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Mark Driscoll finally made it official: He’s starting a new church in Phoenix. The culmination of a comeback that has been gaining steam over the past year, the former Mars Hill pastor announced the news of The Trinity Church on Monday by email, Twitter and a new website. In a folksy video on the site, which begins with a “howdy” from Driscoll, the pastor said he and his wife, Grace, sitting by his side, were “hoping, trusting, praying, planning and also a little” — he made a jokey grimace — “worrying about planting a church here.”

Less than a year ago, Mark Driscoll, an evangelical pastor, was flying high. His hometown Seattle Seahawks were in the Super Bowl, and the brash pastor scored a big, faith-fueled interview with five of the team's top players, including quarterback Russell Wilson. But in a remarkably fast fall from grace, Driscoll resigned Tuesday as pastor of Mars Hill Church, a congregation he founded 18 years ago and turned into a force in the mostly secular Pacific Northwest. In a statement, Mars Hills' board of overseers said Driscoll hadn't committed any acts of "immorality, illegality or heresy" -- sins that have...

Mars Hill is a mega church in Seattle that has made front page news in the Seattle Times. Seems the media wants to demonize Christian churches that have internal problems. I was wondering if anybody here has the inside scoop. Seems our church invited a new church, 'The Seattle Church' over to share our space and sermon for one Sunday. I'm wondering if this is a spin off of Mars Hill. When I do a Google Search to get information on 'The Seattle Church', it always comes up with Mars Hill. Seem the pastor of The Seattle Church was a...

Mars Hill Bible Church, the congregation founded by author Rob Bell, lost about 1,000 people over their former pastor's controversial 2011 book, Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, according to the Grandville, Mich., megachurch's new pastor Kent Dobson. Dobson was chosen by Mars Hill Bible Church in 2012 to replace Bell, who founded the congregation in 1999. "There was a lot of drama with (Bell's book) Love Wins and that season feels like it's over. This year has been one of sort of settling down a bit and re-identifying our...

Former megachurch pastor Rob Bell, founder of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Mich., recently shared how his 2011 book, Love Wins, led to a fallout with the congregation and forced him on a "search for a more forgiving faith." Bell details this search in a recent interview with The New Yorker, and discusses his invitation to Christians interested in a different kind of church, "one that can keep pace with the rising 'waterline of culture.'" "Bell is now loosely aligned with a cohort of pastors worldwide who are searching for ways to move beyond old-fashioned worship," Kelefa Sanneh of...

Every once in a while, someone of note questions or denies the classic Christian belief of a literal hell with eternal, conscious suffering. Then a debate rages and becomes personal between representatives of various perspectives on the issue... Hell is real and terrible. It is eternal. There is no possibility of amnesty or reprieve. Daniel says that some of the dead will be resurrected “to shame and everlasting contempt.” Jesus says, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment.” Paul tells...

Pro-life advocates, pro-family organizations, and traditional Christians do not expect to get a fair shake in the media, but the dogged, seasoned journalists of the prestige publications have overlooked a disturbing new trend: an increasing number of left-wing activists claim that destroying or defacing other people’s property is part of their First Amendment “free speech” rights. At LifeSiteNews.com, I have reported on the desecration of a pro-life display at Western Kentucky University. After a campus pro-life group got university permission to set up 3,700 crosses to represent the number of children aborted every day, a student named Elaina Smith placed...

Mark Driscoll’s sermons are mostly too racy to post on GodTube, the evangelical Christian “family friendly” video-posting Web site. With titles like “Biblical Oral Sex” and “Pleasuring Your Spouse,” his clips do not stand a chance against the site’s content filters. No matter: YouTube is where Driscoll, the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, would rather be. Unsuspecting sinners who type in popular keywords may suddenly find themselves face to face with a husky-voiced preacher in a black skateboarder’s jacket and skull T-shirt. An “Under 17 Requires Adult Permission” warning flashes before the video cuts to evening services at...

