Check your mailbox this week for information about the Generous Campaign (if you don’t get the mailer, pick up a copy at your campus this Sunday).

We’re kicking off a church-wide effort to raise funds for a number of local ministry needs and our global effort to see as many churches and disciples of Jesus as possible.

Why? Because God has been generous to us.

As we’ve learned in the beginning of Luke’s Gospel, there’s a biblical pattern of God’s goodness and our response (see Mary’s song in 1:46–55 and Zechariah’s prophecy in 1:67–79):

• Historical – God acts in space and time and people reflect on what he has done.
• Theological – God’s actions reveal his character to us. As we reflect on what God has done and what he has said about himself, we learn more about him.
• Biographical – What we learn about God changes how we live.
• Doxological – God’s actions, who he is, and how he has changed our lives lead us to respond in worship.

We’ve modeled the Generous Campaign after this pattern, and so as we begin I’d like to reflect on the incredible ways God has blessed Mars Hill Church, Acts 29, and the Resurgence in 2009.

Baptisms

As a church we baptized over 575 people in 2009. We saw fathers baptizing their sons and daughters, husbands baptizing their wives, drug dealers leaving lives of crime for Jesus, victims of abuse finding redemption in Christ, and men abandoning prolonged adolescence in order to follow Jesus.

New Campuses

We launched two new campuses and one new service location in September. With the addition of campuses in Federal Way and Albuquerque, and a new gathering at the University of Washington, what started in a living room with a small group of people has grown to nine campuses in two states.

Free Resources

Pastor Mark’s sermons were downloaded 4.4 million times in the last year. Every day we receive encouraging emails from around the globe—Australia, the UK, Africa, Brazil, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles almost daily. Jesus has used the Internet to distribute the Bible preaching we enjoy every Sunday to millions of people worldwide.

New Church Plants

The Acts 29 Church Planting Network is averaging one church plant per week. God has been gracious to bring great men and leaders to the network to further its work. We’ve now planted almost 300 churches around the globe.

Acts 29 Boot Camps

We’ve trained thousands of pastors throughout America and beyond our borders, thanks to the help of Acts 29 and many generous churches within the network. Some of our Mars Hill pastors even got into the mix and helped train pastors in Ecuador.

ReTrain

This year marks the official start to our missional leadership school. An inaugural class of 75 men from around the country have been coming to learn from a top-notch faculty: Bruce Ware, John Piper, Gregg Allison, Bill Clem, Rick Melson, Ed Stetzer, and Mark Driscoll. Each of the 75 men represents future church planters, pastors, and leaders. The global Church is important to us, and we want to train and raise up as many men as possible for the difficult task ahead.

ReLit & ReSound

This past year we’ve published a diverse batch of media, including Vintage Church, Religion Saves, PAC, Pastor Dad, and Rain City Hymnal. God has blessed us with great ministry partners, editors, and musicians that we’re thankful to have at Mars Hill.

All of this is in addition to hundreds marriages, new babies, restored relationships, and thousands little stories that we don’t even hear about.

We serve a hugely generous and wholly gracious God. As I look out over the scope and depth of what God has done and is doing, I can’t help but be completely humbled, thankful, and moved to worship. I hope you are too, Mars Hill.

Find Pastor Jamie on Facebook and Twitter.

Give to the Generous Campaign

Celebrate God’s goodness with us by giving to help us continue to proclaim the Gospel, plant churches, and make disciples of Jesus.

As we stepped off the plane, God’s grace was overwhelming, and the experience brought tears to our eyes. I can think of at least nine specific reasons why:

Pastor Dave Bruskas

Mars Hill Albuquerque is blessed with a humble, gifted servant-leader in Pastor Dave. He is a wise and gracious man of God with an incredible vision and passion to reach the men who are leaving a tragic mess of broken homes and families in their city.

Pastor Dave’s Family

Pastor Dave’s four girls are funny, gracious, and they adore their dad. His wife Kara is awesome, an exemplary woman of God. We stayed with the Bruskases, and they are a fun, uniquely gifted family that loves Jesus very much.

Regional Connections

I met one guy at the campus who had driven over from Arizona where he shows Mars Hill sermons at a prison. He was visiting Albuquerque to see what God is doing in Southwest and how he can continue to partner with Mars Hill. He said the men in prison are responding profoundly to Pastor Mark’s teaching. Prison campuses? I love it.

Family Baptisms

About two dozen people got baptized on the first official day of Mars Hill Albuquerque. I saw a father baptize his four kids—three daughters and one son. It was beautiful to see a whole family that loves Jesus and kids who are serving him from a very young age.

Pastor Dave’s Dad

Tom Bruskas is the nicest, most helpful greeter I’ve ever met. He opens the door for everybody who shows up, and he was there to lend a hand before and after service as the first to arrive and the last to leave. He needs to run a training program for greeters because I’ve never seen anyone do it better.

