Mark Driscoll's 18 point sermon: Game over!

[Guy Mason]

Hey guys,

Long time reader first time blogger.

My name is Guy, I love Jesus and am married to a very special lady and have one very cute girl...(she may be the cutest girl in the world).  I'm on my way to being ordained in the Anglican church, and lead docklands church, which I planted late last year with a small team of melbourne missionaries who have a passion to know Jesus and make Him known.  

As many of you know Mark Driscoll has just finished a month long preaching tour in Sydney.  Today I listened to a recent message he gave to Sydney ministry workers.  I have heard a lot of his preaching (even traveling as far as NY to hear him and Keller at an urban church planting conference), but this message was especially noteworthy.    

I know a lot of guys have a 'man crush' on driscoll (you know who you are), but I found his message to be prophetically powerful and spot on in so many areas.  He said what many of us have been thinking for too long.  I am not familiar with the Sydney scene, but think the message is just as pertinent for the melbourne scene also.

If you haven't heard it log onto http://www.sydneyanglicans.net/media/audio/reaching_the_next_generation/ 

Would love to hear your thoughts, views, dreams, and ideas as to how we can redeem God's city for our good and his glory.

docklandschurch.org.au

[Andrew Stagg]

Thanks Guy,

For anyone passionate about seeing people come to Christ this is a really valuable talk. There's a lot in it and it's worth listening to several times.

Its challenging, there are a lot of issues to think about, especially the stuff about how we need to encourage our keen young guys, instead of downing them in institutional structures until they run out of steam. I liked the fact that he was able to balance his talk with the importance of remaining faithful to scripture and orthodoxy.

Item-8 about how we fear the work to the Holy Spirit in our churches is something that rings very true to me. I suspect this also links into his point about how we seem beholden to bad music and rigid clunky service structures that some days drive people (including myself) totally crazy!! His point about how sermons need to include apologetics and application "it’s not just enough to give doctrine. Application needs to connect life and doctrine." is something that our best preachers really should have noticed by themselves years ago.

I liked how he brought in the biblical theme of 'pruning'. And how we can prune structures, indeed how we need to prune structures to stop them becoming ineffective. His outlined an historical progressive decline from a Movement "A movement is where God does what He always does, but in greater depth than we normally see, for example the Puritans, Methodists, Charismatic movement." to an organisation becoming an institution and finally to a museum “A museum exists to tell stories of when God used to work.” Sadly a lot of people in melbourne diocese want to live in that museum.

This was a good talk - I really hope a lot of folks take onboard what he had to say. Especially the bit where he pointed out it was kinda dumb that they had to fly him out from the States, when, had our  systems been working we would have been able to find young guys right here in Australia to say the same thing.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

BTW, for those with a crappy dial-up connection (like me) you can download and save the mp3 file by right-clicking the 'download' word and listening to it later.


 

[Nat Clarke]

G'day guys,
like my good friend Guy I'm a long time reader and a first time blogger. I'm also married to a very special lady and have one very cute boy - he is the cutest boy in the world.

I work for AFES at Swinburne Uni in Hawthorn and at Christchurch Hawthorn (the sermons on gender roles will be going back up shortly, just after we've done a little bit of 'editing').
I was an ordination candidate here in Melbourne but pulled out for many of the reasons Driscoll has mentioned.  I have had a 'man crush' on mark Driscoll for a while now and download his sermons most weeks.  But, as Guy has said, this message is especially pertinent and prophetic.  I concur with Guy - Game over!  He has totally nailed this one. I think the guys in Sydney will respond pretty well to this message.  I'm not so sure about us here in Melbourne but I think this message is just as much, if not more relevant to us.  

Please listen to it and get others to listen to it.

I'm mad-keen on church planting but have come up against many of the problems Driscoll describes.  We are losing ground rapidly here in Melbourne and things need to change if we are going to turn things around and start seeing people become Christians and churches growing.

God bless,

Nat.

[Luke Isham]

I heard 'Driscoll' being used as a verb at the EFAC conference yesterday.
 
