The Atlantic: Where is the line between a pastor promoting his own career and promoting the ministry of his church?

By any measure, pastor Mark Driscoll is wildly successful in the contemporary evangelical world. Mars Hill Church, which he co-founded in 1996, in Seattle, now boasts 15 locations from Seattle to Albuquerque. More than 13,000 people worship at a Mars Hill Church every week, often watching Driscoll’s hour-long sermons on large screens at the front of the sanctuary. Online, his sermons are heard about 15 million times each year. On top of all that, his 2011 book Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together was a No. 1 New York Times best-seller.

Alas: Last week, Warren Cole Smith of the conservative Christian magazine World reported that Mars Hill had paid at least $210,000 to a California consulting company to boost Real Marriage onto best-seller lists. The company, ResultSource, uses a variety of tactics to circumvent the systems intended to prevent bulk sales from influencing the lists. (Driscoll is not the only prominent pastor to be accused of boosting his own book sales using ethically gray techniques. In February, North Carolina megachurch pastor Steven Furtick was accused of a similar list-topping scheme.)

Even for a large church with a popular pastor, however, $210,000 is an astronomical amount to spend on marketing. “It certainly looks like a massive misuse of money,” theologian, pastor, and author Carl Trueman told me. “But when you have a church culture where one man is absolutely central to everything the church does publicly, then it’s really difficult to draw that line between the church’s mission and the man’s mission, and money spent on the mission and money spent on the man.”

The troubling fuzziness of those lines has significance far beyond Mars Hill.

Continue reading.

Sign up to receive weekly WorshipIdeas every Tuesday morning in your email:

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

 

We guarantee 100% privacy.
Your information will not be shared.

A fascinating explanation of how Mars Hill pushed Driscoll’s book to the top of the NYT Best-Seller list.

By tracking the Amazon sales rank of Real Marriage, we can actually see the effects of the bestseller listing. Using archives of Amazon’s Real Marriage page, I tracked the book’s overall Amazon sales rank over the first six months after it was officially published (Jan 3, 2012). Given Amazon’s massive market share of books sold in the United States, it’s a good analog for overall sales in all retail outlets.

The book starts at #5, driven mainly by the pent-up orders that had been arranged by Result Source, though starts to fall precipitously in the first week. On Day 6, it is ranked 84, though recovers to #53 on Day 11. Not coincidentally, the Times published the previous week’s rankings on its website on Day 10 (Jan 13) on which Real Marriage is #1 on the Hardcover Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous list. The buzz from that designation drew attention and sales to the book, bringing its ranking back up. (One remarkable aspect of the listing is that Result Source so effectively masked the sales effort that the book doesn’t earn the dagger symbol, as we’ve seen on some of Furtick’s books, to warn us that the result might be from bulk sales.)

Continue reading.

Also, don’t miss this theory on why Furtick is hiding his house – you can get lost on this website for an afternoon.

Sign up to receive weekly WorshipIdeas every Tuesday morning in your email:

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

 

We guarantee 100% privacy.
Your information will not be shared.

Rob Rash encourages us to do more than “put our best foot forward.”

We all know the statistics about Easter and Christmas right? People are more open to coming to church on Christmas and Easter than at any other time of the year.

We look at these times of worship as great opportunities. Opportunities to ‘save’ people and share the gospel and put our ministry teams and creativity on display. Many times, praying and hoping, that those far from God will step over the threshold from death to life.

And while I think it is important to ‘put our best foot forward,’ I don’t believe this is enough to draw people back on it’s own. Apart from the grace of God, what people desire, especially lost people, is seeing an authentic love of God.

What Good Is It?

What good is a perfect service with amazing vocals and guitar solos if people are not worshiping authentically? What good is a well planned Easter service if the church isn’t celebrating our Jesus’ victory over death?

If we can’t get excited and rejoice and express our love for Jesus publicly, on Easter, then we’ve really failed to show the world that God is worth living for.

The Unbeliever and Worship

I’ve often struggled with the question “Who is the church for?” Is it for the saints and for building them up and equipping them like Paul teaches in Ephesians? Or is it for those on the fringes, a bit skeptical and yet seeking God? The believer or the the unbeliever?

I think how we answer those questions really determine how we approach our services. But the answer is really quite simple.

Who is the church for? It’s for Jesus. And who is Jesus for? Everybody.

So with that in mind, I’d like to share with you what I believe is the most important thing we need to do this Easter. And even before Easter.

Paul, in his letter to the Corinthian church, mentions how true authentic worship can affect and change an unbelievers life.

