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.

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:

1. Forming
2. Storming
3. Norming
4. Performing
5. Adjourning (he added this one at the end)

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 principle to be ‘above reproach’ (in all things)
• Leaders should model real-life, practical holiness
• A love for strangers – “Grace with clothes on”

The means of stand-out godliness (v.16)

• ‘The Mystery’ – godliness revealed in Jesus
• Through relationships, lived out in real life
• Grace – to be loved and lived
• Chief of Sinners + a lover of grace and people

Where it comes together (v.15)

• In the church!

Steve then brought up two final thoughts:

• “litter the world with communities of grace”
• (point 5) Adjourning – keep going, keep replication, keep planting communities of grace

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

• The Foremost of Sinners (v.15)
• A conviction not a comparison
• Paul’s past convicts him (v.13)
• Grace more than abundant (v.14-15)

Ministry

• Background – Ephesian heresy, Grace being turned into Law
• v.3-5, Paul confronts, instructs and teaches
• Encourages Timothy – to fight, contend, to pray indiscriminately (2:1)

Relationship between Identity and Ministry
Model Grace:

• You are an undeserving recipient of Prodigious Grace
• You don’t base ministry on performance (that’s legalism)
• You display humility in conflict and opposition
• Love the unlovely and unlovable
• Be kind an patient (2 Tim 2:24-26)
• Handle success and failure with grace
• We are trophies of grace – for HIS glory

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…’

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:

• Regenerated Church membership
• Qualified Leadership (male eldership)
• Gathers regularly for preaching and worship
• Sacraments ministered correctly (Baptism and Communion)
• Unity in Word and Spirit
• Discipline for holiness
• Loves all people
• Evangelises and makes disciples

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:

• Bombshelter - the fundamentalist church that hides from culture, treating church as a safe haven from it. They preach against the culture in an ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality, they’re not missional.
• Mirror - the liberal church that is simply a reflection of the culture.
• Parasite - the church that takes all the benefits that a culture provides but does not serve, give to, or love that culture.
• City within a City – the church loves Jesus, believes the Bible and lives differently within the culture, it invites others to join in the distinctive living.

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!

• Church is a missional outpost, it exists to grow, to put on more services, set up new campuses and plant new churches.
• Every Christian is a Missionary. The gospel needs to be preached every week (to encourage inviting friends) and members need to be trained in doctrine and apologetics (so they can answer questions).
• Aware of Local Culture. Mark talked through most forms of media (TV, radio, Internet, blogs, social networking) and how he uses them, he spoke of watching TV missionally – seeing the idols displayed in the media, people’s personal heavens. He also chatted about knowing the places where people socialise and speaking to those in the know about what people get up to.
• Contending and Contextualizing the Gospel. Mark spoke first on 1 Corinthians 9:22 – “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some”. He spoke of having ‘timeless truths and timely methods’, of being ‘seeker-sensible’. In conclusion he gave one of the most clear explanations of contextualization I have heard him give – he said…

“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…

Tim Keller has a new book coming out in October called ‘The Prodigal God‘, it’s an exposition of the ‘Parable of the Prodigal Sons’ and I get the impression that like ‘Reason for God’ it will be accessible for both Christians and non-Christians alike. It’s released on the 30th and you can currently pre-order from Amazon for around £9, I’m hoping that the Good Book Company might have it in stock at a similar price nearer the time, I’ll let you know.

Here’s a short interview with Keller about the book, and a response from Keller about the use of the word ‘Prodigal’ in relation to God.

Also, Mark Driscoll has lots of books coming out this year which has prompted the launch of Resurgence Literature publishing (ReLit). The first book was Vintage Jesus, I’ve finally got round to reading that so I’ll review it soon.

The latest books out (released last week) are a series of 4 books – ‘A Book You’ll Actually Read‘ – they’re less than 100 pages on ‘The Old Testament’, ‘The New Testament’, ‘Church Leadership’ and ‘Who is God?’. These are the square shaped ones (left). At the end of July there’s a book called ‘Practical Theology for Women’ coming out by Wendy Alsup, a deacon at Mars Hill. ‘Death by Love‘ (right) is coming out at the end of September, from what I gather it is based on Driscoll’s ‘Christ on the Cross’ series and then put in to a letter format. Finally in January 2009 ‘Vintage Church‘ (middle) is being released, subtitled ‘Timeless Truths and Timely Methods’ – it’s in the style of the Vintage Jesus book and I’m guessing will be similar to the Radical Reformission, probably with more of a focus on some of his sermon series (1 Corinthians, Nehemiah) and some practical suggestions. One more thing, they’re also publishing other non-Mars-Hill books, so far just Total Church by Timmis and Chester.

Last week I picked up some books for myself at EMA – Total Church (Timmis and Chester), Why we’re not Emergent (some American guys), and The Gospel and Personal Evangelism (Dever)… will give some thoughts when I get round to reading.