Former church elder offers to meet Mars Hill plaintiffs

Emily McFarlan Miller
RNS
March 15, 2016

Mark Driscoll was an influential but edgy pastor within conservative evangelical circles for several years. Photo courtesy of Mars Hill Church

(RNS) Former Mars Hill Church elder Sutton Turner says he’s willing to meet with four former members of the now-defunct Seattle church who filed a 42-page civil racketeering lawsuit last month.

Turner wrote in a blog post, in response to the lawsuit against him and controversial ex-Mars Hill pastor Mark Driscoll, that he is “deeply grieved and saddened” by the closure of the church.

“In the past two weeks, I have prayed,” Turner wrote. “I have reached out to the plaintiffs directly to communicate my willingness to meet. And I continue to hope that Christ will walk us through this difficult but necessary process in a spirit of reconciliation.”

The former Mars Hill general manager and executive elder acknowledged that he had been named in the suit, but that he had not yet been served. He hopes by meeting with the plaintiffs he can “empathize with their hurt, pray with them, apologize to them, and clear up anything I can.”

READ: Mark Driscoll responds to ‘false and malicious’ allegations in lawsuit

The lawsuit accuses Turner and Driscoll of “a continuing pattern of racketeering activity,” namely, soliciting donations for specific purposes and then using that money for other things. It was filed under part of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which was created to prosecute the Mafia and other criminal organizations.

Among the allegations in the suit brought by Brian Jacobsen, Connie Jacobsen, Ryan Kildea and Arica Kildea: The church paid $210,000 to a company called ResultSource Inc. to land Driscoll’s book, “Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship and Life Together,” which wound up on the The New York Times Best Sellers list.

Turner has called using ResultSource “one of the biggest mistakes of Mars Hill Church.” It was part of a marketing plan made when he first joined the staff at the church, and he had written a memo advising against it, he wrote in an earlier blog post.

The suit also alleges the church collected money for an organization called Mars Hill Global, saying those funds would go to overseas missions. Instead, that money appears to have stayed in the United States, it said.

In another blog post, Turner wrote Global always was intended to plant churches in the United States and apologized to donors who said they were led to believe all of that money would go to missions in India and Ethiopia.

Driscoll, who resigned from Mars Hill Church in October 2014, has called the allegations in the lawsuit “false and malicious.” The church’s 15 campuses closed that December.

(Emily McFarlan Miller is a national reporter for RNS)

http://www.religionnews.com/2016/03/15/church-elder-responds-to-mars-hill-lawsuit/

Mark Driscoll to launch new church on Easter Sunday

Religion News Service

Emily McFarlan Miller

March 16, 2016 

(RNS) Controversial former Mars Hill Church Pastor Mark Driscoll plans to launch his new church on Easter Sunday (March 27).

The Trinity Church will host its first gathering that evening at the Glass and Garden Drive-In Church in Scottsdale, Ariz., the new church announced on its website.

The website described the gathering as a “modest open house and prayer meeting” where Driscoll will share the vision for the church as it begins putting together its launch team.

“We know that God has gone before us, preparing an opportunity to minister. This building provides a wonderful opportunity for our mission,” it said.

Driscoll announced last month that he and his family had moved to Phoenix, where they were “healing up” and planning to launch The Trinity Church.

He had spent months praying for a church building with more than 1,000 seats along the 101 Freeway, according to the church website, and he “believes that God has supernaturally provided” that in the Glass and Garden Drive-In Church building. The church had launched on Easter 1966, it said.

Its drive-in theater since has closed.

The launch comes a month after a lawsuit was filed against Driscoll and former Mars Hill executive elder John Sutton Turner by four members of the now-defunct Seattle church, accusing them of “a continuing pattern of racketeering activity.” The suit claims the two solicited donations for specific purposes and then used that money for other things.

Driscoll resigned from Mars Hill in October 2014 amid allegations of plagiarism and abusive behavior, as well as outcry over critical comments he had made earlier about feminism and homosexuality under a pseudonym on a church message board. The church’s 15 campuses closed that December.

The pastor has called the allegations in the lawsuit “false and malicious.”

“I remain focused and devoted to preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, loving others, and praying for my enemies,” Driscoll told RNS.

(Emily McFarlan Miller is an RNS correspondent)

http://www.religionnews.com/2016/03/16/driscoll-to-launch-new-church-on-easter-sunday/

Lawsuit: Controversial Pastor Ran Mars Hill Megachurch Like a Crime Syndicate

A new lawsuit seeks to find out what Mark Driscoll did with millions in tithes to Seattle’s now-shuttered Mars Hill megachurch.