Let's driscoll a new church!

[Jordan]

Let's Macgyver a new church...

[Jordan]

Nat Clarke wrote:

I was an ordination candidate here in Melbourne but pulled out for many of the reasons Driscoll has mentioned........I'm mad-keen on church planting but have come up against many of the problems Driscoll describes.

Hi Nat, I'm seeking to become a candidate for the Melbourne Diocese at the moment. Are you able to be more specific as to why you pulled out?

Jordan

[Nat Clarke]

Jordan wrote:

Nat Clarke wrote:

I was an ordination candidate here in Melbourne but pulled out for many of the reasons Driscoll has mentioned........I'm mad-keen on church planting but have come up against many of the problems Driscoll describes.

Hi Nat, I'm seeking to become a candidate for the Melbourne Diocese at the moment. Are you able to be more specific as to why you pulled out?

Jordan

Mmmm, this could get me in trouble...

The main thing was that it was taking too long.  I was 27 (the age Driscoll reckons you're well and truly ready to go) and starting a campus ministry at Swinburne.  I was being put through lots of hoops that was stopping me developing the campus ministry as quickly as I wanted to and was doing 10 month placements at different churches which just made/makes no sense to me.  I was also staring down the barrel of doing CPE and then doing a 4 year curacy.  I just wanted to get out there and start doing it and felt constantly frustrated and hamstrung by hoops I needed to jump through in order to get ordained.  

I pulled out a year ago and it's been great.  I'm working at Christchurch Hawthorn which is a great church.  I love the minister and the vision and values of the church.  If I had got ordained who knows where I would be.  There was a possibility I would be at some church where I'm not fully on board with the vision and mission of the church and I feel embarrassed about inviting people because the preaching sucks and/or the services suck. I want to be at a church where I can invite people and feel proud of the service and the preaching they will get if they come OR I want to be in a position where, if things do suck, I can change them.  Being an ordination candidate or a curate, you can't change anything because you are not the senior minister and you're not there long enough.  

So basically i didn't want to waste 4 years of my life (4 of my best years) doing a curacy at a church I'm not fully invested in.  I wanted to get out there and start building God's kingdom in a church that's evangelical, has a contextualized philosophy of ministry, good leadership and is Spirit-empowered. That's what I'm doing now and it's great.  

I don't want to discourage you from getting ordained. The more Jesus-loving, Bible-thumping, godly, gifted, entrepreneurial young men we have getting ordained the better (I don't know if you're these things or not. If you're not, I would discourage you from seeking ordination).  The Anglican church in Melbourne is dying and it's really sad.  But you need to weigh up your situation and ask questions like, 'how old am I and how long can I spend 'training' for ministry?; Is getting ordained in the Anglican church going to help me use my short life here on earth to have maximum kingdom impact? (To answer this question you need to know a bit about the Anglican church and the ordination process - things I knew little about when I entered the ordination stream);  Am I a church planter?  If so, am I going to be able to do this easily and effectively within the Anglican system (or more easily and effectively than going independent or Baptist or something else); Is staying in the Anglican church an working for reform worth it?  How much time and energy is it going to take and how much hope is there?  How tired and burned out will you be after the ordination process?  Will it drain the life out of you and leave you looking like most of the clergy I saw last week at the EFAC conference?

These are all big questions and I had to pray long and hard to come to my decision.  I am not ruling out ordination in the future (I've now done 95% of the requirements), but at that time, it was the best decision for me.

All the best in discerning God's will for your life! God is great and he is doing great things!

Nat.

[Jereth]

3 cheers for lay ministry!

[Jordan]

Hi Nat, thanks for your detailed response. It's good to hear your passion for God's kingdom - and particularly your interest in evangelism. Deciding where to work, and in what capacity, really does come down to guidance doesn't it? What's right for one may not be right for another.

Also - and I know this is subjective - even when a decision looks OK on paper, sometimes you might just not have any peace about it, so you don't go through with it. I think that is wise, unless of course a decision comes down to plain right and wrong, in which case we have to override our feelings.

