01 Jul This Week: Interview with Pastor Brian Houston, and Praying for Eastern Washington Fire Zone
Driscoll Family Update
After a dry winter, it’s been a hot summer so far in Seattle. In Eastern Washington, fire season is hitting hard and early. Last year there were multiple wildfires and much of the town of Pateros burned to the ground. Our two older sons spent a day helping fire victims sort through the ashes to find mementos. It was an unbelievable tragedy.
This year could be even worse. A pastor friend of ours has two church families whose homes burned to the ground this week. One of the church families moved into their new home, unloaded the last box after breakfast, evacuated around dinner, and before bed time their new home and all their belongings had burned to the ground. Prayer for the fire crews, effected families, relief efforts, and churches seeking to serve is appreciated. Hearing about this kind of suffering often provides perspective on life and gratitude for what we have.
This week we’ve had much to be grateful for at our house. First, for the few hundred friends with which we enjoyed a party for our family–including more kids than you could count jumping in a pool and on a trampoline. Our friends were kind enough to each add a note in a Bible by their favorite Scripture verse, which was a great gift to take home from the party.
We are also grateful this week to Pastor Brian Houston for sitting down to interview Grace and me, then showing our conversation at the Hillsong Sydney conference. We are praying that the remainder of the conference goes well, and we were honored to participate via video.
Lastly, we are grateful for those of you who encourage us with prayers and emails.
Here are a few recent favorites:
From Lindsay
“Hey Pastor Mark,
My husband and I wanted to thank you for all you’ve done for us. We attended your marriage conference in Indiana a couple years back during a difficult time… I desperately wanted to start a family and my husband (who agreed to kids before marriage) had a change of heart… After the conference, reading your books and listening to nearly every sermon you preached (all the way from Kalamazoo MI)… Our marriage turned a corner… I truly believe it was because of faithful prayer and your ability to preach the bible to men and women (especially to men, like my husband..the most amazing man but also needs a no-nonsense, unashamed lesson from the bible now and again). Truly, no other pastor has been able to reach us like you. We listen to you weekly and felt lost when we could no longer find you online. We searched pretty regularly and were elated to find you again recently! We will continue to pray for you and your family and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for preaching the gospel like no other! Here’s a picture of our (now 10 week old) daughter.????❤️❤️ We love hearing about your life and your family!”
From Dejanae
“So thrilled to see new updates about you and the family. You were the first person to explain (through podcast) what being a godly man looks like to my now husband. When we first met 5 years ago I knew he needed to hear you preach so he could “get it.” He grew up in the church but never took following Jesus seriously. Through you Jesus sparked a fire in him and I have seen him continue to grow into an amazing man, husband and now dad. I love your heart for reaching men. I’m happy to hear about you getting back into ministry as we have missed your sermons. Hopefully I’ll be able to see you pastoring a church again soon.
Keeping your family in my prayers”
From Brittany
“I never send emails to these kind of things but just really wanted to say thank you to Mark and Grace for their incredible courage and honesty. I must admit, I have never really been a fan of Mark, as I have disagreed with some of his theology, but was quite interested when Brian announced they would be coming to hear what they had to say. I have gained a serious appreciation and respect for Mark after watching the interview with Brian at Hillsong Conference. Mark- you had no obligation to speak with him or to answer his questions, but you were bold enough to stand before the Christian world and humble yourself, and did so with incredible courage and grace. Brian asked some pretty tough questions and you took full responsibility- thank you for being an incredible example. You showed serious growth and maturity. It’s not easy admitting our mistakes and taking responsibility for them and I just really wanted to encourage you that what you did was truly amazing. Thank you for you’re vulnerability and openness and know that we are backing you on your journey to restoration. As Brian said, you are a gifted man and we are believing that God will use this time to build you back up again in order to use you as an incredible force for his Kingdom.”
Pastor Mark continues to read your emails of encouragement and prayers that you send to [email protected].
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This week we have added additional parts of the series, “Luke: Investigating The Man Who Is God.”
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