Mark Clark left Vancouver for the States several years ago, but his legacy with Village Church and beyond remains. Jason Ballard interviewed him for a podcast which was posted June 15 on The Pastorate site.
The conversation includes portions on how “16 people in his living room grew into one of the fastest-growing churches in Canada” and “what it meant to leave the church he founded and entrust it to leaders he loves.”
The Pastorate, which “comes alongside pastors in Canada to strengthen their heart, skill and vision to equip them for a lifetime of faithful, vibrant ministry,” now features numerous interviews, some with well known international leaders like N.T. Wright, John Ortberg and John Mark Comer and local leaders such as Shaila Visser and Darrell Johnson – but many also with pastors and leader we should all know more about.
Jason Ballard is Executive Director of The Pastorate, Lead Pastor of The Way Church and has had leadership roles at Alpha Canada and Christian Life Assembly.
Mark Clark founded Village Church, a multi-site church with locations across Canada. He now serves as one of the Senior Lead Pastors at Bayside Church in California. He has written several books and hosts a podcast.
Following are few portions of the conversation (and it really is more of a conversation than an interview); go here for the full thing.
Jason Ballard: I have the privilege of having shared a city, doing ministry with you in the same place, for maybe it was 10 years or so. I remember Village Church as a church plant. I had a buddy that was part of it when it was in the early days – and hearing you preach for the first time and then seeing this church grow.
To say that Village Church and your ministry has like made a mark, not just on the Lower Mainland of BC but on Canada, feels like an understatement. And I just feel deep gratitude for you and some of the obedience and yeses and courage along the way. And so thank you so much, man. Thanks for all you’ve done. . . .
Clark spoke about the pressure he was under as Village Church grew exponentially; he said his team was there to help prevent him from burning out.
JB: I just think leading is hard. It’s easy to be a critic of leaders. It’s hard to lead. The nature of leadership is you’re making decisions. If there was a decision to be made in a circumstance that everyone agreed on and had no negative results, you wouldn’t need leadership. Everyone would just know what to do. The nature of leadership is you’re making decisions. You’re trying to move forward and you were . . . almost constantly for those first 10 years in uncharted territory.
I’ve had to go back – I haven’t done all the work; I’m not trying to hash everything out – but almost extend grace to younger versions of myself, going, “Hey, man, there wasn’t a playbook to follow.”
If you don’t do any of that work, looking back, celebrating what God did and his grace, but also going, “Hey, you know, I wasn’t at my best. I overdid it. I was running on fumes,” and extend a measure of grace to that, you end up just sort of calcifying some of that stuff and you end up with these huge blind spots.
I just appreciate that you were able to navigate such an extreme season and lots of fruit from it, but also recalibrate and renegotiate. How do I want to be in this? Because I don’t want to, I want to keep serving Jesus and serving my family well for decades.
Mark Clark: But what I should have done – I don’t want to say I didn’t train up younger leaders and preachers . . . you know them right?
JB: Yeah.
MC: The Michael Chinchillas, the Chris de Monyés, the Victors – all these are people that I intentionally did, and other people did, pour into and and try to give a platform to. So, I don’t want to beat myself up too much, but I probably could have done that better or quicker. . . .
Looking back . . . I should have platformed those guys a little bit more and poured into them a little bit more and and quickened their development and been more passionate about their development. I think Village would have been stronger quicker.
JB: I had Finu [ Iype – Village Church’s Senior Pastor, Preaching, Mission & Advancement] on not too long ago, which was really fun. . . . Obviously when a founding pastor leaves things change, but hearing from Finu it was so meaningful to hear, yeah, some early recalibration, but so much meaningful new growth. People coming to know Jesus, new leaders finding their voice. What’s that experience been like for you?
MC: Oh, I hate it. [laughter] I thought it was going to crash and burn. No, no, no. Here’s what I love. . . .
I believe in [Finu]. I believe in the whole team. I love all the Village crew and think they’re killing it, and it gives me nothing but joy to see it grow.
I said earlier, I didn’t grow up in church. So to me this weird church culture – if something’s doing good it means it didn’t need you and the church down the street is like the competition – this stuff’s crazy to me. It’s so crazy because I don’t care about church life that much. If you have a church of a thousand you’re like a drop in the bucket; there’s millions of people who need to come to know Jesus.
You are a big fish in a very small pond and it’s impressive, but it’s not actually. There’s millions of people out there who don’t know Jesus; just because you shuffled some Christians around and now a thousand people come to your church doesn’t mean . . .
JB: And in the context of the global church, we’re part of such an incredible kingdom movement. We lose the plot when we narrow in on the one thing.
MC: Yes. Exactly. So, I got nothing but I want [Village Church] to win win win, build that building. I’m watching them, cheering them on. They’re getting the building that I’d sat in meetings since 2012 [laughter] and finally they’ve actually got a tractor in there. They’re digging it up and it’s so exciting to watch. . . .
Clark addressed the challenges of leaving Village Church:
MC: The hardest part to me was leaving the staff who [had been] doing other things. They were running companies and whatever and they left that to join the team – and then here I am leaving them. I think the hardest part was, this is just what God has for me next in my adventure and I’m not even going to understand it for a few years, but it’s starting to kind of become clear. Anyway, that’s just something I’m passionate about.
In the podcast you’ll hear:
- How an atheist kid from Ontario became a church planter in one of Canada’s most secular cities;
- Why patience, the right time, people and season, mattered more than urgency in the plant;
- How to preach to the skeptic and the lifelong believer in the same room;
- What the burnout seasons cost Mark, and the team decision that reshaped his preaching;
- Why he left the church he founded, and what it’s been like to watch it flourish under new leadership;
- How Zechariah 10 reframed his calling around raising and releasing the next generation of leaders.
I posted this article in 2022, when Mark Clark left Village Church.