We recently received some good news from the folks at the Crystal Cathedral – Pastor Mark’s second sermon from the Hour of Power will air on Palm Sunday, March 28th, next year.

If you remember, his first sermon was on who Jesus is. The second sermon is all about what Jesus did as our Savior on the cross and deals with sin, death, hell, and the atonement.

We’re thankful that the Hour of Power has chosen to air the sermon and that they’re doing so on Palm Sunday, the day when the Church has historically celebrated Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem and towards Calvary.

As we get more information about times and channels we’ll post them here.

Death By Love

Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears tackle some of the most serious redemptive aspects of Jesus’ work on the cross. Find out more.

In addition to preaching at Mars Hill on Sunday and teaching at ReTrain over the weekend, Ed agreed to do a very special free event for everyone at Mars Hill and in Seattle. On Friday night Ed will be spend an evening educating us on mission. In my opinion, there are few better people to learn on this topic from, so if you go to Mars Hill or live in Seattle, then please come join us this Friday from 7-9pm at the Ballard campus.

Dr. Stetzer has planted, pastored, and revitalized numerous churches. He has trained pastors and church planters on five continents, holds two master’s degrees and two doctorates, and has written dozens of articles and books. Ed is a contributing editor for Christianity Today, a columnist for Outreach magazine and Catalyst Monthly, serves on the advisory council of Sermon Central and Christianity Today’s Building Church Leaders, and is frequently cited or interviewed in news outlets such as USA Today and CNN.

Ed is Visiting Professor of Research and Missiology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Visiting Research Professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and has taught at fifteen other colleges and seminaries. He also serves on the Church Services Team at the International Mission Board. He is one of the leading thinkers on the earth in the areas of evangelism, church planting, and movements. Ed’s primary role is President of LifeWay Research and LifeWay’s Missiologist in Residence, where he oversees a large team of Christian researchers examining the health of churches worldwide.

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.

Pastor Mark’s sermons were downloaded over 4.4 million times last year – expository sermons on books like Genesis, Nehemiah, Ruth, and Ephesians; and topical sermons like the Doctrine, Vintage Jesus, and Religion Saves series.

But did you know there’s a whole other source of Biblical truth and theology available at Mars Hill?

Some of the greatest hymns were written by theologians. Martin Luther, John Wesley, Isaac Watts, and John Newton took the incredible Biblical truths that captivated them and created Gospel-centered hymns that we still sing today – songs that still guide our worship and inform our views of God hundreds of years after they were written.

We’re excited to announce a new resource from Mars Hill Church that we hope will serve all of you – those in Mars Hill’s campuses and those in our global audience – as well as Pastor Mark’s sermons.

Pastor Tim Smith is launching a podcast that will deliver the newest songs from Mars Hill Church’s bands straight to your iPod. Here is his description:

The Mars Hill Church: Worship podcast will highlight worship leaders and songwriters from across the church as well as brief insights into the theology of worship and why we respond to God the way we do at Mars Hill Church. There will also be new songs with every installment. Join me for the first episode, which includes an interview and new song from Cam Huxford of Mars Hill Downtown Seattle and another song from my band Ex Nihilo.

Download the Mars Hill: Worship podcast and subscribe to the feed to get all future content. We hope you enjoy it and let Pastor Tim know what you think on Twitter at twitter.com/pastortimsmith.

Our Lake City campus is offering a Wednesday night service similar to their Sunday morning services as, not only an option for those who work on Sundays, but to challenge their people who come on Wednesdays to use Sundays to be active in their neighborhoods and communities. You can get more information from Pastor James Harleman at the Lake City blog.

The Ballard campus is also mixing it up by adding a Wednesday night gathering for community prayer and worship called At the Feet of the Father: 8 Weeks of Seeking the Will of God through Prayer and Worship. Pastor Bubba Jennings has a few helpful videos about the events.

Pastor Bubba Jennings and Pastor Joel Brown, At the Feet of the Father Promo 2 from Mars Hill Church | Ballard on Vimeo.

At the Feet of the Father, what did you have to say? – Mars Hill Church | Ballard from Mars Hill Church | Ballard on Vimeo.

Community

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

The first peek into Pastor Mark Driscoll’s upcoming appearance on Nightline was posted on ABC’s site today. The show’s series on the Ten Commandments begins tonight and he will be featured on the episode about idolatry. As soon as we have a firm air date for Pastor Mark’s episode we will post it here. The chances are we will have short notice so be sure to follow us on Twitter or Facebook so you don’t miss it.

