It is December 18th, 2014. In two weeks' time, Mars Hill, my church of three and a half years, will close down. Every person already has their own opinion about the church, so I feel like adding my own voice to the conversation doesn't help anyone else but myself as I process through my time there and figure out where the Lord would lead me from here.
First and foremost: I am thankful for Mark Driscoll.
Make no mistake, my interest in Mars Hill began with Driscoll; I was not invited by a friend in the know and "suckered" into staying, as so many of his detractors claim happened to them. Sometime in 2009 or 2010, as I lived in the Phoenix area, I came across the ABC Nightline debate, "Does Satan Exist?". Some young-ish looking pastor held his ground with a Bible in hand, and a clarity and sense of communication I had never seen before. "Who is this guy?", I thought. "Oh, he's the pastor of a church in Seattle... I already know I want to live in Seattle someday..." And so from then on I began watching Driscoll's sermons on YouTube. The now-famous "Marriage and Men" sermon, while brash ("Who the HELL do you think you are?!"), rocked me to the core, and it continues to convict me even up to today. I kept up with Mars Hill for at least a year before I moved to Seattle in July 2011, and so by the time I arrived, I was settled by the prospect of learning more from Pastor Mark.
As a 26-year-old single guy in a new city, coming into community at Mars Hill Downtown was quick and helpful. There were people to see, places to go, things to do, immediately. One of the primary reasons why I moved to Seattle was to get involved in the local music scene that had inspired me so much from afar, but, thought I, I wasn't ready for that yet. Living on minimum wage in one of the most expensive cities in the country was an extremely lean and harsh time (sorry, Guitar Center, you get no sympathy from me for that), so I clung tightly to the relationships I had just made at Mars Hill.
Something else was going on, though. The church was expanding at an exponential rate. New churches were being planted everywhere; new pastors were being trained up to move across town or even across state lines to hurry up and open the next Mars Hill church location. It was The Talk happening every week on Sundays, and during the five or six other nights of the week when meetings or events were happening at the Belltown building. (Hey, don't you know the story? It used to be this horrendous nightclub before the city of Seattle shut it down, but now it's a church!) It felt narrow as I gave more and more of my time to the church—shouldn't I have relationships with people who aren't Christians so I can at least open some sort of discourse with them about faith rather than rushing off to my church every spare second I get?—but the sense of excitement and awareness of Mars Hill's growing influence on the evangelical community outweighed and outshined everything else. Things were happening so fast and the momentum of it all was just too important to waste. I hate to say it, but there really was an "Us versus Them" mentality, especially back in 2011-2012. "Us" being Mars Hill and other Acts 29 churches, "Them" being Seattle and everyone else. "We" felt responsible for the statement, "Seattle is no longer one of the least churched cities in America!" It felt like "we" were winning.
In December of 2011 I had taken a weekend to pray and ask God what I had come to Seattle to do—the big "What now?" question. Through that time, I came away with three things: that I should become a leader (What in the world...?), that I should continue to be involved in music (Okay, that makes sense), and that at some point I would marry (Yes yes yes please make this happen as soon as possible!). Telling church leaders in that kind of environment that you think you're supposed to be a leader—but how? in what capacity?—means that you have a major target on your back. Welcome to the System.
I actually joked about and called this the "Mars Hill System" at the time and it goes in nearly this exact order: Come into the church, get involved super quick (second week? third week? you're OK), get saved and baptized if you're not already, attend Doctrine class, become a member, go to a community group, be present for meetings and events every other day and night of the week, attend Redemption groups, become an intern, meet and date and marry your spouse very quickly, become a community group leader, attend C&C (counseling in community) training, become a deacon, attend ReTrain, train to become an elder, get sent off to plant the next Mars Hill location.
Are big organizations harmful? Are systems bad? Not inherently. I benefitted from great teaching at a church that took its theology very seriously. I heard amazing stories of redemption and grace from scores of people. I came to love playing worship music much more than I ever had in my 10+ years of being a worship musician. But the culture was set up so that it propagated through a rank-and-file leadership structure, and for a single guy, cemented with the promise of finding a spouse. Oh yes, it was both implicitly and even explicitly communicated: become an intern, and all this intimacy shall be added unto you. I know this because I was the worst at falling for it.
And so it was, when I was approached to do an internship, I reluctantly agreed because I was already part of the System, and moved forward under an unspoken pretense that I would "earn" my bride. I did come to date someone in that time, and the relationship became a whirlwind of expectations: I was being asked by leadership, even from two or three weeks in, when I intended to propose, and I in turn pushed way too hard on the woman I dated to move forward to premarital counseling after only a couple of months. After all, several other married couples at Mars Hill had come together the same way, so why not with ________ and myself?
