Review: Confessions of a Reformission Rev

Confessions of a Reformission Rev.: Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church
Mark Driscoll

I read this on the way to and in Japan. Maybe something was lost in translation. At least I'm clearer now on Mark Driscoll and what he is doing. I don't think I could belong to his church.

For, from the book, it sounds very much like his church. Yes, he's aware of the contributions of others, and he wants to give glory to God. But for all the "I don't care about numbers" protestations, there's something there which points to a man driven to create, for a reason not really explored, a really large church of which he is to be senior pastor. Ooops. I mean Senior Pastor.

It's a very honest book, I think. And it has many lessons which would be good for many of us to learn. There is a genuinely novel mission described, among the evidently very needy people of Seattle. Clearly, something remarkable is being achieved. And - as I said in a previous review - Driscoll is at his best when speaking from the heart and telling his own story. There's not much theorizing here, just lots of raw stories of life.

But it's the theorizing that gets me down. His passion is to do things biblically, which is fine. And so he manages, through searching the scriptures, to reject all sorts of unbiblical received patterns for doing stuff in church, and to come up with some which he judges to be biblical. Where then does his insistence on being Senior Pastor of a number of by-now separate congregations fit in? What was that about having "let go" the Worship leader because he couldn't handle co-ordinating bands across several different venues and services? All that reorganizing for growth, over, and over again.

I know we all have blind spots. But if you're going to set yourself up as a highly biblical person (with a very particular view of inspiration, and so on), then it seems most peculiar to me to come out with quite such a blend of good grounded theology, but also some strongly held dogmatic stuff which seems to have no obvious grounding in that same scripture.

The last review left me not knowing what to make of Driscoll and all his works. I have a clearer idea now, and I fear I can take it or leave it, probably the latter. How ironic, then, that whilst in Japan I should meet someone who invited me to spend a week or two visiting Microsoft in Seattle this summer.