Mars Hill cuts branches, personnel as giving declines amid controversy

After 18 years of explosive growth, officials at Seattle megachurch Mars Hill say financial pressures in the wake of recent negative media attention are forcing them to cut staff and eliminate some branches, including consolidating three Seattle congregations, leaders announced Sunday.

The church, which had blossomed to 15 branches in five states and had followers around the world, also plans to cut 30 percent to 40 percent of its paid staff of about 100. That staff already had seen layoffs last spring and a string of departures in recent weeks by pastors angry or uneasy about the church’s direction.

Also closing or possibly reconstituting in some other form is a Mars Hill branch in Phoenix. A branch in Huntington Beach, California, is in jeopardy if its financial picture does not improve.

The announcements about the influential and controversial organization Pastor Mark Driscoll started as a Bible study class in his Seattle home in 1996 come after six months of often-public questions about his management, leadership style and forthrightness.

The decisions also come just weeks after Driscoll announced he was stepping down for six weeks while accusations against him were investigated, and suggest the constant debate about Driscoll and Mars Hill leadership has had an enormous impact on the church’s once-booming popularity.

At the start of the year, attendance at all Mars Hill branches combined was about 12,000 to 13,000 a week, church spokesman Justin Dean said, but is now down to 8,000 or 9,000 a week.

And most of the drop has come this summer.

“We’ve basically found ourselves in a tough financial position,” Dean said. “We started the year the strongest we’ve ever been, but since then we’ve seen a decline in attendance and giving, and we saw a steep decline over the last two months.”

The preaching of the charismatic, jeans-clad Driscoll has been controversial for years, particularly his views about homosexuality and the roles of women.

But the recent storm really started forming late last year when an evangelical radio host accused Driscoll of plagiarizing some passages in one of his books. Then critics revealed Mars Hill used church money to have a company buy up one of his books to boost sales.

Later, the church admitted that some money congregants believed they were giving to start churches overseas was being used for regular church expenses.