Mars Hill Pastor Says Theology Not Enough; Launches Website
Seattle megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll launched his own website Tuesday, providing a central hub for his observations on theology and today’s culture, which he is already well-known for delivering from the pulpit and on the Internet.
As founding pastor of Mars Hill Church and co-founder in the leadership ministries of the Resurgence and Acts 29 Network, Driscoll has provided an abundance of reading material to various niche groups, including his own church's followers and leaders in other ministries.
Now, those keeping tabs on Driscoll can go to one website and read the pastor’s latest blog posts or link to his content available at his other ministry and partnership web pages.
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“PastorMark.tv is now the official place for everything I’m working on,” Driscoll, 40, says in the opening paragraph of his blog post. “Over the years, my stuff has been scattered all over the web, and there was nowhere to keep it all organized. This website now remedies that problem.”
Driscoll has become one of the leading pastors in the United States when it comes to stirring the nation’s cultural pot by using platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. He has more than 117,000 fans on Facebook, and more than 167,000 followers on Twitter.
Some of Driscoll’s one-two punch combining unique perspectives and multimedia savvy may come from his educational background. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Communications from Washington State University with a minor in philosophy. He also holds a Master of Arts degree in Exegetical Theology from Western Seminary.
Driscoll’s seemingly fearless approach to mixing things up culturally recently evidenced itself when gay rights groups began protesting his megachurch's move into Portland, Ore. The activists oppose Driscoll for his and Mars Hill’s stance against homosexuality. Driscoll made it clear that no subjects are off limits.
“Through various posts, I’ll cover the theological and the practical, doctrine and life, what Christians believe and how Christians behave, and the text of Scripture and context of life,” Driscoll posted. “The big idea is that we need both a theology of something (e.g., marriage, parenting, sex, joy, suffering) and a reality of that thing. Theology alone is not enough, as for example, plenty of guys have written marriage books but have miserable wives.”
Driscoll said that his wife and high-school-aged daughter will also post on the site.
“Sure, a face-melting tweet or theologically-precise blog is important. But, so are the practical details of life, such as date night with your spouse and having fun with your kids,” he stated.
Mars Hill Church publishing and content manager Jake Johnson told The Christian Post that Driscoll’s content on other sites was geared more for specific audiences. For example, Resurgence is more for church leaders and Acts 29 Network is more for those planting churches, he said.
“He has a lot of content spread out all over the varying sites throughout our ecosystem, so we wanted all of that to be in one place that would be easily searchable,” Johnson said. “PastorMark.tv is going to give Pastor Mark the opportunity to do some cultural commentary and talk about some things that are going on in his life personally. The idea behind that is in order for him to be an example and for others to see that what he teaches is practically lived out in his life.”
Driscoll said that in addition to writing about himself and his family he will share “how the Holy Spirit is changing me by the grace of God to be more like Jesus.”
The Mars Hill communication team is looking forward to making more of Driscoll’s content readily available.
“Ultimately, we are excited about it because at Mars Hill our mission is to make disciples and plant churches. It’s all about Jesus,” Johnson said. “It gives us the opportunity to have a broader audience and get the Gospel out there. We want to take advantage of every opportunity we have to do that and this is just another opportunity.”
