Live.Awake

Mark Driscoll Bashing

// November 12th, 2007 // Church Life, Video

I’m risking beating the dead Driscoll-horse by posting this (I’ve mentioned him a lot lately), but I gave Mark Driscoll a hard time recently about his treatment of Joel Osteen in one of his sermons. I felt that his attitude was wrong in his criticism. It’s not the content of his criticism that I disagreed with. Or the fact that he criticized in the first place. It was the attitude that I felt crossed the line a bit from good humor to mockery.

Now I’m gonna give Driscoll a high hive. I’m not very good at high fives because I’m a nerdy pastor that doesn’t get a lot of sun or play sports so I often embarrassingly miss a high five, but I’m doing it nonetheless. One thing that I have always appreciated about Mark Driscoll is that he is both willing to take a strong stand on important issues and willing to repent of his mistakes.

This week he preached on humility as part of a series he is doing on Philippians. He began this installment by solemnly and sincerely repenting before his church. Here is a snippet of what he said:

I believe that humility is the great omission and failure in my eleven years of preaching. I believe that this is my greatest oversight both in my example and in my instruction.

I therefore do not claim to be humble. I do not claim to have been humble. I am convicted of my pride, and I am a man who is by God’s grace pursuing humility.

So in many ways this is a sermon that I’m preaching at myself, this is a sermon you are welcomed to listen in on as I preach to myself.

But I truly believe that were there one thing I could do over in the history of Mars Hill it would be in my attitude and in my actions and in my words to not only emphasize sound doctrine, encourage in strength and commitment and conviction but, to add in addition to that, humility as a virtue.

And so I’ll start by asking your forgiveness and sincerely acknowledging that this has been a great failure.

He said more than that, and I’ll post the video of it at the end. But, this makes me wonder at a a few things. First, it’s startling to me how rare it is to see a high profile pastor talk this way these days. This kind of vulnerability and humility is missing from the pulpit. When was the last time any of you heard a preacher repent this way? I’m not talking about the token “I’m not perfect” comment that we hear so often. I’m talking about vulnerable and open admission of personal and real failure (media-induced confessions of Jim Bakker fame excluded).

Secondly, it gives me more respect for Driscoll. The guy has a reputation for a lot of good things, but this is the primary thing that makes me trust him: he is quick to repent. And that’s something we could all take a lesson from.

Does this mean we will be seeing a kinder, gentler Driscoll from now on? Maybe. I don’t think the sharp edge will ever totally go away (I hope not, anyway). Though humility doesn’t have to mean soft, right? That’s another post, another day…

a hat tip to my brother, Joseph, for putting me on to this via Josh Harris’ blog

[tags]youtube, mark driscoll, joel osteen, criticism, humility, repent, repentance, mars hill church, philipians[/tags]