Review:

Vintage Church

The Mars Hill Way?

Mark Driscoll’s take on how we should ‘do’ church pulls no punches

What is the church? If you repeat the historic belief in ‘one holy catholic Church’, what is it exactly that you are affirming? Mark Driscoll believes that not enough people, leaders included, know how to answer that question well.

Driscoll was baptised and brought up in the Roman Catholic Church and came to faith in Christ as a teenager. In his mid-twenties he planted Mars Hill Church, Seattle, now one of the largest and fastest growing in America, and he has become one of the leading voices in what has become known as the ‘new Calvinism’. His earthy, blunt approach to preaching and leadership, frank talking about sex, calls for men to be men and his willingness to wade mouth first into controversy have gained him followers and critics in almost equal measure.

In Vintage Church the authors argue that the substance of church must remain orthodox faith while ensuring the style of church is relevant to the time and place the church is in. The opening chapter deals with ‘what is a Christian?’ and declares salvation to be ‘by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone’ and the centrality of penal substitution is defended while at the same time other views of the cross are warmly affirmed. The heart of the book lies with his views on eight characteristics of a biblical church: regenerated church membership, qualified leadership, preaching and worship, rightly administered sacraments, spirit unity, holiness, the great commandment to love and the great commandment to evangelise and make disciples. Each chapter is written by Driscoll and is followed by short answers to common questions on the topic penned by co-author Gerry Breshears.

The ‘timeless truths’ that Driscoll defends include a men-only view of senior church leadership, believers’ baptism, the centrality of the sermon and preaching and a better understanding of church discipline. The ‘timely methods’ he advocates are a clearer view of what it means to be missional, a smarter use of technology, a strategic focus on cities, a generous approach to funding church plants, an investment in compassion ministries and a stronger understanding of how we can see our culture transformed by the gospel.

On the whole the book is much more openhanded and generous to differing approaches to church than you might assume, but every now and then this helpful approach is undermined by shots fired across the church barricades. For example, in the chapter on church unity, the authors make a really helpful attempt to distinguish between issues to ‘die for’ (like the resurrection) and issues to ‘divide for’, ‘debate for’ or ‘decide for’. Differences on gender roles may have been put in the ‘divide for’ category but in other places in the book it definitely feels as if it should have been in the ‘die for’ category.

My one other main complaint is that I thought the book should be called, Vintage Mars Hill: Time to follow our lead because it is so clearly a manifesto that explains how and why they do church in the way they do. As a result, the breadth and diversity of expressions of the global church narrows down to this one very particular expression of it.

Overall, this book contains helpful insights into preaching, cultural transformation and multicampus churches and mission. There is a clear pastoral heart to the book that desires people to be mature in Christ. Most helpfully, every chapter has countless footnotes referencing sources and scripture making it easy to check his working out as well as his answers.

The answers that Driscoll articulates in Vintage Church clearly aren’t going to be to everyone’s liking, however he makes his case in a straightforward and forthright way, aimed at equipping church leaders to think clearly, lead clearly and teach their people clearly about what a church is and what it means to be a part of one. That is a good goal and one that in many ways this book may well succeed in achieving.

HIGH: Clearly articulated goal of building Jesuscentred churches and what that means.

LOW: Pot shots taken at opponents don’t do justice to the author or the book.

Published by: Crossway