I have just finished Vintage Church by Mark Driscoll a book about and for the church. If you are not aware of Mark Driscoll he is the preaching pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, a multi venue church which has grown from small numbers to over 8000 in a matter of only a few years. Mark has a vision of church that is victorious, counter but in culture and focused on saving those around themselves.
The book starts with an expose of what Mark thinks a biblical church looks like, he bases this quite well in scripture and comes out with a list of ‘must haves’ for a church to be biblical. These include
- regenerated church membership
- qualified leadership
- preaching and worship
- rightly administrated sacraments
- spirit unity
- holiness
- actively following the great commandment to love
- actively pursuing the great commission to evangelize and make disciples
These he states are the core ingredients of a biblical church. Many others would add some things to this list and again others would take things away from this list. On the whole I think that it is a good starting point.
How these things then ‘look’ is very much a matter for each individual church and the culture that it is trying to effect. For example a church meeting in a retirement town might do those eight things completely different to a church based in a university town where the main outreach is to the younger generation compared to the old.
One of the more interesting chapters was about leadership in the church, in this Mark looked at what many would say is his own failing, that of humility or lack of it. It was interesting to read about how leaders should lead the church, which is in a spirit of servant hood, repentance and humility, which is at odds to many people’s perception of Mark himself. Having said that I have listened and read a lot of Marks work and I do find him on one hand very arrogant, he is remarkably sure of himself, and on the other very humble, willing to repent openly from the front and to seek guidance from other godly men such as John Piper and C.J. Mahaney.
The later stages of the book deal with a couple of issues that are very much of the moment, the use of technology in the church and multi-campus churches, something that Driscoll has a lot of experience of. For example all of Driscoll’s preaches are recorded on video and audio and distributed free on the internet, Mars Hill is also a multi Campus church which uses technology to show the preaching from one campus to all the others. These were interesting chapters in terms of seeing where the church could progress in the future and how Mars Hill does things, an example to copy or to discuss.
Overall I found the book very interesting, very clear and very Mark Driscoll. It shows how he does it and his perspective on things. As such it is very much a manifesto of a modern, reformed, technology rich, culture specific and multi campus American church.
It must be said though that there are other ways of “being and doing” church that do not fit into this model. However it is a good starting point and is a book for anyone who is interested in “the church”