Families from Seattle

I met one family who moved to New Mexico from Washington. They were at the Bellevue campus one week, and in the Albuquerque congregation the next, already blessed with community in their new home.

The Press

Launch day provided many opportunities to talk about Jesus and connect with the local media. God’s favor was abundant.

Sunshine, Chile, Lighting…

Though many cultural parallels exist between Albuquerque and Seattle, it was great to experience a taste of what makes New Mexico unique. It’s always a tough choice between red and green chile, sometimes I can’t decide and settle for both—what the locals call “Christmas.”

The Lobo Theater

The venue for Mars Hill Albuquerque is a very cool space with a fascinating history. I love seeing what used to be a theater where segragation was practiced now be a place where God is reconciling the nations to himself through the work of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.

I’m looking forward to many more fond memories of Albuquerque as God builds his church throughout the region.

Find Pastor Jamie on Facebook and Twitter.

Mars Hill Global

New campuses, new churches, leadership training, and free resources for churches everywhere. In partnership with Acts 29 and Resurgence.

Our methods range from collective to fully distributed. To illustrate what I mean, here are some examples from the whole gamut:

Collective Efforts

Sending resources and support to Vision Nationals, helping local schools and community organizations, and building campus partnerships with established ministries like UGM and Bread of Life. Rather than creating our own service organizations, we prefer to partner with existing organizations that are already making a great impact in our community.

Hybrid Efforts

Examples here include MicroMissions (we provide much of the funding through micro-grants while community groups provide the vision, effort, and service to meet a need) and Redemption Groups (we’ve created this infrastructure in part to help people struggling with addiction, abuse, etc.). These are two great ways for small groups in the church to work together for the common good of the people in our communities.

Fully Distributed

Individuals within the church use their resources to love, bless, and serve those around them. We believe every Christian should be an ambassador of Jesus, bringing mercy to all their relationships and throughout the world.

We can track our collective and hybrid efforts fairly well. As for the distributed effort, we share some of these stories in our Changed By Jesus series and elsewhere, but community and life transformation on this grassroots level take place in many ways we’ll never fully know.

It’s exciting to think about the total impact of ten thousand people loving Jesus and serving others—an effect so great and diverse, I pray it remains lasting and immeasurable.

Find Pastor Jamie on Facebook and Twitter.

Community

Live the mission. Serve one another. Pray for your church. Do life together.

Five years ago, folks over 50 were an endangered species at Mars Hill so whenever a glimmer of grey hair showed up I was always quick to say hello. Such folks usually responded to Mars Hill in one of two ways: either, Wow, I feel so old, or Wow, look at all these young people worshiping Jesus.

Bud and his wife Joyce are of the latter variety. They love Jesus, and when they found Mars Hill they were overjoyed with the amount of younger people actually attending church of their own volition. The Johansens are the grandparents you always wanted: warm, loving, serving, wise and filled with joy. Every time I see them it’s a privilege to stop and talk with them; their joy is infectious.

When they first showed up five years ago, one of the first questions Joyce asked me was, “Does Mars Hill do funerals? Because my husband is about to die and meet Jesus.” I was taken back by her matter-of-fact approach to her husband’s death, and it was quite endearing and obvious that she knew Jesus and she knew her husband was someday headed to a better home with Jesus.

Since that day God has given Bud, a retired plumber, many more days to live. This month, however, he was told that, due to an inoperable aortic aneurysm, he may only have a few more weeks to live. I spent some time with Bud and Joyce this week, and, with death imminent, their faith is as strong as ever.

I want to publicly thank Bud and Joyce for their service to the church. “I’m one of the oldest members at Mars Hill,” Bud says, pleased to be a part of our church family. I spoke with him recently and he shared some thoughts for the congregation:

I’m so grateful for the Johansens and the joy they exude, their example as an older couple embracing a bunch of young folks, and their faithful demonstration of love for Jesus.

Please pray for Bud and Joyce as they hold each other close for their last days on earth together.

Find Pastor Jamie on Facebook and Twitter.

“It’s like a church in itself,” said Jordan, one of our new hires, during this week’s all-staff meeting.

Every quarter or so, Mars Hill staff convenes in a big room for updates, food, teaching, prayer, and worship. And Jordan is correct, with about a hundred of us now, it is a decent-sized congregation.

Unfortunately, our brothers at the Albuquerque campus weren’t able to join us (we’re still figuring out what it looks like to convene across state lines), but those of us in attendance enjoyed a celebration of God’s grace and some much-needed time to focus as we move into the fall.