Brandy Zadrozny
The Daily Beast

February 29, 2016

Mark Driscoll

Just when controversial pastor Mark Driscoll was hoping to make a new start, former members of his old stomping grounds at Seattle’s Mars Hill Church have filed a lawsuit alleging Driscoll and his chief elder ran the now-shuttered megachurch like an organized crime syndicate, in which church members became unwitting participants.

The lawsuit was filed on Monday in the Western District of Washington U.S. District Court in Seattle under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a law originally created for prosecution of Mafia figures.

Former members have been threatening to file such a lawsuit for months to find out just where the members’ tithes—some $30 million yearly, according to church reports—actually went.

Mars Hill closed its doors in 2014, following a number of scandals involving allegations of Driscoll’s bullying and spiritual abuse of members and church leaders, misogyny, and homophobia espoused on a church message board, plagiarism, and misuse of church funds—which this lawsuit seeks to redress. Since its closure, the details of the organization’s dissolution have been opaque, with little public accounting, and a group of remaining leaders who have refused to comment on who gets what from the failed enterprise that not so long ago passed the collection plate around to more than 12,000 visitors every week at 15 satellite campuses.

According to the complaint, ex-pastor Mark Driscoll, and general manager and then-executive elder John Sutton Turner, allegedly defrauded Washington churchgoers Brian and Connie Jacobsen and Ryan and Arica Kildea, along with thousands of other individuals who tithed at Mars Hill, by soliciting donations for one purpose, then using them for unauthorized ones. The Jacobsens say they gave over $90,000 to the church from 2008 to 2014 while the Kildeas report over $2,700 from 2011-2013.

The plaintiff’s attorney, Brian Fahling, declined to comment, but emailed a statement that read in part, “Driscoll and Turner engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity so deeply embedded, pervasive and continuous, that it was effectively institutionalized as a business practice, thereby corrupting the very mission Plaintiffs and other donors believed they were supporting.”

Elder Dave Bruskas, Mars Hill CFO Kerry Dodd, several corporations believed to hold some profits from Driscoll’s book Real Marriage, and a supposed financial standards watchdog—the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability—are all named as co-conspirators in the complaint.

Among the fraudulent spending alleged in the complaint—which includes accusations of mail and wire fraud—is the $210,000 the church supposedly spent to buy a place for Driscoll’s 2012 book on The New York Times’ and other best-sellers’ lists by using a list-fixing company called Result Source. (These allegations were first reported by World Magazine.) It’s unclear where the money from book sales went, though Driscoll has said he put 100 percent of the profits back into Mars Hill.

“This scheme has been fairly described as a ‘scam,’ and resulted in personal inurement to Driscoll and Turner,” the complaint states.

Also at issue are millions donated by church members who were told offerings went to missions in Ethiopia and India through the church’s “Global Fund.” In reality, those tithes appear to have stayed right at home. To “woo new donors,” the complaints says, Driscoll “intentionally deceived all potential donors by marketing Global Fund as a fund for international missions, when, in fact, they intended to use the majority of the donations for domestic expansion of MHC.”

The complaint cites an internal memo in which Mars Hill allegedly outlines the benefits of the Global Fund, from which a percentage would be designated for “highly visible, marketable projects.”

“Besides the obvious gain of increased funding,” the memo states, according to the complaint, “for a relatively low cost (e.g. $10K/month), supporting a few missionaries and benevolence projects would serve to deflect criticism, increase goodwill, and create opportunities to influence and learn from other ministries.”

Church leaders have previously apologized for the “confusion” over the Global Fund, a repository that by 2014 was taking in a self-reported $300,000 a month, some $10 million total, according to the complaint. At the time the allegations over the funds surfaced, the leaders said they never meant to mislead the church’s followers about where the money was going.

Additionally, nearly $3 million for an outdoor “Jesus Festival”—a revival with outdoor baptisms—never came to be and funds allocated to specific campuses allegedly ended up in the general fund.

“The Jacobsens were astonished at the lack of transparency and the lack of a sense of accountability,” the complaint states.

“Because of those concerns, they came to the conclusion they were unable, in good conscience, to continue to donate to MHC, or to continue to serve in the church.” And so they quit the church.

Driscoll followed their lead, resigning in October 2014, and two weeks later, the church was no more. Driscoll now lives in Phoenix, Arizona, and plans to start a new church there.

An email to Driscoll requesting comment was not returned.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the year that Mars Hill Church closed. In fact, its final service was on December 28, 2014.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/29/lawsuit-controversial-pastor-ran-mars-hill-megachuch-like-a-crime-syndicate.html

RICO Lawsuit Filed Against Former Leaders of Mars Hill Church

Warren Throckmorton
Patheos 
February 29, 2016

The long anticipated suit from a group of former members against former leaders of Mars Hill Church was filed today in the U.S District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle. Attorney Brian Fahling filed suit on behalf of plaintiffs Brian and Connie Jacobsen and Ryan and Arica Kildea.

