Below is an article I came across on Wittenbergdoor.com.  While I realize that Discoll can use extremes to get one simple point across, I have to admit this is pretty ridiculous.  It makes me wonder... if I were to pastor, would he say that I needed to belch more in public and grow chest hair or would I need to behave with more feminine gender rolls and bake cookies for the whole congregation? 

Mark Driscoll, Pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, took a dramatic stand against girly men at a Pastor’s Conference in Houston last week.

The conference, called “re:tool and re:load,” previously billed as “jesus 2.0,” featured speakers from around the country with the stated focus of “Making the Gospel and Missiology Relevant to Post Modern Culture.” Speaking at the last session of the conference, Driscoll focused his three-and-a-half-hour talk on the need for pastors to be more alpha.

“The problem with our churches today is that the lead pastor is some sissy boy who wears cardigan sweaters, has The Carpenters dialed in on his iPod, gets his hair cut at a salon instead of a barber shop, hasn’t been to an Ultimate Fighting match, works out on an elliptical machine instead of going to isolated regions of Russia like in Rocky IV in order to harvest lumber with his teeth, and generally swishes around like Jack from Three’s Company whenever Mr. Roper was around.”

Pacing the stage in a vaguely threatening manner, Driscoll focused on Biblical examples. “Jesus and Paul were serious dudes. They had teeth missing. Jesus was a carpenter, Paul was in prison. These guys didn’t eat tofu dogs and bean sprouts. They didn’t play tennis. If there were trucks back in their times, they would have been doing driveway lube jobs on a Saturday afternoon. Same thing with King David. Yeah, he might have played a lyre, but he slaughtered thousands of guys.”

The 300 pastors from around the country roared with approval, even though many of them had heard the same labored formulations at previous conferences called “reGeneration” and “resurge and reform.”

“At the Re:Ignite conference he talked about how Jesus and Peter didn’t wear matching sweatshirts that said ‘Best Buds’,” said John Kinston, a conference attendee who was live-blogging the event.

Kinston is emblematic of the many young pastors who support Driscoll. He planted Kiona Community Church three years ago in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. He attends 37 Mark Driscoll conferences each year, because he said he needs the support of fellow church planters and the inspiration of steroidal statistics.

“Numbers aren’t important, but we’ve grown 81.7% a year since our launch date and I still can’t get the guys to step up and be warriors," said Kinston. "We want to love our city and we can’t do that with a bunch of pansies who would rather play video games than go to a monster truck rally or tattoo their faces like Mike Tyson.

“At last year’s Converging Conference, Driscoll talked about standing up when you piss and I got really excited. We started a men’s-only Bible Accountability Group. It was a combination of scripture study and Muy Thai Stick Fighting. It was great for a few weeks, until my worship pastor lost an eye. I had to make a tough call then and there: no more Muy Thai Stick Fighting at Kiona Community without protective face gear. I still think it might have been a spiritual compromise.”

In Houston, Driscoll was intent on making absolutely clear that he is in favor of masculinity. At the 2 hour, 15 minute mark, he invited five pastors from the audience to take the stage, put his hands behind his back, stuck out his chin, and said, “Hit me with your best shot. Go on. I won’t hit you back. I want to show everyone what this is all about.” When none of the five took a swing, Driscoll had them escorted from the building and proceeded to hit himself five times.

“This is what being a pastor is about, guys. If you can’t handle it, go back to teaching yoga or playing My Little Pony with the other girls.”

The rest of the session followed the same general tone, with Driscoll ridiculing insulated coffee cups, haiku and dental floss as feminine while extolling athletic cups, tobacco spit and broken load-bearing bones as being “essential for a pastor.”

The blogosphere heated up quickly in the wake of Driscoll’s talk. At Jesuswasaman.blogspot.com, one post read, “This is the only thing that will turn back the tide of the Church’s decline in America. Until more guys step up and start punching themselves in the face, people will continue to leave the Church.”

Driscoll’s detractors had their say as well. At thereisaplacefordriscollinhellbesidehitler.wordpress.com, Angel23 said, “It doesn’t matter that Driscoll’s church has 6,000 people coming to worship God, if he continues to use words like sissy he will be smited.”

Driscoll turned down our request for an interview, saying, “Interviews are for wimpy guys who wear Sans-a-Belt slacks and chew sugar-free gum.”

By far, my favorite quote is: "This is the only thing that will turn back the tide of the Church’s decline in America. Until more guys step up and start punching themselves in the face, people will continue to leave the Church"  Yes, that is exactly what is wrong with the Christian church in America today; more men need to act like 12 y/o boys. 

In other news: Got myself a roomie! 

True story: until this weekend I had never gone camping... ever.  Unless you count One Day 2002, which I don't - surely just sleeping in a tent doesn't constitute camping.  Well, this weekend I finally went with a couple of my closest friends and it was fantastic.  I found this place that's out in the middle of no where Oklahoma and absolutely beautiful.  It's a large rock that covers roughly 10 acres of land and we set up camp on the highest point for the perfect vantage point of the upcoming sun.  (We sadly missed the sunrise because of the over cast clouds...sad times.)

The following day Anne and I went to the world's best water park, Turner Falls.  It's this beautiful recreation area in the Arbuckle Mountains, named for the waterfall.  We played in the pool by the falls (which looks more like it belongs in South American than in southern Oklahoma) before floating down the river on our little inflatable matrices and played on the rocks.  The river itself is rather shallow with constant cascading water, tumbling over smoothed boulders.  We later hiked up to the top of the waterfall and scaled down the cliff to play in the pools above.  That was awesome, except for the part where I'm severely sunburned and cut up from the underbrush. 

That evening we went to see Wanted.  Note to all of you, don't bother unless you really like great action sequences so much you don't mind if everything else sucks.  I really really wanted to like the characters but in the end, I didn't care if anyone lived or died because, well, they were all one dimensional killers.  Not to mention how predictable the plot was, which I found rather disappointing.  If you actually liked the second two Matrix movies then you will probably like Wanted.

On the bright side I finally saw Bella, which was a great indie film and I highly recommend it. 





In other news:  Marco has taken to wrestling with the young four foot tree in my front yard.  I'm thinking of renaming him Don Quixote. 

A great big thank you to all of you who have lifted up the Perry family in your prayers.  Flora was moved to a much better facility Monday night and received a pace maker to stabilize her.  Since then she has recovered from the coma and is now flittering in and out of consciousness which we see has wonderful signs of improvement.  The doctors are allowing family members to stay with her in the ICU at all times to speak to her in Chickasaw to keep her calm and comfortable.  Although she's not responding verbally yet, she has been responding physically (such as squeezing a hand and pointing) when spoken to.  We are hopeful that she might make a good, full recovery with as much prayer as is being poured out over her. 

Our own Chickasaw police force is looking into the attack and I have no doubt that they're the most capable people to find those who did this.  It's comforting to know that we have the Lighthorsemen. 

Flora has a ways to go in the recovery process and I can't even begin to imagine the spiritual and mental recovery she's got to make after such of an horrifying incident.  Thank you again for all your prayers - it is such a beautiful testimony to the Christian faith that even though none of you know Flora or her family you spend time before God on their behalf.  What a wonderful way to honor Christ. 

Blessings to all of you.