I’ve been looking forward to this meeting for a while, in particular as an opportunity to proactively cultivate greater health within our staff culture. For example:

Clear Communication

Anthony Ianniciello (Media & Communications Director) and Nick Bogardus (PR Director) introduced our new Media & Communications branch, which brings all of our media, arts, and marketing under one roof. They’re focused on making our “Air War” more precise and our “Ground War” more evident.

Prayer—Not Just Talking About Prayer

As Pastor Tim Smith led us in worship, he invited everyone to speak prayers of thanks for what God has done in our lives and in our church and in our cities. A common sin of church leaders is to spend time talking about prayer and never getting around to actually praying. We want to be a better model of faithful prayer.

Clarity Over Ambiguity

Pastor Chad Toulouse gave a preview of an enormous project that is just getting underway. We hope and pray this will be a huge benefit not only to Mars Hill but also to the greater church. Our plan is to create a website that details all of our open- and close-handed theological issues, leadership guidelines, procedures, and org structure in an effort to explain our increasingly complex organization. Many look to Mars Hill for leadership in the church mission and governance arena, and we want to steward that influence well by transparently sharing how we operate and the biblical principles that drive us.

Guidance from Jesus

The common temptation of Mars Hill staff is to work hard until burnout forces Sabbath. Not good. Pastor Mark Driscoll provided a wise, timely, and humble word about how to organize regular times of silence and solitude—intentional time with Jesus—to remain in a place of personal health. He has also shared some of these things he’s been learning as a leader over at The Resurgence blog.

Celebrate the Grace of God

Two new campuses. Three new locations. Standing room only. Dozens of baptisms. The incredible gift of the Gospel of Luke. We have so much to be thankful for, and it was great to take an afternoon to share this together as a staff family.

Find Pastor Jamie on Facebook and Twitter.

Annual Report 2009

The 2009 Annual Report features stories and stats from the past 12 months at Mars Hill Church. Pick up a copy at any campus or read it online.

It’s a new season in many senses. Fall is (almost) here. Kids are starting school (I can’t believe I have a third grader, second grader, kindergartner, and preschooler). Football is on TV. And it’s one of the most exciting times of the year for Mars Hill.

I wanted to share my thankfulness for the gospel and its work in my heart and in the hearts of the men I work with. I am deeply moved with joy and gratitude for the work I get to be a part of and the team (our Executive Elders) in which I get to conduct it:

• Pastor Mark not only leads with excellent teaching and vision, but also by his example as a pastor, husband, and father. In recent conversations we’ve shared, it’s evident to me that his his love for Jesus is stronger than ever, and his trip to Greece and Israel was transforming and eye opening. We all will benefit greatly from his fresh insights into the Bible as we begin the book of Luke.
• Pastor Tim Beltz oversees our Central Operations. He is diligent to serve and keep watch over highly complicated and specialized areas that are vital to the ongoing health of our church—things like budget, facilities, and general stewardship.
• Pastor Rick Melson built a premier training institution (Re:Train) in academic equivalent of overnight. What started as an idea in January became a reality in August thanks in large part to Pastor Rick’s dedication to the work of the gospel. Many leaders are being trained, and it’s exciting to think about the future lives these men will influence for Jesus.
• Under the oversight of Pastor Scott Thomas, the Acts 29 Network has grown and matured immensely. He is a pastor of pastors, earning the respect of an entire generation of church planters.

These men excel in their area of expertise, yet they are men. All of us need Jesus, and we know it. Here are some of the ways the gospel has affected our team:

Laughter

Not only is laughter really good for the soul, but it also makes for a good gig when the team of men you work with can laugh freely and openly. The gospel allows us to laugh together; when we take God seriously, we can take ourselves less seriously.

Repentance

This is a team of men willing to admit when they are wrong, confess sin, and, in turn, offer one another grace and hope. The gospel continues to shine light into my heart, showing me sin and the need for repentance so that my life and identity can be more aligned with Jesus.

Unity

The gospel unites men of different ages and backgrounds to a common purpose. No cause, fact, or religion can unite people with the same depth and strength as the gospel. A team can pick up immediately when it’s the gospel they carry.

Hope

The gospel gives us encouragement from the past as we look in the rearview mirror and recognize God’s blessings, and it gives us hope for the future as we look expectantly towards more of God’s grace.

Planning

The gospel gives us the courage to plan and dream big. We serve a God who persistently loves, blesses, and encourages beyond what we could imagine.

Change

The gospel continually hones and refocuses our hearts, motives, and plans. Pruning and refinement, growth and change are beautiful things. We draw on Jesus’ grace in both our successes and our failures, and we look forward to yet another autumn and all that comes with it.

Find Pastor Jamie on Facebook and Twitter.

Luke Sermon Series

The new Mars Hill sermon series begins September 20. Tune in as we trace the life of Jesus through the Gospel of Luke. Watch the preview.