The plaintiffs accuse defendants Mark Driscoll and Sutton Turner of engaging in

a continuing pattern of racketeering activity by soliciting, through the internet and the mail, contributions for designated purposes, and then fraudulently used significant portions of those designated contributions for other, unauthorized purposes. It was a pattern of racketeering activity that extended through a myriad of MHC projects, including the Global Fund, the Campus Fund, the Jesus Festival, and the promotion of Driscoll’s book Real MaYosef, the son of the late Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, was indicted in the Tel Aviv District Court in December on two counts of breach of trust.

The Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avoda lobbying group filed a petition to the High Court of Justice on Monday requesting an injunction to force the Religious Services Ministry to suspend Rabbi Avraham Yosef, the municipal chief rabbi of Holon, until the criminal proceedings against him on breach of trust charges is over.rriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together (“Real Marriage”).

In a statement, the attorney filing the suit, Brian Fahling said:

A church is not simply a building and programs. Mars Hill Church was a community of individuals—non-member attendees who considered MHC to be their church home, members, elders and pastors—who worked together in pursuit of a common mission—to make disciples and plant churches in the name of Jesus. Needless to say, the four groups are interdependent and the church cannot function without each of them. However, Driscoll and Turner engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity so deeply embedded, pervasive and continuous, that it was effectively institutionalized as a business practice, thereby corrupting the very mission Plaintiffs and other donors believed they were supporting.

On the Global Fund, just today I posted two formerly undisclosed memos on Mars Hill Church’s Board of Advisors and Accountability’s decision to keep secret how the church spent funds on missions (Global Fund) and salaries.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2016/02/29/rico-lawsuit-filed-against-former-leaders-of-mars-hill-church/

Mega-Ministry Methods: David Jeremiah Sows the Wind and Reaps the Windfall

Warren Throckmorton
Patheos
February 22, 2016

David Jeremiah, Screen capture from YouTube

One of the key events that led to the demise of Mars Hill Church in 2014 was the revelation that the church leaders had used around $250,000 of church money to strategically buy a spot on the New York Times bestseller list for Mark and Grace Driscoll’s 2011 book Real Marriage. Manipulating bestseller lists became a debated topic for several months after it was learned that other leading Christian authors had also used Result Source to manipulate the bestseller list (e.g., Les & Leslie Parrott, and David Jeremiah). Articles in World, Christianity Today, and this blog examined the ethics of the matter.

Stepping into the debate at the time was a former Chief Financial Officer (2007-2009) of David Jeremiah’s Turning Point ministry, George Hale. In a January 14, 2015 post, Hale asserted that David Jeremiah used similar book buying practices as those made famous by Mars Hill Church and Mark Driscoll. Hale said he left Turning Point because he didn’t agree with the ethics of using ministry funds to manipulate the bestseller lists and enrich Jeremiah.

Turning Point is a large ministry that took in over $47 million in 2013 compared to nearly $40-million the year before. The last two years David Jeremiah’s non-profit has spent more than it made by around $3.2-million. However, the organization’s balance is strong with net assets of just over $9.5-million, as of June 2014.

At the time, Hale did not explain just how beneficial the arrangement was for Jeremiah. Now, Hale has disclosed that Jeremiah was able to purchase a $2-million ocean front condominium (San Diego Co., grant deed) in January 2010 not long after receiving a $3-million advance from Faith Words, a book publisher based in Nashville.

Hale said, “I never saw a contract between David Jeremiah and a publisher, but I did see an advance check made out to David for $3-million for a multi-book deal.” The books covered by the advance were The Coming Economic Armageddon (2010), I Never Thought I’d See The Day (2011), and God Loves You (2012). All three of these books made the New York Times bestseller list.

Despite the financial success of the books, Hale questioned the ethics of using donor money to create a fiction and personally benefit David Jeremiah. In 2015, Hale said in his public letter:

I began my employment at Turning Point during July 2007. During August of 2007 Turning Point began promoting David Jeremiah’s Book “Captured by Grace” for pre-publication purchase for a donation of $25 or more. I believe that approximately 100,000 books were pre-purchased (I could be wrong on this number but I think it is close) for an average donation of $25 during the months of August and September 2007. When the book was released in October, Turning Point used the money donated for the book to purchase copies of the book from retail booksellers such as Amazon and Borders. Turning Point then sent the book to those who had donated and requested the book. These purchases where timed to get the book listed as a “best-seller.” It worked.