Having said all the above, I would like to test your decision a little:

Nat Clarke wrote:

The main thing was that it was taking too long.  I was 27 (the age Driscoll reckons you're well and truly ready to go)....

So basically i didn't want to waste 4 years of my life (4 of my best years) doing a curacy at a church I'm not fully invested in.

While I agree that we need young men in ministry, and I don't believe it is right to put things off, I have to confess that I scorn the idea of a magic age, as though you're past it by the time you're 30. Augustine, the father of Western theology, wasn't even converted until he was 32. Moses wasn't called till he was 40, Abraham was an old man; we don't know how old the 12 disciples were, but the Scriptures don't make a point about them being young. Jesus commenced his (unique) ministry at around 30. John Wesley didn't really understand the gospel and have much effect in ministry until he was about 35.

God hasn't given us any rules about age! Don't let a few remarks from Driscoll, based largely on his own experience, bring you into bondage. Where do we get the strength for ministry? Is it from youthful drive and enthusiasm? No! It's from God alone!

Ministers don't burn out due to old age. If you believe that they do, you'll burn out while you're young, because you'll be trusting in your youth rather than in God's power. Read what Scripture says about Moses:

'Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone.' (Deut 34:7)

I wish I could say that about many of the 20 year olds I've met.

Spurgeon was once asked how it was that he did the work of two men. He replied, 'You're forgetting that there are two of us.'

"Lord, I would rather be ordained at 60, trusting in you, than be ordained at 25 trusting in the power of youth, for 'Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.'" (Is 40:30-31)

Show me a 70 year old who knows how to pray. He'll wipe the floor with us so called 'entrepreneurial' youngsters who can't even get out of bed in the morning, let alone have the discipline for daily, close communion with God in prayer.

Like I said, your decision is between you and God, and my intention is not to undermine you in any way. All I want to do is address the line of thinking that insists upon getting down to it before you're 30. I don't see it in Scripture anywhere, and I would hate to think that young men are going to lose patience with the Anglican church in Melbourne because they've misunderstood Mark Driscoll, taken what was a timely word from him and turned it into something he (hopefully) never intended it to be.

God bless you!

Jordan

[Phil Weickhardt (Phool)]

Hi Jordan, Nat and all.

Thanks Jordan for advocating that saints are useful at any age and thanks Nat for elaborating on various models of ministry.

There is a gaping hole in the arguments so far: Servant Leadership. I have seen that the most successful church leaders are the ones who are prepared to serve (yes, and get bored doing it at times). There are times when a christian's faithfulness can be severely tested so to practise serving is good discipline.

There is no one pathway into ministry. I know a family where one member entered ordained ministry after over twenty years in secular employment, one member has been doing youth ministry since their teen years and another member has been serving as a lay chaplain (volunteer) for 8 years and has just re-applied for ordination selection at the tender age of 42! after turning down the invitation at the age of 28.

There are no rules for church planting or ordination or ministry (except instructions in the epistles that are, in fact, very wise). Paul planted churches all over the place, with male and female leaders/hosts (Priscilla and Aquilla, Lydia), meeting in synagogues, homes, beside rivers etc. etc. I have heard it said that the most effective evangelist in the new testament was the woman of Samaria (who was an adulteress, "the man you are with is not your husband") that Jesus spoke with at the well and she went and converted her whole village "Could this be the Messiah?"

I would check the Old Testament about age for priests but I don't have time. I seem to recall there was a window - 30 years of age until 60 - I will check later unless someone answers.

There are a number of mission organisations that are now sending people out "in the second half of life".

I have seen that God loves to do a new thing and I remember Peter Adam saying in 1984 that it is young people that are the most keen to establish traditions!

Blessings,

Phool

[Paul Barker]

I'm fascinated by the comment that mission organisations are sending people out in the second half of their life. What astonishing foreknowledge. Do I qualify?

[Gordon Cheng]

Paul, I was going to ask the same thing! ;)

[Phil Weickhardt (Phool)]

"Second half of life
Are you planning early retirement or just wondering
how you can use your skills and lifetime experience in cross-cultural mission in the second half of life?  

