Thank you!
Pastor Mark Driscoll wants to thank you for your financial partnership and faithful prayer for Mark Driscoll Ministries. The current sermon series, book, and project “Christians Might Be Crazy” is one I have been waiting a long time to release. The timing is perfect as our culture is in conflict and Christians are confused. For example, in God’s providence, I was preaching Sunday on politics as the Mueller report was released and media exploded. The main purpose of our ministry is to help people know Jesus and navigate life with Him in this weird world. I wanted to share one recent email I received from a young woman in college to encourage and thank you for your partnership:
"Pastor Mark,
I just wanted to thank you for this new series. For me, it could not have come at a better time, and I’m sure I’m not the only one listening in who thinks the same. I am finishing up my bachelor's and about to work towards my master's in English Literature and have recently been noticing the deep rift between what my professors and fellow students believe and my more fundamental beliefs. I have studied scripture and, to some basic degree, apologetics and exegetical studies with some Bible school background but nothing has fully prepared me for actually experiencing backlash and the challenges I have faced in “real world” terms. No one shows you how to deal with the emotions, the fear of rejection. Being classified as someone who is intolerant and “racist”/evil has l not settled well with me. However, I have heard so much hate and criticism, I hardly know where I fit or what my role/tactics should be in some of these situations. I came home almost in tears tonight after class, facing perhaps for the first time a true Peter-denial-type trial as my class discussed religion and aggressively mocked what I believe in without even knowing it.
It is not my personality on any level to be confrontational, and I often struggle to know whether I should stand up and say something (whether it will be productive) or be silent and listen (while obviously making sure to not pretend I agree with them). I’m sure you know or at least can get a sense of what is happening in college classrooms, particularly in liberal arts degrees, and the growing scholarly attacks on any Christian who believes the Bible is true and should be followed. What I have found is that people are less offended when you say you are a Christian but become enraged when you say you believe the Bible is true and has moral authority. How do I defend my beliefs to students who are often LGBTQ and a professor of medieval/gender/religious/linguistic studies who grew up Catholic with two lesbians as mothers who has preached tolerance and feminism and that anything else is evil and hateful? I want to show love and compassion and build relationships since these are people and the environment God has placed me in, but I’m feeling conflicted and afraid to say what I believe. I’m having to work with these professors and learn from them to get a degree. On top of all this, last year, one of my closest friends and Christian mentors from when my husband was in the Army told me she and her entire family are no longer Christian simply because of value differences in morals and it shook me to my core.
I’ve been listening to you for the last decade (since I was about 20) and I have always appreciated how you’ve shown how the Bible fits into real-world circumstances and is relevant across all of history, so I am excited and encouraged by this new series...I am sorry this email has gotten so long, but again, I was so encouraged by your first sermon I had to say something. I’m sure there are many others in the same situation as myself. I can’t wait to hear/learn more!"