, was the best one he has ever done and was one of the most meaningful and important conferences of the year (and we were glad to live stream it on our network for others to see as well).

We have added Brother Driscoll to the BCNN1 Bloggers in order to continue to highlight the urgent need for a resurgence in God’s church. Sadly, many people in the church are eager to see a brother or sister fail, but we are not as eager as we should be to forgive them and help restore them. The Bible says in Galatians 6:1, “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”

Do a preacher’s ego failures or pride failures cause the good work that he has done in the past not to count for God’s glory and the edification of the church? Is it really true that when a preacher who has been preaching for twenty or thirty years sins or makes an error in judgment, that all of the good work that God has helped him to do throughout those years is totally wiped out and does not have eternal impact in the lives of people? In my opinion, the answer is “no.” And I think some of my dear white, Southern Baptist brethren, who not only seem to relish kicking their wounded while they are down but shooting their wounded to death, need to look at their own wretched lives, examine the grace of God in the Scriptures, and do some soul-searching about how they treat brothers who sin, have a family problem, or make an error in judgment. If something negative happens in a preacher’s life, we do believe that he needs to sit down for a while, but, thank God, all of the faithful work that he has done before is not wiped out in God’s eyes. All Christians who have been saved for a while have seen God take somebody whom the brothers have counted out and empower him to come back stronger than ever, and to do his best work until Jesus takes him home.

By the way, if I am in a spiritual fox hole and the devil is throwing demonic bombs at me, put a Mark Driscoll who is an Apostle Peter-like individual (with all his faults and ego problems) or a James MacDonald in the fox hole with me any day, over a Joel Osteen or Carl Lentz, because I will stand a chance of coming out of that damn hole alive with these brothers than with the latter two preachers who have told God that they are not going to preach certain things in the Bible even though they are pastors ordained to preach the whole counsel of God.

Also, we need more men like Mark Driscoll and James MacDonald who teach men how to be manly. There is a serious problem in our churches and in our country today with men who do not understand manliness and masculinity. So, I am for any brother who is teaching his sons and other men to be men, to ‘quit themselves like men’, to love women, to enjoy having sex with women only, and to do as the Bible says in Proverbs 5:19: ‘let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.’

Despite his failures on a couple of matters recently, we want to encourage all Christians to separate the Resurgence movement from Mark Driscoll and keep the Resurgence going, whether Mark Driscoll needs to take a break or not, and to do what is necessary to make the church what it should be in this sin-cursed world. It is our prayer and hope that the Christian community would continue to pray for our dear brother and his family.

–BCNN1 Editor