SIM can help you explore the many options open to you. Running an SIM guest house, teaching English to Korean missionary candidates in Seoul, home schooling missionaries’ children or helping with administration at one of our SIM offices somewhere in the SIM world, are just some of the ways you can be involved in world mission and impact lives for Christ"

http://www.sim.org.au/howlong.shtml click tab for "Second half of life"

I am sure they are not the only ones

This blog refers to those over 50 in the church:  http://blog.christianitytoday.com/buildingadultministries/2008/09/first_steps_for_encore.html

St Marks, Forest Hill had (still has?) a SMURFS for men that were "early retired" in the 1980s corporate down-sizing.
"St Marks Useful Retirees Fellowship"

By the way: Numbers 4:3 and other references... "all the men from 30 to 50 years of age who come to serve in the work in the Tent of Meeting" (NIV). The Levites had a window of service.

Hi Paul,

Phool

 

[Andrew Stagg]

Jordan wrote:

Moses wasn't called till he was 40, Abraham was an old man;

Moses lived till 120 years, and Abraham till 175 - hey, how long you planning on sticking around Jordan!!! Of course the rest of what you wrote makes good sense. God calls people of any age.

Thanks for sharing your story Nat, sounds like you're passionate about doing new stuff/planting one day. It's good that you've found opportunities at Christchurch - it's a good church. Like Jereth I reckon lay ministry is cool too.

[Paul Barker]

Phool
My simple point is how does a mission society know when I am halfway through my life.

[Phil Weickhardt (Phool)]

Oops, now living up to (or down to) my name!

It is a fascinating growth area for mission and ministry though...

Maybe a church plant to "God's waiting room" (insert Mandurah, Merimbula, Eden, Seachangers, Treechangers). Make sure they are waiting in the right queue!

Where is "God's waiting room" in Victoria these days? Is there anyone ministering? I know that Holy Trinity, Doncaster has had very good pastoral ministry to its older members, as has St Mark's, Forest Hill.

An interesting statistic that I was quoted for many years was the number of people that become Christians in their late teens and early twenties. I always wondered if this meant that by 50 it was too late. One of our local nursing home residents asked to be baptised this year, he is over 60 years old, it was very exciting! The Anglican chaplain wasn't asked but the local Pentecostal Pastor who also has an effective ministry in the home arranged to baptise him.

Driscoll makes some great points to a post-modern generation but there is still the generation of modern baby boomers with too many of them going to hell. Some of them have seen and respond to the Nooma DVDs. They are at the tail end of the people that were raised in Sunday School. Secular marketing research tells us that it is 10 times harder to win back an ex-customer than to win a new customer. It is good to minister within the church but, wow, evangelism opportunities abound with the baby boomers now discovering some free time and believer baby boomers following them as they migrate or roam this wide brown land (grey nomads, seachangers etc).

We see the caravans, Land Cruisers and interstate number plates here in Springtime when the wildflowers are in bloom.

I guess the above has some application in Melbourne. There are many Anglican baby boomers and Anglicans of retiring age that remember the Billy Graham Crusades and still have a fire in their belly for evangelism. They have been great role models over the years and pioneered a trail that I have followed through CMS Youth and Scripture Union as well as AFES. They still have a role in the church, heck, J I Packer is 83 and got a standing ovation in London after GAFCON.

Phil Weickhardt
Kalgoorlie (average age 30, national average 37 - I'm older than average!)
Western Australia

by the way - Julie and the four children are all well.

[Nat Clarke]

Jordan,
I'm not saying there's a magic age.  We need lots of workers to go out - young and old.  I never said you were past it by the time you're 30.  And I'm certainly not letting Driscolls remarks 'bring me into bondage' - what gave you that idea!?  And I never said 'you had to get down to it by the time you're thirty', heck, I'm encouraging my 55 year old dad to go into ministry!

I agree with pretty much everything you've said.

