More Concerned about Faithfulness and not Fads

In my continuing research of Luke’s Gospel I have found some valuable resources.  One of the richest resources I have discovered is Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington.   Driscoll is doing something most mega-church pastors avoid, he is preaching through a book of the Bible line by line, sentence by sentence, word by word over a matter of three years.

Three years?  That is unbelievable.  I am not that gifted.  It’s just not in my bones.  I am not capable of such an extensive study. That is why I am attempting to preach through Luke’s gospel in one year.

I admire Driscoll.  He’s faced fierce criticism.  Some of it is self-inflicted and deserved; most of it is critic-inflicted and undeserved.

Check out what Driscoll said about preaching this great book:

Luke is the longest book in the New Testament with 1,151 verses (586 of which contain words of Christ) compared to 1,071 verses in Matthew, 678 in Mark, and 869 in John. This makes preaching through the entire book quite a daunting task. Even John Calvin never preached consecutively, verse by verse, through the Gospel of Luke. Still, between 1559 and 1564, Calvin did preach sixty-five sermons on the harmony of the Gospels. Some noted contemporary pastors who have preached through Luke in its entirety have taken anywhere from over one hundred to nearly three hundred sermons.

Admittedly, a growing church of our size with plans for additional rapid expansion is not supposed to undertake a project of this magnitude. Nearly all of the “experts” in the areas of megachurch trends and church growth agree that if we want to plant dozens of Mars Hill Campuses, plant hundreds of Acts 29 churches, and baptize thousands of new converts in the next few years, the last thing we should do is tackle the longest book in the New Testament with sermons lasting an hour or more. Instead, to accommodate people’s short attention spans and consumer desires, we should do simple, short series with pithy self-help topics compacted into brief feel-good sermons.

But we are Mars Hill Church. We’ve always been far more about following the Holy Spirit than following the trends. Furthermore, we have always been a church that has opened the Bible to learn about Jesus. So, after a few years in prayer and listening to the Holy Spirit, I proposed to the Executive Elders that they permit me to undertake the longest and most daunting preaching task of my ministry career, roughly three times as many sermons as my previous high (Genesis). After prayer and consideration, they agreed.

We do not know everything that will happen during the few years that we will be studying Luke, but one thing is certain: every week we will gather as God’s people to open the Scriptures and learn about Jesus Christ as the beginning of all that we are and do. If our mission is to flourish, it must be for that reason and none other. We are far more concerned about faithfulness and fruitfulness than about fads.

There are a few sentences that stick out to me, and I think describe specifically what we are trying to do at CrossPoint:

“We’ve always been far more about following the Holy Spirit than following the trends. Furthermore, we have always been a church that has opened the Bible to learn about Jesus. “

“…every week we will gather as God’s people to open the Scriptures and learn about Jesus Christ as the beginning of all that we are and do. If our mission is to flourish, it must be for that reason and none other. We are far more concerned about faithfulness and fruitfulness than about fads.”

Thank you, Mark Driscoll.  Thank you for your courage in leadership.  Thank you for preaching Luke’s Gospel.  I look forward to following your series as I preach mine.

Start familiarizing yourself with this, the longest of the four Gospel accounts.  We are going to study, learn so that we may have certainty concerning the things we have been taught.