Adrian Warnock interviews Mark Driscoll – videos here
Mark Driscoll reflects on his time in the UK here and here
My posts on Together on a Mission 2008
My posts on the Dwell London conference
Mark Driscoll’s pastors training track (audio) – Be Radical Plant Radical Churches
Together on a Mission 2008 (audio) – Main Sessions
Off to CYFA camp in Colwyn Bay (sunny North Wales tomorrow) – 10 days of fun, hard work and learning lots about Jesus from John’s Gospel.
Mark Driscoll concluded the Dwell London conference on the subject of Preaching Jesus, and then finished with a short Q&A session. He gave 6 points about preparing to preach:
On the 6th point Driscoll went on to talk a lot about how we can preach Christ from the Old Testament by using; prophecies, Christophonies, types (Adam, Priests, Prophets, Kings), services (tested in a garden, tested in wilderness etc.), events (Passover, Day of Atonement etc.), titles of God.
Mark simply concluded by saying:
“It’s all about Jesus”, “Love Jesus”, “Talk about Jesus lots”
He said, “If it’s about Jesus, it works… and it makes up for a lot!”
He then addressed a Q&A session mainly answering questions about the role of a wife and family life in church planting ministry. He also had time for a quick jab at us Brits, he said two of our biggest weaknesses were our “fake niceness” and our “cowardice” particularly in addressing big questions – like sex. All in all great conference, watch this space for more stuff from the Acts29 and Porterbrook Network partnership…
Mark Driscoll kicked off the Dwell London conference by explaining the gospel – highlighting the difference between the Gospel of Grace, and the Religion of Works.
Mark began by quoting Martin Luther from his lecture on Galatians 2:14 -
“The truth of the Gospel is the principle article of all Christian doctrine…. Most necessary is it that we know this article well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually.”
Driscoll then went to 1 Corinthians 15, asking – What is the Gospel?
Under the PS point, Mark alluded to his knowledge of the NWA foundation, and told the story of how his church grew by 800 people on the week he preached PSA! He said that he wants to be a ‘truth teller’ – “I’d rather be hated than ignored – that’s my ministry!” Mark then moved on to look at the two enemies of the Gospel – Idolatry and Religion.
Idolatry
Driscoll quoted Luther who said that idolatry was “the sin”, and that it all came down to the first two Commandments – if we disobey the first two we have an idol, and will break the other commandments.
An idol is that which takes pre-eminence, which receives our worship. We’re all spiritual people because we all have our own definitions of heaven and hell, and the a ‘Functional Saviour’ (our idol) to take us from hell to heaven. He then goes on to reference Tim Keller who has a set of questions to expose our idols:
What are you afraid of? What do you long for? Where do you get comfort? How do you introduce yourself? Whose approval do you seek? What makes you happy/sad?
Religion
Mark started off by showing the clear differences between the Gospel of Grace and the Religion of Works:
If I obey God loves me vs. God loves me, his Spirit enables me to obey
Good and Bad People vs. Repentant and Unrepentant Sinners
What you do vs. What Jesus has done
He then explained the result of religion, it either leads to pride and self-righteousness (these people stay in the church), or despair at not being good enough (these people walk away from church). Rather, the Gospel ends in joy, those who receive grace are humble and happy.
