Driscoll-mania - Burn Your Plastic Jesus

Burn Your Plastic Jesus was billed as an opportunity to take a blow torch to all the plastic (read false) ideas of Jesus that are out there in Australian society.

Having avoided most of the Mark Driscoll hype, I have to confess that I really wasn't sure who the evening was aimed at - was it meant to be an evangelistic evening (ie aimed at non-Christians) or was it designed for church-goers?

Turns out there was a bit for everybody, although I'm not sure if that was necessarily helpful. After a couple of congregational songs (which were terrific for church-goers, especially with 10 000 voices!), an introduction by Al Stewart and a couple of songs performed by Nathan Tasker (again, great for church-goers, but probably unknown by many others), Mark Driscoll spoke for almost an hour about some of the plastic views that Australians have of Jesus. Similar to the talk he had given at Moore College earlier in the day, it was clear that he had done some homework about Australia and our interests, etc but I think there were maybe a few too many generalisations and that some of what Driscoll said was coloured by his American background (eg Country Jesus sounded more American than Australian).

Driscoll again had a dig at young Australian guys, telling them to get over the Peter Pan syndrome that seems to afflict them, to grow up, get married and take responsibility for their lives.

He went on to take questions from the floor via SMS (very culturally appropriate - and manageable with such a large crowd). After spending about half an hour answering questions, Driscoll then went on to spend another 20 minutes or so explaining who the real Jesus is and challenging listeners to put their trust in him, instead of the plastic ones. By this point, I have to confess that I was not paying a lot of attention - my knee was aching and I just wanted to stand up!

Interestingly, instead of asking people to move to a designated point if they were wanting to put their trust in the real Jesus (or re-commit to Jesus), Driscoll asked people to simply stand where they were and for the Christians around them to pray with them. In terms of getting the Christians involved, this was quite clever. Counsellors were still available after the event for anyone who wanted to talk in more depth (and hopefully were used) but a lot of the praying for people was inside the auditorium, often with people that were known to the person involved.

Whilst I remain concerned about the way in which people place Mark Driscoll on a pedestal, I don't regret hearing him. He is renowned for challenging people to think outside of the box and he definitely lived up to that expectation!

Driscoll-mania - what did he have to say to Moore College?

My last post told the story of how I came to hear Mark Driscoll twice on Wednesday. This post will look at what he had to say first of all to Moore College.

The seminar he conducted on Wednesday afternoon at Moore College was probably the best-attended college event I have yet seen. I doubt there were many students or faculty who were willing to miss the opportunity to hear what Driscoll had to say about preaching to today's generation.

It was quickly clear that Driscoll had done his homework about Australia in general and Sydney in particular. He knew statistics about Sydney that some had never heard before. He seemed to have gleaned a good understanding of the pop-culture of Sydney, of what things were in fashion, especially amongst the younger generation, and of what was considered to be 'cool'.

Driscoll also had done his homework about Moore College and determined what it was that he felt we, as a college, needed to be told. And tell us, he did! He was quite complimentary of the attention that is given to remaining true to the Scriptures by the Sydney Diocese and of not allowing the gospel to be compromised. He said that we were known as 'the Bible guys'. However, Driscoll was quite forceful in telling us that we need to polish up our act in how we present the gospel to our community. He said that there were two groups - the boring Bible guys and the really cool heretics. He suggested that we need to be adding a third group to the mix - the pretty cool Bible guys. He then went on to talk about some of the ways we could do that.

He reminded us that proclamation of the gospel is about the telling of a timeless truth but that contextualisation is about telling it in a timely manner. In other words, be unflinching in the gospel message but flexible in our approach. However, contextualisation is not making the gospel relevant, it's showing the relevance of the gospel.

Driscoll also challenged us as students to be thinking about how we are sharing our lives with non-Christians. It's true that it is very easy to lead quite an insular life here at College, one where we have very little contact with anybody outside of our immediate community. It was certainly a challenge that is worth further consideration. How do I go about ensuring that I have opportunities to share the gospel if I have no contact with non-Christians?

Driscoll also gave the guys a particularly hard time, bluntly telling the young guys that they, especially, need to step up, grow up and take responsibility for their lives, their marriages and families and for their churches. My understanding is that encouraging young guys to step up is a particular hobby horse of Driscoll's and he did not settle for less on this occasion. He also argued that a man is going to have little idea of how to head up a church if he has not headed up a family.

Although the single women were told to keep serving Jesus and be prepared to change what this looks like when they marry (a generally good principle), there was no recognition at all of the fact that relationships are not always as straightforward as this, and not everybody who wishes to marry will have this opportunity. The obvious (and right) response is to keep serving Jesus. However, as somebody who did himself marry as a young man, it seemed to me that Driscoll had little understanding of just how hard it can sometimes be as a single person in a world of couples and families.

All in all, I would say that it was worthwhile hearing what Driscoll had to say. Despite not agreeing with all that he said, there was certainly stuff in there that we as Sydney Anglican Moore College students needed to hear.

Driscoll-mania - who is Mark Driscoll?

At one point during his talk yesterday afternoon, Mark Driscoll implied that he expected students would blog about him (although preferably not until after he finished speaking). I, therefore, thought I would oblige...

I have to confess to not having paid particular attention to Mark Driscoll prior to the last few weeks. It seemed to me that he was some American guy who everybody seemed to think the sun shone out of. That was enough for me to be wary of getting caught up in the hype that seems to surround this guy. Maybe I'm cynical of things that seem to be associated with American mega-churches or maybe I'm just a typical Australian who participates in cutting down the tall poppy. Either way, I didn't go to any trouble to find out anything more.

However, it soon became evident that there was real excitement about Driscoll's visit to Australia. It also became apparent that pretty much everybody at college was going to hear him speak at some point. People seemed to take him seriously so I began to wonder if I should at least hear what the guy had to say. I started to check out who he was and determine if I thought he was worth listening to.

Turns out that Mark Driscoll is a guy who is the same age as me, married, with 5 kids and heads up one of the biggest churches in the US. Driscoll's claim to fame is that he started off Mars Hill Church in Seattle 12 years ago (at the age of 25) with a handful of people. The church currently has approximately 7000 members! That is no small achievement. What does seem remarkable is that he appears to have done this without losing focus on Jesus.

The next thing that became apparent was that Driscoll is big on talking about Jesus as he is, without pulling any punches, but also talking about Jesus in a way that shows he is just as relevant today as he was 2000 years ago. The other thing that was particularly obvious is that Driscoll is a big proponent of encouraging men (especially young men) to step up and take responsibility for their lives, their families and their churches. Maybe Driscoll did have some things to say that were worth hearing.

On that basis, when I was offered a ticket to last night's event at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, I decided to take it. I then found out that he would also be doing a 2 hour (voluntary) seminar at college yesterday afternoon so figured I would go along to that also.

For a rundown on the two events and my thoughts on them, watch for my next posting.