So What Do We Do Now With Mark Driscoll? Charisma Magazine, J Lee Grady Fire in My Bones

Seattle megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll has thrived on controversy since he began Mars Hill Church in 1996. His tough-guy image, in-your-face style and distressed jeans made him the ultimate Cool Preacher Dude, especially for young men who regularly enjoyed his non-religious gospel on YouTube. Driscoll became an evangelical celebrity, and his congregation—which is reaching one of the most unchurched regions of the country—quickly grew to 14,000 members among 15 locations.

But Driscoll's ministry hit hard times last week when leaders of Acts 29, a church network Driscoll founded, broke ties with him and charged him with "ungodly and disqualifying behaviour." Acts 29 leader Matt Chandler said Driscoll doesn't show signs of repentance. As a result, LifeWay Stores, a large network of Christian retail outlets in the country, pulled Driscoll's books from its shelves and website.

This is a good time to remind people of the warning signs of an unhealthy church:

1. Little or no accountability. When celebrity preachers seem eager to tell everyone else what to do but aren't willing to hear correction from others, prepare for a train wreck. There is safety in the multitude of counsellors (see Prov. 11:14). There is much less safety—even danger—when a leader does not seek counsel from a diverse group of his peers.

2. Spiritual elitism. If there is a spirit of control in a church, people are usually told their group is superior. If people choose to leave, they are shunned or branded as renegades. Sometimes, in extreme cases, people are even cursed if they leave. This cultic behaviour inflicts unimaginable emotional suffering and also divides families

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Comment:

I have read a number of Mark Driscoll books over the last few years,   I was shocked why someone in his position of influence and to certain degree of authority in the transatlantic evangelical sphere  would say the things he said it seems to me that an in-mature believer was pushed into Christian leadership/ministry through situations, circumstances and self-promotion and because of this error, Mark Driscoll lacks/lacked the strength of character to be a leader in His Church.

A New Evangelism, A W Tozer

The NEW "EVANGELISM"

by A.W. Tozer

The new cross encourages a new and entirely different evangelistic

approach. The evangelist does not demand abnegation of the old

life before a new life can be received. He preaches not contrasts

but similarities. He seeks to key into public interest by showing

that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands; rather, it offers

the same thing the world does, only on a higher level. Whatever

the sin-mad world happens to be clamoring after at the moment

is cleverly shown to be the very thing the gospel offers, only the

religious product is better...

That evangelism which draws friendly parallels between the ways

of God and the ways of men is false to the Bible and cruel to the

souls of its hearers. The faith of Christ does not parallel the world,

it intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up

onto a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. The corn of wheat

must fall into the ground and die.

We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public

relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and

the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make

Christ acceptable to big business, the press, or the world of sports,

or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our

message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.

God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is

life out of death. It stands always on the far side of the cross.

Whoever would possess it must pass under the rod. He must

repudiate himself and concur in God's just sentence against him.

What does this mean to the individual, the condemned man who

would find life in Christ Jesus?... He must forsake his sins and

then go on to forsake himself. Let him cover nothing, defend

nothing, excuse nothing. Let him not seek to make terms with

God, but let him bow his head before the stroke of God's stern

displeasure and acknowledge himself worthy to die... The cross

that ended the earthly life of Jesus now puts an end to the sinner;

and the power that raised Christ from the dead now raises him to

a new life along with Christ.

To any who may object to this or count it merely a narrow and

private view of truth, let me say God has set His hallmark of

approval upon this message from Paul's day to the present.

Whether stated in these exact words or not, this has been the

content of all preaching that has brought life and power to the

world through the centuries. The mystics, the reformers, the

revivalists have put their emphasis here, and signs and wonders

and mighty operations of the Holy Ghost gave witness to

God's approval.

Dare we, the heirs of such a legacy of power, tamper with the

truth? Dare we with our stubby pencils erase the lines of the

blueprint or alter the pattern shown us in the Mount? May God

forbid. Let us preach the old cross and we will know the old power.

Scottish Independence essay: Nordic model a fantasy, The Scotsman, Updated, SNP Government Oil and Gas Figures, spectacularly wrong

ADRIAN Wooldridge says there is no evidence the Nordic countries want to engage with Scotland

THE STORY is all too familiar. The marriage grows stale with the years. Those charming idiosyncrasies become intolerable irritations. The unhappy husband or wife catches the eye of a comely stranger. A glance turns into an affair. After a lot of rowing the unhappy couple finally divorces and life begins again.

This is half the story of the possible divorce between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom: a significant number of Scots think they would be much happier with the comely Nordics than with the dowdy English. But the other half of the story is more complicated. The Nordics show no sign of reciprocating the suitor’s affections. And the Nordic model that the nationalists have fallen in love with disappeared 25 years ago.

Evidence of the affair can be found all over the place. The Scottish National Party cannot get enough of the Nordic model. The Nordic model is not only vastly superior to the English model – it provides people with a higher standard of living while guaranteeing a safety net that is so generous that fathers get a year’s worth of paternity leave. It is also more in tune with Scotland’s collectivist and egalitarian tradition. The Jimmy Reid Foundation argues that the Scottish idea of the Common Wealth is the local equivalent of the Nordic ideal of the “folkhemmet” or People’s Home. Lesley Riddoch, a columnist on this paper, has established a thinktank, Nordic Horizons, to push for closer links between the Holyrood parliament and its northern neighbours. Angus Robertson, the SNP’s spokesman on foreign affairs and one of its leading Nordo-philes, says that one of the first things an independent Scotland will do will be to apply to join the Nordic Council, a steering group of Nordic countries.

Scotland’s infatuation with the Nordic model is not hard to understand. The Nordic countries routinely come at or close to the top of every official measure of success, from economic success to social wellbeing. It is common to argue that countries face a trade-off between economic growth and quality of life. The Nordic countries show that it is possible to have the best of both worlds.

Scotland and the Nordics are also drawn together by powerful ties of culture. Some ties are direct and genetic: the Viking raiders of the early Middle Ages left a profound mark on the country. The Shetland islanders still burn a Viking longboat every year. The language is littered with Scandinavian words. Other ties are cultural and geographic. Both Scotland and the Nordics are profoundly shaped by the Protestant religion and a frequently challenging climate and geography (asked to list his nearest railway station on a parliamentary expense form Jo Grimond replied “Bergen, Norway”).

Both the Scots and the Nordics lead the world in extracting natural resources. Both have a marked taste for the grain and the hop. And both excel in producing the modern equivalent of Viking sagas. Henning Mankel’s Inspector Wallender and Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus are cut from the same cloth: brooding individualists determined to get to the bottom of the blood-soaked story whatever the higher-ups tell them.

There are all sorts of obvious problems with this Scandimania. The Vikings left a more profound imprint on Northumbria, Cumbria and Yorkshire than on Scotland. Scotland’s west coast is more Irish than Scandinavian. Denmark and Southern Sweden look more like East Anglia than they do the Scottish Lowlands, let alone the Highlands.

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Further Reading:

Alex Salmond’s currency dilemma: Climbdown or lose

Daily question: How big is Scotland’s economy and what's important to it?

Empire shadow still hangs heavy over Scotland

Scots Are Divided Over Independence, and Its Economic Costs

Oil forecast 'spectacularly wrong'

Beyond the Scottish Independence Question, Looking at a Greater Devolution in The United Kingdom, A Perspective