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After college, Driscoll returned to Seattle and worked with college students for a year on the staff of Antioch Bible Church, one of the area's few large churches. Less than 10 percent of Seattle's residents identify as evangelical, and fewer still worship in mainline Protestant or Roman Catholic churches. In 1996, Driscoll founded Mars Hill, because he didn't see a church in Seattle that shared his missional vision.

Driscoll now uses Sunday services to equip church members to be missionaries in Seattle. The approach requires a high degree of cultural assimilation, a trait he shares with other emerging leaders. For instance, Mars Hill has made contact with many Seattle residents through the Paradox, a concert venue owned by the church that hosts bands with no Christian ties. And an early, outdoor Bible study that Driscoll used to grow the church allowed smoking.

In Mars Hill's early days, Driscoll struggled to find the right balance between unchanging orthodox theology and flexible methods of outreach.

"I also did not explain in written form that we were theologically conservative and culturally liberal, which caused great confusion because half of the church was angry that the other half was smoking, while the other half was angry that I taught from the Bible," Driscoll writes in Confessions of a Reformission Rev.

The church's unconventional look and feel has earned Mars Hill abundant local attention, some of it positive. The main campus meets in a former Napa Auto Parts store in Ballard, an industrial district giving way to urban hipsters. The simple, spacious building seats 1,200 in a dark auditorium. Young couples quickly fill the church's abundant nursery space.

Anticipation builds well before Sunday services begin, giving the worship a concert feel. Though I arrive more than half an hour early for the 9 a.m. service, college students quickly surround me and save seats up front for their friends. The music takes an indie-rock flavor. Two bouncers flank the stage. With tight, black T-shirts and folded arms that accentuate their biceps, they stare down the congregation. Earpieces connect them with Mars Hill's extensive security presence. Just inside one church entrance is the security headquarters, dubbed the "war room." All this seems a bit much—until you hear the stories.

Last fall, a man wielding a knife stormed the stage. Security sacked him before he could reach Driscoll. On occasion, Driscoll has preached in a bulletproof vest following death threats. As Driscoll would say, that's life in a city where nude bicyclists ride past a statue of Lenin.

Driscoll, while still emerging, no longer belongs to Emergent. Starting in 1995, Driscoll traveled around the country speaking for events hosted by Leadership Network, out of which grew Emergent Village in 2001. That's when Driscoll split. He began to suspect that Emergent leaders wanted to revise Christian orthodoxy. Since then, Emergent Village has advocated an experimental, open approach to theology. Emergent Village coordinator Tony Jones has not sat down and talked with Driscoll in five years, Jones told me. Though they have sparred over theology, Jones spoke highly of Driscoll's leadership gifts.

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September 2007, Vol. 51, No. 9