In the mean time, you can read the article and watch a clip from Nightline.

Stay tuned.

Mars Hill on Twitter

Follow @MarsHill on Twitter for church news, answers to questions, post notifications, and gospel insight. #mhc

I love preaching and teaching the Bible. And I often praise God that I do so in the age of the Internet at a church with fellow elders who embrace technology for the sake of getting the gospel of Jesus Christ out to the world. When I began pursuing my undergraduate degree in communications before I was a Christian and before the Internet was even a reality, I had no idea how God’s providential timing was working in my life.

I want to sincerely thank everyone in our global online audience who enjoys my sermons and helps get them out to others. It means a great deal to me personally that so many people would invite me into their life to speak into their relationship with God.

It’s only getting better because we have more free content to give away than ever. So, I’ll explain to you what is next from Mars Hill and me:

1. We have upgraded our video cameras to the RED cameras used for major films like District 9. This means that the video experience at a Mars Hill Campus or online is better than live – for free.
2. We have upgraded our media player by creating our own technology to handle the high-definition video content we are now capturing and are giving it all away online – for free.
3. We have built an iPhone app that allows anyone anywhere to retrieve anything they want (sermon audio, sermon video, music, blogs, etc.) from the Mars Hill media library – for free.
4. Beginning with the new series, Luke’s Gospel: Investigating the Man Who Is God, we are transcribing the sermons each week and giving them away online – for free.
5. Soon, we will be translating the sermons into Spanish so that we can have some services with subtitles to welcome a bilingual congregation and will also give these sermons away online – for free.
6. In the next year we will take many of the sermons I have preached at Mars Hill as well as at other conferences and have those sermons transcribed and those millions of words given away online – for free.
7. As always, we will continue to capture in audio and video formats the conferences we host through www.theresurgence.com and give those away online – for free.
8. We are capturing the content from our lectures at Re:Train from men such as John Piper, Ed Stetzer, Sam Storms, Bruce Ware, Gregg Allison, Rick Melson, Bill Clem, and myself and are giving those lectures away online – for free.
9. I’ve written two free e-books that we give away online (see the last two resources at http://relit.org//library.php) and I’m working on another e-book we will give away online in the coming months – for free.

Of course, none of this is actually free since generous people are paying for it. If you would like to be generous and help us give away more, we would appreciate a one-time gift of any amount. A generous friend has pledged to match up to $1 million for anyone who gives at http://marshillglobal.com/, so if you give now, whatever you give will automatically be doubled.

Lastly, if you think about it, please pray for the hard-working team of staff and volunteers behind the scenes who are doing all the real work to make this possible. Anthony, Jesse, John, Mike, Sarah, Jordan, Andrew, Charlie, Rick, Nick, Andy, Sam, Seth, Patrick, Grant, Crystal, Nathan, and others are pulling long hours to make it all happen because they love you and love Jesus.

Mars Hill Global

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

This past week Mars Hill Church was devastated to hear that we lost one of our own serving in Afghanistan.  Sgt. Andrew H. McConnell was a new husband, a soon-to-be father, a son, a brother to 5 sisters, and a member at Mars Hill Church in Olympia.  His life was taken on Monday by an IED while he was on patrol.

Here is the funeral information released by the family today:

Tuesday, September 22nd at 1:00pm
Kent Covenant Church in Kent, WA

Please wear red, white, and/or blue. We want to celebrate Andrew’s life and his service to our country. The burial will be at Tahoma National Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, Andrew had requested donations to the Wounded Warrior Project. (You may also call Edline-Yahn and Covington Funeral Home for information: 253-630-2736)

We continue to ask that, as a community, Mars Hill Church honor Andrew by rallying around his wife and unborn child.  We can do that through prayer, service, and generosity.  You can share communication and coordinate service or generosity on The City or Facebook.

There is also a memorial fund to help Sarah and their baby through this very difficult time. If you would like to contribute, you can stop by any Key Bank branch. If you do not live near a Key Bank, you can send a donation to:

Key Bank
505 West Meeker Street
Kent, WA 98032

As a glimpse into the legacy that this man has left, one of his fellow soldiers in Afghanistan posted this comment on the Facebook memorial page:

Mac was one of my best friends out here in this company and still is. He will be missed so much. He was an inspiration to everyone that came in contact with him. No matter what kind of day you were having, he always brought a better light to things. There is no one that I would rather have by my side out here. You will be missed by so many here and at home. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all the family and the many of us that are hurting here without him.