My internship fell apart, and shortly thereafter the relationship did too. There were months of prayer and journaling this stuff out. I could have left, but I resolved that I would stay at my church and continue to give and serve in a sustainable way, and I'm glad that I did, because I saw change happen there. Downtown had transitioned to the Daniels Recital Hall, and over time I witnessed the late-twentysomething freelance hipster vibe at the old Belltown night club building cross over to a tone that was much more warm and inviting, much more open to serving families. Mars Hill as a whole was still growing, but Downtown had seemed to find its niche and "settle down" in that beautiful 100-year-old cathedral on 5th and Marion. This was something I could remain on board with, hopefully for years to come. My wounds healed over time.
I came into the year 2014 very excited about what was happening in the life of the church I attended. The Downtown Seattle location was doing great. Mars Hill Phoenix was in the process of opening, and I had the opportunity to fly out there twice (one of those times on the church's dime in October 2013) to play worship music there. My friends from other churches I had been a part of in Arizona had very encouraging things to say about how I had grown since I had been in Seattle. When the first wave of the, let's call it the media storm, hit early in the year, I thought to myself, Great, here we go again. It will blow over like it always has in the past. But it didn't change; it got worse, and kept getting worse. Close friends were leaving, secret social media societies were forming, some dude named Throckmorton seemed to know more than anyone else (I'm still baffled by this), and it became difficult to discern who to listen to. I felt the pressure of those who would have advised me to leave since Mars Hill had so suddenly become a den of iniquity—note my sarcasm there—but as I prayed about it I knew that the Lord was calling me to stay in place and weather the storm.
Now it's over. I don't know why it all happened like this, and why it was given to me to go down with the ship. Perhaps when I'm in my fifties, I will have a unique perspective and story to tell about the time when I was in a huge church that shut down for some very specific reasons, and that story might help some other new pastor or budding congregation. Hope, encouragement, warning, wisdom.
I know I'm not the only former intern to have sharp words to say about the aggressive nature of Mars Hill's growth and what it has done to grind down many of its volunteers. As a person who has only been told of Driscoll's domineering nature behind the scenes, I can see the connection made with the bull-headed, businesslike approach to ministry. Finis coronat opus. But by God's grace, there were/are good leaders who genuinely loved and cared for the people there. People like Jeff Bettger, Gareth Best, Jay Ward, Mitch Robertson, Cam Huxford, Cliff Low, and now Mattias Haeusel, and many others. As for the countless amount of volunteers, and staff, and community group leaders whom have given so much to make Mars Hill a family: it takes an incredible amount of work to run church operations, and I've never seen such dedication in a congregation before. Let us have more of this family mindset, and as little of the bull as possible...
So what about Mark Driscoll, the incredible shrinking ex-megachurch pastor? I do hope that he will take time, quite a while to be sure, to rest in silence, be with his family, and grow. I hope that he will come to publicly, specifically repent for the actions against Petry and Meyer, whom are by now common household names. And—I know this will make me unpopular, but I do hope that he will preach and/or publish books again at a time when the dust settles; when all of this is behind us. Driscoll is a gifted teacher, and it would be a shame to think that the next 40 years of his life would not be spent preaching the Gospel, and perhaps next time warning others of the kinds of dangers in ministry he availed himself to. Each time I met him in person, he always looked me straight in the eye, shook my hand, and had something genuine and encouraging to say. I'm not saying that I would choose to join if Mark somehow planted another church, but I know the Holy Spirit is with him. If there is grace for us, there can be grace for him. We need to remind ourselves of that and put the stones down.
There are lessons learned. I know now that I am NOT called into vocational ministry—the desire and opportunity to return to school to become an engineer presented itself, so I switched gears into that while I'm still trying to reconcile my rock and roll dreams. I know that I will never get tired of watching people sing and get baptized while I'm on stage leading in worship. I know that marrying my future wife, whomever she may be, is something I could never earn. That will only come by the grace of God on my life; proverbial carrot be damned. I know that I'm not against being a part of a large, multi-site church again if it came up in the future. I want to have a keener eye on how leadership structures work and the courage to speak up if I see complicit sin and/or abuse happening in any church.
It's time to move on. Farewell, Mars Hill. I forgive you for the hardship. Thank you for teaching me, making me a better musician, and being Christ-centered community through my transition to life in the Northwest.
-Nicholas Greenwood
"I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." —Romans 8:38-39
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