(The Resurgence)
As Mark Driscoll leaves Mars Hill Church, one question may continue: Will the Seattle megachurch’s governance help or hurt as it moves forward?
Current and former pastors levied charges against Driscoll this summer, including verbal abuse and lying about manipulating a bestseller list.
Driscoll took an “extended focused break” in August after the Acts 29 church planting network removed him from membership. “We no longer believe [Mars Hill’s board] is able to execute the plan of reconciliation” with critics, wrote president Matt Chandler. Days later, speaker Paul Tripp explained he had resigned from Mars Hill’s Board of Advisors and Accountability (BOAA) because it was an “inadequate replacement for a biblically functioning internal elder board that is the way God designed his church to be led.”
Mars Hill leadership had comprised 24 elders (mostly church staff and members). In 2007, the structure became the seven-member BOAA: Driscoll, two other executive pastors, and four independent members. Mars Hill explained it was seeking greater objectivity in the board. After Tripp and another independent member (Chicago megachurch pastor James MacDonald) resigned this summer, Mars Hill replaced them with two Seattle businessmen who are members, and created an additional elder board involving seven lead pastors.
A deeper question raised by the Mars Hill saga asks if nondenominational churches can better govern their congregation and disciple their pastors with elders drawn from within the church body, or if they should seek outside expertise.
The external accountability board is increasingly prevalent, said Scott Thumma, a megachurch researcher at Hartford Seminary. “In some sense, megachurches wouldn’t exist if they didn’t adopt business practices,” he said. Pastors of large institutions “want somebody who has more experience [helping] discern a way to go,” he said, and such leaders are in short supply in any given congregation.
Dave Travis, CEO of Leadership Network, says external boards are becoming more common among churches of all sizes, driven by the increasing ease of long-distance communication but mainly by the recent growth in church planting. “Even those traditions that would say ‘we don’t like external control’ tend to exercise a lot of control over new churches [they plant],” he said.
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SOURCE: Christianity Today
Morgan Lee