With Mitt Romney campaigning...his Mormon religion is coming under increasing scrutiny. SNIP Now Mark Driscoll, pastor of the high-profile Seattle-based Mars Hill Church, has added his voice to the fray -- agreeing that Christians should consider Mormons as members of a "cult" and not "brothers and sisters in a common faith." Writing on his website Tuesday, Driscoll goes on at length about the various definitions of a cult. He is careful to say that Mormonism has "outgrown" the popular culture and sociological definitions of a cult because of its enormous growth and general acceptance in the nation. But, Driscoll writes,...

Portland, OR - Black-clad demonstrators gathered in front of the Mars Hill Church in Southeast Portland this morning to protest the church's stance on homosexuality. About 20 protesters lined Southeast Taylor Street carrying flags and shouting obscenities as church-goers left when the service ended. "Shame on you bigots," one woman yelled at worshippers as they left. "Shame on you homophobes. You're not welcome here. You're going to burn in hell." She declined to comment for this story. Brad Salyers came to Mars Hill from Wilsonville Sunday with his wife and two young children. . It was his first visit to...

Martin Luther once said that God reveals Himself in the contrary. Love is revealed in a man, contorted with pain on a cross. And an inability to understand how this can work is what creates problems for those who can find someone like Rob Bell compelling. Justin Taylor has a good summary of some of Kevin DeYoung's work on this, and I commend it to you. But my purpose here is just a little different. I want to point to the present effects of denying the truth about our future in the hereafter. The future effects should be obvious --...

"My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” – Mary worshipping God in Luke 1:46–47 Mary was simply a very godly young woman who loved the Lord and trusted in Him despite great risk to her own reputation. She repeatedly appears as a devout woman who loved God and was a loving mother to Jesus. Contrary to some aberrant teaching, she did not remain a virgin, but mothered other sons such as James and Jude, who visited Jesus with Mary during His ministry (Matthew 12:46; Mark 3:31–35; Luke 8:19–21) and later became pastors who penned...

Mark Driscoll, the pastor of Seattle-based Mars Hill Church, will preach at the famed Crystal Cathedral in Southern California Sunday, June 14, and will appear on the “Hour of Power.” Crystal Cathedral is home to the Rev. Robert Schuller and his successful television ministry but has seen some decline in size and influence in recent years. Financial difficulties have caused the church to lay off staff and sell office space. Mars Hill, on the other hand, is among America’s booming churches. Driscoll preaches a “masculine” form of Calvinist theology that emphasizes the toughness of Jesus and Christianity. He also regularly...

Profile: Mars Hill Bible Church pastor Rob Bell Posted by slangford March 23, 2008 00:00AM Press Photo/Paul L. Newby IIFull of humor: The Rev. Rob Bell, of Mars Hill Bible Church, lets out a big laugh as he speaks to his congregation on a Sunday morning. Bell works on a sermon for weeks, sometimes months, before he delivers it. "A good sermon will exhaust you and inspire you," he says. "You'll say, 'Whoa -- that's a full meal. It'll take me a week to recover from that.'" More photos The Rev. Rob Bell hops up onto the circular stage...

Mars Hill Pastor Mark Driscoll preached on the still popular and still controversial topic of emerging churches in his latest sermon. But it’s an issue he normally wouldn’t teach to his mainly twenty-something church crowd in Seattle. That’s because Mars Hill attendants don’t use the language “emerging church” as many Christian leaders label them. The issue of the emerging church, however, was raised when thousands of people, who regularly tune into Mars Hill sermons every week through the Internet, voted to make it the No. 2 most popular topic they wanted Driscoll to address in a sermon series titled “Religion...

On a blustery day early this year, 13,000 people showed up at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., for what became known as "Porn Sunday." Two young California pastors with a website called XXXchurch.com - "the No. 1 Christian porn site" - were in town with a silence-breaking message. Their frank talk about the struggles many Christians are having with pornography has drawn huge crowds in several churches across the country, and now the Revs. Craig Gross and Mike Foster are planning National Porn Sunday for Oct. 9. "We were tired of hearing stories about people's lives being...