“Mark Driscoll appears to have a new project in Phoenix: The recently incorporated church will be a Bible-based Christian church without members,” said Warren Throckmorton, a Pennsylvania college professor who followed the Mars Hill Church meltdown for the Patheos.

It’s been a head-swimming turn of events for Driscoll in the dry Southwest:

— On July 30, 2013, when the Seattle-based megachurch was riding high, Phoenix became site of the 15th regional Mars Hill congregation. “It’s official @MarsHill is coming to Phoenix. Lord willing. Join the congregation or give in support,” Driscoll tweeted.

— On Sept. 28, 2014, two weeks before Driscoll resigned as senior pastor at Mars Hill, the church’s Phoenix congregation announced that it was shutting down and reconstituting itself as the Phoenix Bible Church. “We believe that God has begun something very special through Mars Hill Phoenix: As things come to an end on Sept. 28, we want to explore next steps to continue as a church family and essentially start a new church out of what was Mars Hill Phoenix,” elders wrote.

— On July 27, 2015, Driscoll announced a “new adventure” as he and family were moving to Phoenix, adding: “There are no concrete plans for ongoing local ministry as of yet. This remains a calling and desire, but my plan is not to rush into anything.”

— On Nov. 30, 2015, Driscoll and two associates incorporate The Trinity Church in Arizona. Driscoll has been back on the evangelical preaching circuit and has early new year appearances at the Zion Conference in Texas, the North Valley Community Church in Arizona and the megachurch-hosted Most Excellent Way to Lead conference in South Carolina.

Driscoll is also blogging, lately with an eight-part series on the meaning of Christmas.

With a congregation that started in 1996 in his living room, Driscoll built a megachurch with rock music, sermons that verged on the profane, blunt sex talk and controversial statements such as a famous blog post (under a pseudonym) that America was becoming a “Pussified nation.” He generated ongoing controversy by stressing a man’s leadership role in the home, and decrying homosexuality.

It all came crashing down last year with allegations of plagiarism in his latest book, revelation that Mars Hill paid a six-figure fee to a firm that would spike sales to get Driscoll’s book “Real Marriage” on The New York Times bestseller list and expulsion of Driscoll and Mars Hill from the Acts29 Network, a church-planting organization he had helped found.

Ultimately, 21 former pastors and elders brought charges that Driscoll had maintained a domineering and abusive workplace environment at Mars Hill. He resigned on Oct. 15, 2014.  The church announced its dissolution on Oct. 31, 2014, and went out of business at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

By that time, however, Driscoll was up with a website offering past sermons. He has since spoken or been interviewed at several major evangelical conferences.

“I would like to talk talk about Jesus instead of me: It would be much more pleasant and helpful,” he told a congregation at Gold Creek Community Church in Mill Creak earlier this year. They gave him a standing ovation, and more than 100 people lined up afterward to greet Driscoll and get him to sign their books.

A dozen protesters stood in the rain outside the Mill Creek church. When Driscoll was slated to appear at the Hillsong Conference in Sydney, Australia, an online protest petition drew more than 1,000 signatures.

Source: By Joel Connelly, Mark Driscoll starts new church in Pheonix, Seattle Pi, http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2015/12/14/mark-driscoll-rising-from-the-ashes-in-phoenix-ex-megachurch-pastor-starts-new-church/, Published 14/12/2015. (Accessed 17/12/2015.)