Mark Driscoll Making a Comeback at a Missouri Megachurch & Hillsong Conferences

Former Mars Hill lead pastor Mark Driscoll, who stepped down from his now dissolved Seattle-based megachurch in October, is expected to deliver a sermon at James River Church near Springfield, Missouri, on Sunday. James River is an Assemblies of God church that hosts around 9,000 worshippers each Sunday. Driscoll is also scheduled to make an appearance at the annual Hillsong Conferences in Sydney, Australia, and London, England, where he will be interviewed by the church's lead pastor Brian Houston.

However, former Mars Hill deacon Brian Jacobsen has joined with other former members who are threatening a lawsuit seeking a full accounting of alleged financial impropriety at the dissolved church. They are building a case alleging that Driscoll redirected some of Mars Hill's money to purchase copies of his book Real Marriage to propel it to the top of The New York Times best-seller's list. That controversy, along with allegations of plagiarism, misogyny and emotional abuse within Mars Hill, preceded Driscoll's stepping down as lead pastor last October and continues to mar his reputation. But that has not stopped other prominent Evangelicals from asking him to appear at their church.

"Mark is unrepentant," Brian Jacobsen, a protest organizer and former Mars Hill deacon, told The Seattle Times. "Should Driscoll try to get a new church off the ground," he said, there would be an "awful lot of people who would oppose him in any way they could."

 

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