Local

Campus pastors lead and train local pastors and community group leaders who work together to disciple people, share the gospel, and serve the community. The campus leadership, well connected and accounted for on a regional level, provides the infrastructure necessary to maintain close ties between our Air War and our Ground War.

Regional

Rather than planting isolated campuses in random states and countries throughout the world, our plan is to identify men who can lead flagship locations within a strategic region and start new churches and campuses from there.

Global

Mars Hill campuses share common preaching, online resources, and administrative and theological leadership. Global efforts also raise funds to pay for expansion, provide free resources for the greater church, and serve as a catalyst to inspire others to begin their own churches and movements.

The Air War attracts thousands, the Ground War shepherds thousands, and leadership works to stay united through regional accountability that ensures everyone is on mission for Jesus.

Mars Hill Global

New campuses, new churches, leadership training, and free resources for churches everywhere. In partnership with Acts 29 and Resurgence.

Air War

The Air War describes our ministries that deal with the masses: preaching, teaching, events, conferences, websites, marketing, technology, etc. The Air War is measurable and often yields instantaneous results.

Here is a glimpse at the work of our Air War over the past year:

• Nearly 3 million visits to marshillchurch.org

• Over 11 million pageviews
• 4.4 million sermon downloads
• Nine new websites (including relit.org, peasantprincess.com, and marshillglobal.com)

Ground War

The Ground War describes our ministries that deal with people face-to-face: community groups, discipleship, pastoral care, service and mercy ministries, classes, counseling, Redemption Groups, post-service prayer, etc.

Here is a glimpse at the work of our Ground War over the past year:

• More than 3,000 official members of Mars Hill Church

• More than 350 community groups with 4,000 participants
• 39 elders/pastors (and almost two dozen more in training) and 67 staff deacons

At Mars Hill, we want a good Air War to gather and teach, and a good Ground War to disciple and serve.

Both the Air War and the Ground War must be united in order to be mutually effective. Tomorrow, I’ll explain a bit more about how we develop this balance.

Mars Hill iPhone App

Instant access to the entire Mars Hill media library—and the Mars Hill Blog. Get the Mars Hill iPhone app for free at the iTunes store.

The Resurgence Training Center (Re:Train) kicked off year one with Sunday’s introductory session, and orientation will continue all this week. A big thank you goes out to Pastor Rick Melson and his team for building a world-class program in a matter of months.

The Inaugural Year

The first class includes 75 pastors and future pastors who will spend the next year working toward a Master of Missional Leadership. The idea is to take guys who are ready for ministry and give them one intensive year of training to help them succeed. This training features:

• Theological education
• Practical ministry experience
• Personal leadership coaching

Mars Hill Global

Re:Train is crucial to our church’s vision of starting 100 campuses and 1,000 churches in the next ten years. The biggest obstacle in front of this goal is a lack of trained leaders. There is no shortage of opportunities or need, but we must have qualified leaders in order to cultivate healthy congregations and effective outposts for the gospel.

Please pray…and join up?

I encourage you to pray for those at Re:Train this week: the faculty, the students, the future churches and campuses they represent, and the people those churches and campuses will reach.

As you pray, consider where God may be leading you in years to come: are you a future Re:Train student? A future campus pastor? A future church planter? A faithful member who will be sent out as part of a core group to help start a new work?

I look forward to seeing how Jesus uses it for his glory. For those at Mars Hill and Re:Train, thank you for being a part of what Jesus is doing in our midst.

The Resurgence

Resources to equip leaders to live for Jesus, teach the Bible faithfully, and reach their cities with the gospel. Visit theresurgence.com for more.

The 2009 Mars Hill Church Annual Report will be distributed at all campuses this Sunday, and you can download it now (PDF).

This is our second edition of the publication, and already it’s proven to be a welcome opportunity to reflect on God’s grace to us as our church grows and changes over the course of a year.

We publish the Annual Report in August because our fiscal year wraps up at the end of June (it takes the finance team a few weeks to compile the yearly data), but the budget summary is only one part of a larger glimpse into what Jesus has accomplished this year. For example, from July 1, 2008—June 30, 2009:

• 6,703 average weekly attendance (Easter high: 10,552)
• 2,962,295 visits to marshillchurch.org
• 4.4 million sermon downloads
• 353 community groups
• 53 new church plants (through Acts 29)
• Hundreds of baptisms (including almost 300 on Easter Sunday)

In addition to recapping the past twelve months, the 2009 Annual Report picks up on the theme for our summer sermon series and offers ten examples of what “It’s All About Jesus” looks like in practice.

Read the Annual Report to get the full story, and look for the content here on the Mars Hill Blog in the days and weeks to come.

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