Acts 17 – God commands ALL men to repent (religious and idolatrous)
Romans 1:16 – Mark reminded us not to be ashamed of the Gospel we preach, and again to notice that it goes to the Jews (the religious people) and to the Greeks (the idolatrous people)
Steve’s second talk was entitled ‘Planting communities of Grace‘. He opened by reading 1 Timothy 3, and then briefly spoke about groups and the 5 stages of a ‘group’ defined by Dr. Bruce Tuckman:
Steve stressed that the forming stage was the time to build a ‘dynamic of Grace’ into the structure, the DNA of the group. Then in to 1 Timothy 3:
The need for stand-out godliness (v.1-13)
The means of stand-out godliness (v.16)
Where it comes together (v.15)
Steve then brought up two final thoughts:
Steve gave two talks about grace in church planting – ‘Church Planter as a Minister of Grace’ and ‘Planting Communities of Grace’. Steve is involved in lots of different things; Crowded House in Sheffield, Radstock Ministries, and the Porterbrook Network who had partnered with Acts29 to put this day conference on. Here’s the first talk:
Church Planter as a Minister of Grace – 1 Timothy 1
Identity
Ministry
Relationship between Identity and Ministry
Model Grace:
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:If you can dream – and not make dreams your master; If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, And treat those two impostors just the same;If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken, Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools:If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much;An extract from Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If…’
Scott Thomas is an Elder at Mars Hill Church, Seattle and is the director of the Acts 29 church planting network. At the Dwell London conference he addressed the question – Am I a Church Planter? Scott introduced the session with two lists, and then 20 questions:
Top 5 issues faced at Acts 29 – Theology, Vision, Family, Calling, Character
Top 5 church-planter qualities (survey of NF leaders) – Leader/visionary, Missionary heart, Preacher, Generalist, Family man
20 Questions for a potential church planter
Carrying on from Mark’s first talk on Spirit-Led Missions he went on to speak about what a Missional church is. Firstly he concluded his 8-point definition of a church:
He went on expanding on point 8 to talk about all of church being on mission, citing Leslie Newbiggin who spoke of being engaged in mission that understands its culture. Driscoll then gave four examples of churches and how they respond to culture:
Obviously he’s with the fourth church! Driscoll then went through the 12 aspects of a missional church – he got to 4, having spent about half an hour on the 3rd!
“you do not need to make the gospel relevent, but you do need to show that the gospel is relevent”
Afterwards it was good to see a little party from UCCF present and I was able to chat with Scott Thomas about Acts29, church planting and the partnership with Steve Timmis culminating in an event at St. James Clerkenwell on Friday night and the Dwell conference on Saturday. And being a geek, I went and got a picture with Mark – he has a really large head…
Next week I’m going to be semi-live blogging from the New Frontiers conference in Brighton and the Dwell Conference in London on the Saturday. I say semi-live-blogging, I’ll be at the main events but will be there to soak everything up and will file a report blog at the end of the day… the main talks will be by Mark Driscoll, I suspect something from Terry Virgo too, and then on the Saturday Driscoll will be joined by Scott Thomas of Acts 29, and Steve Timmis.
So if you’re not going to be at Brighton and you want to know what’s going on then I’ll be providing an ‘outsiders’ perspective of a New Frontiers conference, in fact I’d go further and say a skeptics view of New Frontiers (but that’s another story), but I’m a self confessed ‘Driscoll geek’ so there’s no skeptical view there I’m afraid, well depends what he says!
I’m sure the likes of Adrian Warnock, Bish, and other New Frontiers bloggers will be there and sharing their thoughts, I shall be trying to fit in for a week, pretending to be a New-Frontierser!
There’s only 150 tickets left for the Dwell Conference happening on Saturday 12th July in Central London. It’s for anyone interested in church planting in whatever form that takes. Speakers are Mark Driscoll, Scott Thomas and Steve Timmis, and it will cost you the bargain price of £21. To hear what kind of things go on you can listen to talks from Dwell New York conference from the Acts29 Network. Sign up for your tickets now from the Good Book Company!
Exciting news about Mark Driscoll’s visit to England in July…
Originally I thought he was just going to be at the New Frontiers conference in Brighton, ‘Together on a Mission’ – this is happening 8-11th July… anyway I’m booked in for that, good times.
But there’s some more stuff happening too…
On the 11th July, at 8pm there’s going to be an evening session with Mark Driscoll at St. James’ Clerkenwell, entitled “Driscoll Unleashed in the UK” a nice title!
The next day, Saturday 12th July, he’ll be speaking at the ‘Dwell London – Grace for the City‘… this is a day conference on church planting, and he’ll be speaking alongside Steve Timmis from Crowded House and Scott Thomas from Acts 29 Network. It’s 9.30am – 4.45pm at St. Pauls, Robert Adam street, near to All Souls Langham Place. Tickets are £20 and are available from the Good Book Company. Here’s the programme for the day event:
On the Sunday, 13th July, Driscoll will be preaching at Jubilee Church, Enfield in the morning and at Church of Christ the King, Brighton in the evening.
I don’t know if he’s got any more bookings, but that seems a fair amount to me!
Also… the Good Book Company are now selling copies of Vintage Jesus, £13 – that’s £9.75 if you’ve got a UCCF card!
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