Mark Darling at WCCC

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[France]

I hear that Mark Darling is speaking at Epicenter tonight. I've heard some good messages from Mark but I've also heard some weird ones and I've heard of some disturbing ones. I wonder which he'll be giving tonight. Anybody there or listened to it?

[blonde]

I am not sure if this is true or not, but I recall hearing a sermon by Mark Darling taking about heaven, and what it will be like.  I was shocked when I heard him say that we all will have our own planet.  Is that like Mormonism or L.R. Hubbard's~Scientology?  

I need to review my MP3's and find it.  He has said many crazy things in the past.  

Listen to a few things he says in this MP3: http://sites.google.com/site/gcmstatementofweaknessexposed/MARKDARLINGQUOTES.mp3

+ In this he says he does not understand Greek or Hebrew, but can understand by the context of the parapragh.
+ In this he says he a prophet.
+ In this he says he does not like critizism.
+ In this is suggests his wife cannot take the emotional Mark Darling.
+ In this he says he does not like his sermons on the web.

What scares me the most is that he suggests to the listening audience that he is a prophet.  It is the last segment of vocal sermon vignettes.

[Time2Write]

The link to his message can be found online at :
http://the-wtc.org/podcasts/episode-1415/habits-that-will-change-your-life.mp3

He starts out talking about some stories where he gets in a car-wreck and car problems (martyr syndrome). Talks a lot on making the flesh better. Basically the message is that he does stuff and then God uses him. Mentions tapes he used to listen to by Jim McCotter, but never mentions him by name.

29 minute mark: "Do you know how long I have been reading my Bible? 37 years! Do you know how long I have been working out? 23 years! People who only read their Bible 3 times a week are not morally distinguishable from the world."

Works, works, works.

[blonde]

Mark Darling is full of himself and his idea about his church.  Darling started Evergreen with a telephone and home pamphlet mailler PR campaign in the South Minneapolis Metro (Bloomington, Minnesota) with then Tom Jollie of Padilla Spear Beardsley Public Relations of Minneapolis, MN.  Darling and Jollie set this up phone call center in a small church next to Brent's house in Minneapolis saying how this new church in Bloomington was up-and-coming.  We were just days into the new building.  Evergreen was started on a tissue of lies from a public relations profesisonal and Mark's dreams of a mega church in the Twin Cities.  See the professional Darling had going to the church at the time.  Tom worked his way from the mailroom, to writer to VP: http://www.psbpr.com/content/about-us/our-leaders/Tom-Jollie.aspx

The very fact they used a PR strategy to get Evergreen running, makes me question the whole lot of them.  It was not the "Spirit of God."  It was a marketing thing.

[blonde]

Another interesting factoid about those mailers sent to homes was John VanDyck was on the front of a few of them, saying how we needed church to be more fun and not boring.  A real PR stunt.  We had to make God cool and not so boring.  I never held onto those mailers.  Wish I did.  I wonder if Linda has any. 

[Linda]

No, I never saved any of them. Looking back they were quite offensive and divisive. They were also very clever. You could tell a professional in marketing was involved.

What I found most offensive was the theme "We are not your parent's church". It showed up in a lot of ways on the postcards. A general theme on many was: "Come to our church, we are not like the church you grew up in, but left because it was so boring, plus, we talk about topics that really matter and give you tips on how to be successful in life, none of that boring liturgy stuff, how pointless is that? Not only that, we have really cool music and it's really loud. It's not a boring organ and a choir like the church you grew up in. We are more fun and better, so come to our church."

Obviously, I am paraphrasing, but the themes of the mailers were very offensive to other brothers and sisters in churches throughout the community. Many called the church office directly and were later talked about in "sermons". I guess maybe they viewed it as persecution. I honestly think the leadership is still blind to that fact that they mocked other churches/denominations. They talk all the time about "unity" and not complaining, but then they turn around and mock the Church (big C church) in the community. The unity in GC is not unity at all. It's exclusivity. We are better. Challenging bad teaching is one thing, mocking fellow believers over their music, or vestments, or liturgy, is quite another. I really think a lot of it is ignorance about other churches.

I think it gets down to a misunderstanding of what the Church is. They forget that the church is way bigger than GC.

[blonde]

Linda said: 

They were also very clever. You could tell a professional in marketing was involved.

Linda it was Tom Jollie.  A very close friend of Brent Knox.  Tom is a VP at Padilla Speer Beardsley in Minneapolis by the new Guthrie Theatre.  He did a lot of that stuff in the very beginning.  A PR church with a PR pastor with a PR sermon with a PR light and sound show.  PR.  Where is g-o-d in PR.  No place.

I thought you should know Linda.

-Blonde

[Linda]

The thing that bothered me about the ads wasn't so much who did them (I mean, really, a buck's a buck...I don't fault the guy for turning down work for a friend ), but what they communicated through them. The main message coming from ECC/GC is one of exclusivity. I'm sure they don't see the arrogance and divisiveness of what they communicate when they say things like "we are not your parent's church". Or, sadly, maybe they do.

They like to think of themselves as humble, but humble people don't generally speak so highly of themselves and denigrate others.