Everyone makes mistakes, but sometimes we are mistaken about what we call mistakes. Driscoll’s assessment of the situation is debatable. Did he make a mistake by throwing off the authority of his elder board and bringing outsiders in?  One interpretation of the current situation at Mars Hill is that the cure has been worse than the disease. In hindsight, perhaps Driscoll misdiagnosed the disease. He thought the problem was the elders; another possibility is that he, also young and green, should have listened to his elders board.

In this video, Mark and Grace Driscoll acknowledge they made mistakes in ministry. What were those mistakes?

At 5:23 into the video, Driscoll makes revealing statements about his views of his elders. These opinions give insight into the changes in governance at Mars Hill since 2007. Watch and take note between 5:23 and  7:00 minutes.

Starting at around 5:37, Driscoll said:

…but I knew as a big personality and pretty intense so I wanted to be under authority, but I made a mistake of, how do I say this carefully; trying to be under the authority of my elders, but the truth is all my elders were new and young and green, and they would want to help, but they really didn’t know what they were talking about. And so what I should’ve had was a team of pastors outside of the church who were older and more seasoned who could, you know, help Grace and I put life together and also give me counsel on how to work on the church with the elders I had early on. They could work in the church but they couldn’t work on the church.

Shorter Mark Driscoll on why he made mistakes: Lord, its these elders you gave me.

Driscoll goes on to say that church planters shouldn’t believe that accountability will come from their first elder board. He wished he had older, seasoned pastors to guide him because sometimes the problems they needed to talk about were the elders. In jest, Driscoll said, “Ok, guys I want to talk about this hypothetical person I wanna kill” referring to his unnamed problematic elders.

Elsewhere Driscoll has said that Mars Hill Church was killing him due to stress. He claimed he had to make changes in governance in order to save his life and his marriage. Here we learn that Driscoll did not trust (agree with?) his elders and believed that being under their authority was a mistake. Since his elders were wrong and frustrating, he needed to go outside the church to find wiser people.

In light of these statements, the rationale behind the formation of the Board of Advisors and Accountability becomes clearer. However, there seems to be two messages here.

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