After hearing his story we asked our newest pastor, Matt Jensen, to tell his story because it is more amazing evidence of God’s goodness. In a church in the midst of growth like ours, we often need to pause, see the lesson, and celebrate when God reminds us that He is in control. He did that with Matt, his family, and the U-District in a powerful way last Sunday.

Introducing: Matt Jensen

Two Processes

Over the last few months I have learned that there are two Elder processes at Mars Hill: the process that the Elders require a candidate complete and the process that Jesus puts a man through. The later is way more intense.

I love Mars Hill and was called to be a Pastor here over a year ago. While I have been in the process a lot has happened, especially in the last two months. In July my high school sweetheart Amy gave birth to our first child, Knox. He is amazing and we enjoyed him immensely for the first four days, but shortly thereafter Amy became very sick and battled with up-to-104-degree fevers for three weeks, going in and out of the hospital. It was a very long three weeks of having a newborn, learning to be parents, and my wife fighting a rogue infection that the doctors couldn’t figure out while I slept on a chair/bed that was neither of the two.

Looking back I think God was preparing us for what was next. Over those three weeks, honestly Amy was solid as a rock, and Jesus was more than enough for us, but the next season is going to put our confidence in Christ to the test.

Trusting

Two weeks ago my brother-in-law Jason Dahlke was killed in action in Afghanistan while serving with the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment. His wife Niki, Amy’s sister, was with us at our house when she received the news. It was a brutal day. My heart broke for Niki and is still broken for her.

During another long couple of weeks it has been harder to see Jesus as good and trustworthy, but deep down we know he is because he died for us and loves us. As you read this, please pray for Niki and her family to be comforted by the resurrected Jesus.

Baffled

In the midst of all of this we have been planning a new Sunday-night service in the U-District at Kane Hall on the UW Campus. There is much to do and the plane seems to be rolling down the runway only halfway put together. By God’s grace, most of that plane came together this past Sunday.

I was installed as an Elder and we cast the vision to the Ballard campus for the ministry I am overseeing in the U-District. We have a huge heart to see people in that neighborhood know Jesus and we needed some resources to get to that end. We have been praying for Jesus to come through with an adequate sound system for the band and sermon, but with a week left until the launch we had the equivalent of high schooler’s stolen-car stereo as our PA system.

After the 11:15 service in Ballard a young couple approached me in the foyer to let me know that they had a stellar turnkey sound rig that was completely mobile and would far exceed our needs this year. And we could use it for FREE! I was baffled! Who has one of those lying around!? Within hours we had it in our warehouse to be used this week!

We were also asking the people of Ballard to give $25,000 to cover some of the startup costs, all of which came in with hundreds of small gifts, a couple large ones, and a blank check to cover what was left! Most importantly we had tons of people sign up to come with us and serve as we get going next Sunday at Kane Hall.

It’s been a rollercoaster of a summer and I am sure this is the new normal, but Jesus has been and will always be enough. He is going to get his glory through our trials and in the U-District!

Here at Mars Hill Church we’re all about Jesus, and a big part of that mission is raising up and training men and leaders. That is why Pastor Mark preaches sermons like “Marriage and Men” and why we have the Resurgence for training and resourcing missional leaders, and Acts 29 for sending and supporting church planters.

Today, one of Mars Hill’s own, Andrew Pack, started an Acts 29 church plant here in Seattle. Andrew has served Mars Hill faithfully for years, most recently in campus administration at the Lake City campus.

We ask you to pray for Andrew and his wife Tonya as they embark on starting a much needed Gospel-centered church in Seattle. Pray for God’s leading and guidance, His protection and providence, that more people in Seattle would come to know Jesus, and that He would be glorified.

For more information on Anchor Church you can go here: http://anchorseattle.org/

Acts 29 Network

Pastor Scott Thomas leads the Acts 29 Network, which exists to start churches that plant churches. More information at the Acts 29 website.

A quick reminder that Pastor Mark’s first message on the Hour of Power will be airing this Sunday.

6 Million People Hearing the Gospel

Thanks to our friends down at the Crystal Cathedral for not only extending the invite for Pastor Mark to come down in the first place, but then also actually airing it! The Hour of Power is broadcast to over 6 million viewers, so please pray that this first message (which is about Jesus’ claims to be God) bears a lot of fruit.

For more info about where you can watch it broadcast, etc, check their site here.

Mars Hill on Twitter

Follow @MarsHill on Twitter for church news, answers to questions, post notifications, and gospel insight. #mhc