Mark Driscoll ruined Facebook

I thoroughly enjoy Mark Driscoll’s ministry. I once flew 1600km to Brisbane to see him (when I lived in Townsville). I’ve downloaded plenty of sermons, and I subscribe to both his blog and the Resurgence blog that duplicates his posts. For a while the phrase “Mark Driscoll Fanboy” has returned my site in the first page of results on Google. In short, I am well qualified to make this assessment.

Mark Driscoll ruined Facebook. For everybody. John Piper may have ruined Twitter with his unabashed holiness – Mark Driscoll has ruined Facebook with his unabashed all round awesomeness – there isn’t an area of life that Mark Driscoll isn’t better than you at, nor one that he is not qualified to give you advice in. He is, of course, the model preacher, husband, father and man. Here are some of his status updates – each prompting an almost frenzied response from his legion of fans.

The Preacher

Mark Driscoll prepares his sermons in less than two hours while watching TV.

The Husband

The Father

His children are more perfect (in every way) than yours.


The Man

He goes to hardware stores. Like real men do…

He’s funnier than you. Even in puerile ways.

And you’ve got to wonder how often his status updates – that go to more than 50,000 fans – are “targeted”…

If you can’t read any of the text in those images click through to them on Picasa – these are all recent status updates from Pastor Mark’s fanpage.

Are you feeling inadequate?

Comments

queen stuss says:

I don't care how awesome someone is, unsolicited advice always annoys me.
But maybe if you are someone's fan it isn't really unsolicited?
I don't think I could follow someone who dished out this much advice.

Leigh says:

And Nathan, a man-crush (like the one you're exhibiting) isn't very manly.

st_eutychus says:

Man-crush – doesn't this count as an anticrush?

Aaran says:

I used to make fun of the girls who I had a crush on : )

GavHendo says:

Man, people's blogs are bad enough for inferiority complexes, now facebook too? Glad I don't look at it.

Jeff says:

Driscoll sounds like the dude at school with short man, or "small man" complex…
He never makes me feel inadequate. Heck I don't find him particularly convicting or compelling. Hope he doesn't pop a vein with all that self-exertion.
I'm going back to the couch to ignore my wife and kid, and not plan our holidays…and think very little of this week's sermon.

Leah says:

I'm with Stuss. If I was following him, those updates would be enough for me to un-follow him.

Tim says:

At least we see he still has bad grammar :) which Nathan I'm surprised you haven't jumped all over- Man-crush???? I think so
My recent post Can you hear?

andrew r says:

2 hours per week on the sermon!?!

friar_don says:

you forgot, he does it while watching TV.
My recent post Job’s Suffering, Christ’s Suffering

simone r. says:

[that was me.]

Robyn says:

It doesn't take long if you don't have to exegete the text.

AndrewFinden says:

I think it's somewhat cultural – my American friends' updates are generally much more positive than my Australian friends' updates.
The bald-eagle one, though, that could have been Lark News stuff.

Mitch Grivins says:

so he struggles with pride like the rest of us…

simone r. says:

Robyn- yes. perhaps. never tried it…

Johanna says:

Imagine Christmas letters from the driscoll’s. They would go off the boasting scale.

friar_don says:

This is FUNNY! My wife and I were talking about this yesterday after his date night tweet!
Sometimes I feel I can never measure up. That's life I guess.
My recent post Job’s Suffering, Christ’s Suffering

Nathan says:

Welcome Friar Don,

Nice to have you commenting on a post that in a round about way was inspired by your post on Piper…
My recent post Guide to writing good fiction

Ben says:

"It doesn't take long if you don't have to exegete the text."

Oh, sn-ap.

Aaron Reddin says:

You, are a douche.

Don says:

To tell you the truth, I used to come here all the time (right after the twitter / john piper thing), then I stopped using Firefox (because i’m dumb) which had you bookmarked. THEN, I got a new PC, reloaded firefox and saw you in my bookmarks.
It all worked out in the end.
Like the site though. Good work.

[…] effect and threw Mark Driscoll (@PastorMark) into the mix as well (inspired by this post, “Mark Driscoll ruined Facebook“). I expected fans of both icons to run to their aid and slam me against the wall, […]

Ben says:

In fact, searching ‘mark driscoll fanboy’ in google still returns your blog at the top of the list.

Nathan Campbell says:

Awesome news.

Emma says:

This did make me laugh (and show my husband), but unless Driscoll’s privacy settings are non-existent, it’s probably not a great idea to publish screen captures of his updates…

Nathan Campbell says:

His privacy settings are non-existent. It’s from his fan page – so I consider it public record.

Emma says:

OK, I take it back, should have looked him up before commenting. It’s clearly as public as can be :)

Nathan Campbell says:

It is good to be mindful of that sort of stuff though – so thanks for the reminder.

I do often consider taking this post down, because I’m not sure how helpful it is – and I do actually really appreciate 90% of the stuff Driscoll does. But then I look at his wall, and read his tweets and think, no, there’s something unhealthy about the personality cult that’s developing around him.

[…] there’s one thing I learned from the popularity of a post I wrote called “Mark Driscoll Ruined Facebook” it’s that posts about dodging a swooping bald eagle on the way to church get laughed […]

Dave N says:

I don’t need Mark Driscoll to make me feel inadequate…

[…] he did so while watching a Mariners Game on television!! Don’t believe me? See for yourself here. […]