Mark Driscoll is a quick learner. He’s been in Australia only three weeks but on Wednesday night before ten thousand people in the Sydney Entertainment Centre he laid out the seven ‘plastic’ views of Jesus he says are held by Australians.

One of the reasons they don’t respond to Jesus, he says, is the good life in Sydney, which for many people is “a good enough heaven”.

The sell-out Burn Your Plastic Jesus event was part evangelistic and part kick-in-the-pants for Christians, particularly young Christians.

It’s well known in the church he pastors back in Seattle, Washington, that Driscoll has a special passion to reach young men with the gospel of Jesus.

Young men in Sydney came in for special treatment, with Driscoll saying they are “slow starters”.

Driscoll may have a young rebel persona but the advice he gave them could have come from their parents " get a job and get married.

Then followed some rapid fire jokes about the holiday he has spent in Sydney with his family, questions about why speedos are called ‘budgie smugglers’ and banter about football codes which he described as either ‘running in’ or ‘kicking’.

“I like the ‘running in’ one” said Driscoll as he warmed up the crowd for a 90-minute talk on the wrong views about Jesus.

Style, sex and the supernanny

Driscoll has done his homework and knows that the last time evangelicals gathered as many together as they did last night was for Billy Graham in 1979.

The style is vastly different to Billy Graham "  jokes about marijuana smokers would not have been part of the Graham crusades.

But even with that blunt style, the focus is firmly on Jesus.

The talk demolished seven views of Jesus, including the religious Jesus, the moralistic Jesus (supernanny from heaven as he calls it) and the spirituality Jesus personified by the talk-show religion of Oprah Winfrey.

He also took questions from the audience via SMS, and took the opportunity to poke fun at the suggestion that you miss out on life by becoming a Christian.

“I follow Jesus…you will notice that I’m alive,” he told the audience.

One of the things that strikes you about Pastor Driscoll in the Sydney context is his ordinariness. Most Anglican churchgoers would hear the same kind of things Driscoll was saying week in and week out.
So what is it that drew 10,000 people into the city on a Wednesday night?

For many it was the fact they had already come to know Pastor Mark through the internet, through his podcasts and videos. For them, the night was vintage Driscoll.

For others, it was to hear, like the title of Driscoll’s latest book, about the ‘Vintage Jesus.’