But I do think we need young guys getting out there (as well as old guys!).  Generally it takes about 25 years to build a mega-church (humanly speaking - obviously God can do it in 5 minutes if he wants to). And I also think that generally one guy needs to stay at the one church for a long time for this to happen. If you think about Driscoll or John Piper or Rick Warren or Bill Hybels - these are all guys who said 'I am here for the long haul' and have stayed at the one church for a long time, actually their whole ministry lives (except Piper).  Actually Driscoll and Warren said right form the start that they would never leave their city or their church unless God did something drastic and called them out of it.  These are the guys who have impact.  These are the guys with the mega-churches.  These are the guys who start early, work hard, and build something.

Even here in Melbourne I've seen the same thing.  Pete Corney was at St. Hils when he was 25 an he's still there!! (mind you I think he was a carpenter or something for a while before he got ordained).  He must be close to 70 now.  Peter Adam started at St.Judes how long ago?  He was there for at least 20 years and he was ordained quite young too if I recall. And these are the two biggest Anglican churches in Melbourne.
I'm not saying we should reward 'tenure'.  On the contrary, and as Driscoll says, we should reward 'fruit' (see pt 3). But it seems to me that commonly what you find behind a big, fruit-bearing church is a gifted, godly man, who started early and stayed long (Tim Keller and John Stott just came to mind too).  I know there are exceptions to this, but this has been my general observation.

Under point 18 of Driscolls talk:

"Defining variables of a movement are:
(i) Young people are often at the centre of a movement – everywhere but Sydney. I’m an older guy where I’m from - but here, I’m young. Young people are often at the centre of movements – most of the Methodists were guys in their 20s, Billy Graham was 19 when he first started preaching.
(ii) “Statistically I think one of the reasons your church is so small is that your young men don’t get to lead them until they are old” – and they run out of gas before they get there. You say, ‘but the young are irresponsible’ – of course they are! Young men say and do stupid things, but it’s good to get the losses out of the way early.
(iii) Movements are marked not just by birth, but by new birth. New churches have to be planted and you need new leaders so there can be new churches."


Obviously God can and does use older people and can use stones if he wants to.  But we need to be strategic and look at the world and look at how it works from a human perspective. It's good ol' divine sovereignty/human responsibility. Don't say 'God can use old people' and think that wins the argument.  Of course he can!  And you might start when you're 80 and have the biggest church in the world by the time you're 90! Praise God!  But I'm just looking a how it normally works and trying to be smart from a human perspective.  Why else does the Bible tell us repeatedly that 'life is short' or a 'vapour' and to be 'as shrewd as snakes' and 'the time is short' (1 Cor 7:29).  I think some young guys are and have lost patience with the Anglican church - and this long before Driscoll came and said anything!  Driscoll just came and told us what he saw - and I think he was bang on (see pts 10, 17 & 18).

I don't want to discourage anyone who is 'old'.  Rather, I think we need to encourage the young.  Thats' what Driscoll wants to do I think, and that's certainly what I want to do.

Cheers man,

Nat

PS. 'Phool', who are you?  Why do you use an Alias?  

[Jordan]

Hi Nat,

Nat Clarke wrote:

I think some young guys are and have lost patience with the Anglican church - and this long before Driscoll came and said anything!  Driscoll just came and told us what he saw - and I think he was bang on (see pts 10, 17 & 18).

I'm still having difficulty with this Nat. Your reason for pulling out of the ordination stream seems to be simply pragmatic. You want maximum impact; you want to build a big church with big numbers. You feel that Anglicanism is going to stifle that, so you left. But where's the sense of duty to God's people?

Your decision making process raises questions about your definition of success in ministry. Honestly brother, mega-churches should be the furthest thing from your mind when discerning God's call. Even the great one man teams such as Spurgeon, Lloyd-Jones and the like, those men never set out to build mega-churches, they set out with fear and trembling to follow God's call wherever he took them.

The way to a great ministry is to take up your cross and leave the results in God's hands. Yes, we should be entrepreneurial (as long as we're making that term a slave to biblical categories), But what comes first, strategy? Or obedience to God's call?

