“Driscoll is nuts!” said one church member as he walked out of the third service of the day at Mars Hill Church in Ballard. I knew what he was referencing. I said, “It is so crazy that it is brilliant.” He looked at me like I was just as delusional. He tossed his bulletin in the trash, shook his head, and he shuffled out the door.

Pastor Mark Driscoll made the announcement, online and in a recent sermon at Mars Hill Church, that he wants 900 men to be church planters or campus planters. With Acts 29 at about 200 churches, 800 more are needed to reach the stated goal of 1,000. The goal for campuses at Mars Hill is 100, 93 short.

So technically, Pastor Mark needs 893 men to fulfill a vision he has to follow the mission of Jesus by planting churches through Acts 29 and the planting of MH campuses. The nutty part is that he envisions this being done in less than ten years.

It Can’t Be Done

That is what is brilliant about the vision. It can’t be done. It’s as nutty as Jesus looking at less than 500 people after His resurrection and telling them that they are responsible to make disciples of every ethnic group; every tribe; every nation (Matt. 28:18-20).

At the time, the world population was an estimated 181 million. Jesus was addressing a microscopic speck of the population and telling them that it was up to them to go to the different people groups who didn’t live in the area, speak the language, and 99.4 percent who held to a different religious system other than Christianity (World Christian Encyclopedia).

Jesus made one last promise, however, that made the impossible, possible. He promised the church then and now that He would empower them with His Holy Spirit until He returned. That same Spirit is alive and empowering us as we look to Jesus and ask what His vision is for Mars Hill and Acts 29.

“I envision 300,000 people worshiping Jesus every Sunday under the banners of Acts 29 and Mars Hill Church in the next ten years,” Driscoll said. Some people waited for the punchline, delivered in his frequently snarky style. But this time it was no joke.

How to Accomplish the Impossible

In the last two weeks, dozens of men have cast their name in the ring as potential church planters or campus planters. The average age is 29. One is engaged. Ten are single (most in their early twenties). Their singleness won’t last long when the girls learn of these men who are willing to dedicate their lives to the mission of Jesus.

The only way this work can be done is through the power of the Holy Spirit. It was true of the first-century disciples, and it is true of us today.

We just added fifteen more churches in Acts 29 this past week. Mega churches (2000+) are joining us en masse to help plant churches through Acts 29. At a recent meeting with one of our newest churches, the pastor told me how his church grew from 3,000 to 5,000 this past year—the same year their world-famous worship leader left their church to join another ministry. I asked him how this happened. He said, “It had nothing to do with us. It’s all Jesus. “

“It’s all Jesus.” That is how we are going to pull off this nutty vision.

Are you one of the 900? Register for next week’s Acts 29 Boot Camp in Seattle.