"The Mars Hill Experience"

This weekend I made my way to Seattle. Now that it’s only about 3 hours away I was destined to travel there sooner or later. My wife lived in Seattle for a year so it wasn’t hard to convince her to go. We primarily spent time in downtown by the fish market and the space needle. We got to experience the first Starbucks coffee house and all the other gross stuff you get in the middle of a big city. However, the experience was fun and amusing to say the least.

The main reason for my wanting to go was to see and experience Mars Hill Church. First, let me say this I have never been to a church that was this amazing. I believe that it is a place that almost anyone would feel comfortable. From the security you feel starting at the children’s ministry to the weekly participation in communion, it’s an awesome place of community. I was expecting something to be wrong or something that I would not agree with but to my surprise I was blown away by the hospitality and the friendliness of all the staff. From every angle and every side I felt comfortable, something that doesn’t happen much too often at a church service for me. I figured if all this was so good than the teaching would be good but not great. I have heard Mark Driscoll teach on many occasions just never in person. One of the usher “ladies” got my wife and me a seat in the second row, something I am also not accustomed to but I was willing because of the welcoming atmosphere. I am a back row kind of guy.

As Driscoll got up to teach I was hoping for the best but expecting a mediocre sermon. As he began I wasn’t so taken because he started with the story of Adam and Eve and linked it all way to Jesus though the meals that have been eaten (Adam and Eve, the fruit in the garden, Passover, Jesus the last supper, and then communion). I’ve heard it a million times before and I began to lose interest, then that’s when something started to happen. Accompanied by the comfortable atmosphere, the dim lighting and the passion of a preacher there’s no wonder why this church is making headlines. Mark Driscoll blew my mind, he almost had me in tears, built me up, beat me down, made me laugh and got me more excited to be going to heaven than I have ever been before. Now that is something very few preachers and pastors can do, mostly when I am the one listening. From the time that he started on the applicable part of his talk I didn’t miss a beat. Almost every allegory, every word, and every story he told was captivating. I was literally humbled. Not because of Mark but because of the One that was speaking through him.

The one thing I was more amazed with than anything was the substance of the sermon. For an emerging missional church there was more talk about Jesus, sin, and the need for repentance than there was anything else. He had to at least reference the name of Jesus 50 – 75 times, something you don’t hear to much these days. And in all that I felt refreshed and revived by the time we participated in communion.

So why is it when I go to almost any local church I find myself uncomfortable and annoyed? Seriously, what’s the difference; dim lights, a few candles, passion maybe? Maybe it’s an anointing? But even the children’s workers were thoroughly great. The people were warm and so inviting. It seems that we are so focused on the “Senior Pastor” that we lose focus on everything else. The greeters seem fine but they’re not on the same mission as the church. The worship singers are good but they seem to be struggling and it’s hard to listen, they’re in their own world. Finally the “Senior Pastor” has arrived, hopefully it will be good. Oh no, we’re in Leviticus again and I am going insane. I can’t handle it; I can’t keep going day in and day out, torturing myself just to be here. I want rest, I want to be revived. I want to experience church for what it really is, fellowship with Jesus. Can’t we please make Him the “Senior Pastor” and let the other guy just be a leader or something. Can our focus be upon Jesus and repentance instead of the one man show?

I believe that when we move away from focusing all our attention on what the main guy has to say then we will have community centered on and around Jesus. It seems that is what Driscoll has done with Mars Hill, you can see it, inside and out. I do also think that movements and churches are lead and started by a one man as they are moved by God, history would teach us that. But when we place all our grievances upon him, that one man, we lose the credibility we had when we used to lay them upon Christ.

Church should be community built in and around Jesus, not a monarchy built around a man.

The church I experienced this weekend was not centered on Driscoll, with or without him the church would thrive. Although he is the man and the name associated with Mars Hill, I saw a church body participating the way it was always meant to, as a whole. From the time I parked my car, walked through the coffee shop, hung out in the foyer, check my kids in, grabbed a cup of coffee, pleasantly seated in the second row, blessed by the music, the dim lights, the powerful communication, and quality candlelight communion, I would have to confess that I had the greatest church experience in my entire Christian walk of almost ten years.

I can’t say that I agree with all that is Mars Hill but it’s the closest I have ever come to an authentic Christian body of believers meeting together congregationally and having Church. I only wish it was a reality in every city of the world. Mars Hill, you rock…thanks for the good times