As well-intentioned Christians, we make claims about how God speaks to us. There is a plethora of sentimental illustrations that seek to bolster our claims, including, beautiful landscapes, picturesque mountains, the galaxy as seen through the lens of the Hubble Space Telescope, babies, puppies, trees, and the ubiquitous “two sets of footprints in the sand.” When Christians claim “God spoke to me about this,” it is a conversation killer, simply because these utterances can’t be verified by any kind of vocal recognition software. But this doesn’t stop many from continuing to make this claim. One such influential example of this in my life included the ministry of Pastor Mark Driscoll. Pastor Mark during the heyday of Mars Hill Church made many such claims of hearing the audible, authoritative voice of God, and I think I believed him. Certainly, I believed God was using Pastor Mark Driscoll to speak to me.

I listened with rapt attention to Christianity Today’s podcast The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill because I was one of the many pastors influenced by the ministry of Mark Driscoll. I first discovered Driscoll’s sermons online sometime in the early 2000s after reading a reference to him as “the cussing pastor” in Donald Miller’s book “Blue Like Jazz.” At the time, I was in the middle of a journey out of a small Pentecostal organization in which I had been reared and groomed to be a minister. I had managed to carve out for myself a modest vocation as a preacher vacillating between roles as a youth pastor, assistant pastor, and traveling evangelist. ...