But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.
1 Cor. 14:24-25 (ESV)

Now Paul was writing this to clear up some confusion about the misuse of tongues and prophesy and I don’t want to miss an important aspect to these verses. What Paul says, is that when authentic worship is taking place, God moves.

We have an opportunity this Easter to help those who are far from, experience the grace of God. And while I believe that God is the one who calls and saves, he does indeed use his church to reach the lost. We will most certainly have folks joining us for worship who don’t normally come unless you count Christmas too.

The Most Important Thing

And what lies before us is an incredible opportunity to display our great God. But it won’t necessarily happen because we’ve been really creative or had an amazing opening song or the preaching was spot on and short. Although these elements are important, I believe the most important thing we can do as a church, is to fully and passionately respond in worship in such an authentic way, that those who are visiting our churches will be convicted by all that is seen and turn to God.

If we fail at preparing, exhorting, imploring, and encouraging our churches to worship God fully, what many new guests will see is a really nice show. What people long for, more than an awesome church service, is an authentic experience with Jesus.

How can we sit by idly on Easter, the most important day in Christendom, while not responding to the greatest day in history? If we truly believe that we’ve been redeemed, restored, and forgiven, we have no excuse than to celebrate this good news.

That is what an unbelieving world really wants to see. I’ll leave you with this quote from author Brennan Manning,

The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today
Is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips
Then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle.
That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.

Ever wonder why some Protestant pastors wear robes? Robert Cunningham explains.

I spent last weekend with a great group of people interested in joining our church. I gave them an opportunity to ask me any questions they might have about Tates Creek Presbyterian Church, and one person raised their hand and asked what apparently many want to know, “So what’s with the robes?”

TCPC tends to attract believers whose previous experiences were primarily with parachurch organizations and broadly evangelical denominations. In these sub-cultures, Christian formality is mostly unheard of and because of this, TCPC’s formal practices are a bit of a culture shock for many. Interestingly I have found that the robes, above everything else, are most puzzling.

So what’s with the robes?

Offering the qualification that I in no way intend to imply that a pastor has to wear a robe or that there is something wrong with a worship service without robes, I’ll give you five reasons why this is our practice at TCPC…

The Robe Has Biblical Precedent

First and foremost it must be said that the Bible is not silent here. The practice goes all the way back to the Old Testament where the office of priesthood was set apart with a robe. In fact an entire chapter of Scripture, Exodus 28, is devoted to the priest’s clothing. At the very least, we can extrapolate from all these passages that it is very appropriate for those leading God’s people in worship to be set apart with a robe.

Continue reading.

Sign up to receive weekly WorshipIdeas every Tuesday morning in your email:

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

 

We guarantee 100% privacy.
Your information will not be shared.

Matt Mason explores the qualifications of a worship pastor.

I realize that many who have the joy of leading in musical worship are not elders in their local church context. That said, the Apostle Paul tells us that it is a noble aspiration to be an elder-pastor (1 Timothy 3:1). I’m not looking to unpack the evidences and qualifications for those sensing a call to biblical eldership. There are many great resources to take you further (start here, then here, then maybe here).

The “Pastor” in Worship Pastor

Having said that, if you are a worship pastor, I want to remind you of something that I hope you feel deeply. It is an unspeakable joy and privilege to serve as a pastor. The key term in the title “worship pastor,” is pastor. In many ways, I would rather be called “one of the pastors at The Church at Brook Hills,” than the “Worship Pastor of The Church at Brook Hills,” because the latter reminds me of my primary job description.

This is not to imply that worship pastors should pretend that music is not a big part of what we do. It certainly is. But, when we read about gathered praise in the New Testament, we don’t find detailed instructions on matters related to music. Band or acapella? Choir or no choir? How many songs? Nothing there. Those decisions are to be pursued through prayerful discussion with the elder-pastors and implemented in the hopes of edifying your particular local church.

If these are matters of prayerful discretion and pastoral discernment, then, what are the things that God has said are my primary, non-negotiable assignments as a worship pastor?

Enter 2 Timothy. With a cursory look at 2 Timothy, we see implications for the worship pastor in many places. While not directed as a defense of the role of the worship pastor, much can be learned from this pastoral epistle. As we consider our roles as those who serve as singing shepherds, may we consider from His word our role in the body of Christ.

Continue reading.

Sign up to receive weekly WorshipIdeas every Tuesday morning in your email:

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

 

We guarantee 100% privacy.
Your information will not be shared.