I know I'm taking a strong line here, but if the reasons you've outlined so far are the reasons that the Driscoll generation are ditching ordination in the Anglican church in Melbourne, it's just not good enough.

In Christ,
Jordan

[Phil Weickhardt (Phool)]

Let me introduce myself:

Philip James WEICKHARDT, 42 yo, Christian (sometimes Baptist, sometimes Anglican. I have completed the requirements to be either). Married to Julie who I met at an AFES prayer meeting. Four children. lay minister, Recognised Sports Chaplain (Motor Racing), Girls' Brigade Chaplain, Occupational Therapist, Secondary Teacher.

Disciple of Jesus Christ, sinner, sanctified. Currently attending St John the Baptist Old Cathedral, Kalgoorlie, Parish of the Eastern Goldfields, Western Australia. Left Melbourne for Kalgoorlie in 1992, still here. Very interested in GAFCON, needing to love liberals because they are endemic (but not agree with them), appreciating the reformed when we fellowship together.

I have relatives in Melbourne (part of the reason for the past-pseudonym!)

Old enough to have a little bit more wisdom than I did when I was at Uni. I thought at 35 that I had suffered enough (that's another story) and I knew a lot. I have learnt heaps since then.

Megachurches: try a church of 10 000 - 47 000. America likes everything big. The megachurch may partly be a cultural phenomenon. Australians (generally) like stuff to be smaller and more relational. Our population density is the smallest of any nation in the world I believe.

"Megachurches tend to grow to their great size within a very short period of time, usually in less than ten years, and under the tenure of a single senior pastor. Nearly all megachurch pastors are male, and are viewed as having considerable personal charisma." (Hartford Institute) http://hirr.hartsem.edu/megachurch/definition.html They are close to major traffic routes and have an average weekly attendance of 3800+. They are located on land of 50 - 100 acres in "suburban areas of rapidly growing sprawl cities". The Diocese of Melbourne has identified these growth areas and presently does not own much land in them, they have been looking strategically at this issue! There are MANY impediments.

Megachurch Pastors: Rowland Croucher was Senior Pastor when Holland Road Baptist Church, Blackburn South became (probably) Australia's first megachurch (Blackburn Baptist Church) and it has since become Crossway. His next pastorate was a "failure" by those standards. http://rowlandcroucher.blogspot.com/search/label/VANCOUVER This is an excellent post and contributes a great deal to the Mark Driscoll discussion. It has been said that we, in Australia, have more in common with Canada than the USA.  

Anglican structures: still largely revolve around the model of the geographical "parish", cleric-centric. Megachurches typically have features that are "un-Anglican" historically. (Hartford Institute, ibid, see above)

In closing: I am a Phool at 42 and I was more foolish at a younger age.  

Let us all be open to God's call, servants of the Lord Jesus Christ

[murray]

"Megachurch Pastors: Rowland Croucher was Senior Pastor when Holland Road Baptist Church, Blackburn South became (probably) Australia's first megachurch (Blackburn Baptist Church) and it has since become Crossway. His next pastorate was a "failure" by those standards. http://rowlandcroucher.blogspot.com/search/label/VANCOUVER This is an excellent post and contributes a great deal to the Mark Driscoll discussion. It has been said that we, in Australia, have more in common with Canada than the USA. "  


Hello anglican friends,

I've been reading this forum for a while and there's some stimulating thought going on. As a Baptist Pastor and reading a reference to another Baptist I can't but make comment. I don't think Phil is drawing a strong parallel between Mark Driscoll and Rowland Croucher. I sincerely hope not, given that theologically, missiologically and ethically the two are poles apart. Just thought that's worth mentioning lest anyone get confused.

I like what Driscoll is saying about young men (seconding Nat's comments). Young blokes ought to be thinking much harder about mission and preaching and serving than they are I think. If they put as much energy into Gospel work as they did into building careers and making money I wonder what positive effect it could have in Churches across Melbourne.