After this occurred, I voiced my concern as to the ethics of such action to David Jeremiah. I was also concerned because Turning Point could have purchased the same books directly from the publisher for approximately $10 each instead of the $25 each paid to the book retailers. David assured me that his agent and attorney, Sealy Yates had opined that the transactions were honest and ethical.

This same action was repeated during August, September and October 2008 with the same results. I again requested that Turning Point not repeat such transactions as I could not discern any benefit to Turning Point for purchasing the books at retail versus purchasing the books wholesale from the publisher. I thought the transaction to be unethical. David told me that he would take my advice under consideration.

During August 2009 David Jeremiah said that he wanted to promote his new book for pre-publication purchase but for a donation of any amount. He had not yet made a decision as to the method that Turning Point would use to purchase the books to be sent to those who would request them.

During September 2009 David Jeremiah told me that he had decided to use the money received by Turning Point from those requesting his book to purchase the books at retail from booksellers and not purchase the books from the publisher at a lower amount. He acknowledged that he was aware that this was disappointing to me.

Turning Point had received an average donation of $35 per book instead of $25 dollars during this 2009 campaign. Therefore, if my memory is correct, Turning Point had received approximately $3.5 million dollars for the approximately 100,000 books pre-sold. I thought that the added donation over and above the $25 purchase price of the book was meant to benefit Turning Point and was not to be used to purchase additional books at retail. This did not happen. This thought, together with my prior opinion that the entire method was unethical and did not benefit Turning Point, led me to immediately resign my position with Turning Point which I did September 15, 2009.

Hale later told me that he was paid until early 2010 to allow a narrative to be floated that Hale retired instead of quitting abruptly over ethics concerns.

As a result of the book buying scheme, Turning Point’s membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability was jeopardized. Hale told me, as did one other source in a position to know, that in early 2010, Turning Point was allowed to drop membership in the ECFA instead of being publicly removed over the bestseller list manipulation scheme. These tactics are not allowed for ECFA members and, according to Hale, Turning Point chose to drop out instead of modify their book business.

One consequence of losing ECFA membership was the loss of membership in the National Religious Broadcasters since members are required to either be members of ECFA or some comparable group. However, after years of non-membership, I have learned that Turning Point is a member again. It is unclear if this means Turning Point has renounced the book buying scheme or if the NRB made an exception. Neither organization has responded to my questions regarding Turning Point’s membership.

If the return of Turning Point to the NRB means that David Jeremiah has finally taken George Hale’s advice, that would be quite a story. I hope the usual big evangelical cone of silence doesn’t cover up the matter.

In any case, with the ongoing silence and secrecy over bestseller list buying, the debate over the ethics of it will continue.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2016/02/22/mega-ministry-methods-david-jeremiah-sows-the-wind-and-reaps-the-windfall/

Controversial Megachurch Pastor Mark Driscoll Finds A New Flock

BRANDY ZADROZNY
The Daily Beast
February 21, 2016

He called women ‘penis homes’ and allegedly ruled his Seattle megachurch like a tyrant. Now, he’s resurfaced a thousand miles away.

There’s a new church coming to Phoenix, Arizona.

According to its website, the pastor, Mark Driscoll, is a “Jesus-following, mission-leading, church-serving, people-loving, Bible-preaching pastor...grateful to be a nobody trying to tell everybody about Somebody.”

While he may wish he were less recognizable these days, compound adjective-loving Mark Driscoll could hardly be called a nobody. Though there’s no mention of it on The Trinity Church’s shiny new website, Driscoll built and presided over Seattle’s controversial Mars Hill Church, and he is one of the most famous and disruptive figures in the history of the evangelical mega-church movement.

Driscoll and two other pastors started Mars Hill in 1996. Before long, Driscoll was drawing crowds with a unique brand of hipster conservatism. He was a 25-year-old charismatic preacher with a Sam Kinison yell and a collection of ironic “Jesus is my homeboy” T-shirts, who talked freely about sex but offered a socially and theologically conservative message that introduced Seattle’s young unchurched to a macho, vengeful God. (He once described Jesus as “a prize fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed.”) The first services outside of the Driscoll living room were held in a music venue—owned by church cofounder Lief Moi—in a space aptly named the Paradox.

“Do they call you pastor here...ordude?” a Nightline correspondent asked in 2008.

Mars Hill was slated to become the biggest church in the country. In its heydey, it was welcoming more than 12,000 visitors every week to one of its 15 satellite campuses in five states and reporting $30 million in yearly revenue.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/21/mars-hill-s-controversial-pastor-mark-driscoll-is-back-with-a-new-megachurch-in-phoenix.html