By Shannon Mead

I don’t always have all the answers. 

And as the wife of a community group leader, I sometimes find myself in need of a little advice.  No matter how wise my husband is, sometimes it is inappropriate to share the details of situations involving women in our community group with him.  And turning to friends for counsel would often dance very close to the gossip line.  Not to mention, it is always good to have someone available to lovingly point out any of my, ahem, thorns.

Any one out there know the feeling?

Well, go at it alone no more.  During each month’s Sync we are now meeting together as wives to encourage, counsel and pray over the challenges that we encounter in each of our groups.  We have come together twice, and after each meeting I have felt so encouraged by all of the other women and excited about the mission behind our groups.

If you are interested in joining us, the Ballard Sync happens on the third Monday of every month at the Ballard campus.  Or, if you aren’t able to make it on Monday nights, email me at shannon.mead@gmail.com and I will get you connected with everyone else.

Read the Introduction from Pastor Mark below. Curriculum from the text will be posted weekly here.

From Pastor Mark Driscoll(see trailer here)

Jesus was a rebel, outlaw, renegade, and hardcore, sanctified troublemaker. He never sinned, but He lived His life by a set of rules that His culture did not approve of, especially the stuffed-shirt religious types. Examples include healing on the Sabbath, throwing over tables in the temple, eating with godless sinners, and not washing His hands before eating. Clearly, Jesus was no coward who conformed to social pressure.

Jesus was ultimately murdered in an attempt to stop Him from literally turning the world upside down, which was as effective as blowing on the head of a dandelion to exterminate it. Nonetheless, Jesus endured the cross, as Hebrews 12:2 says, “for the joy that was set before him” and never lost His joy even in the midst of betrayal, poverty, injustice, loneliness, pain, suffering, slander, and even death. Jesus was single-minded in His mission to pursue God’s glory in heaven and our salvation on earth. Jesus lived without those things that we would typically associate with joy, such as health, wealth, sex, and comfort, yet He is the freest and happiest person who has ever lived. Jesus is the most joyful person who has ever lived because He was the most obedient, God-glorifying, humble, sacrificial person who has ever lived. Paradoxically, He had joy despite being a “man of sorrows” (Isaiah 53:3).

Following his conversion, Paul patterned his life after Jesus and also lived as a rebel, outlaw, renegade, and hardcore, sanctified troublemaker. He too was single, broke, often homeless, and so hated that he got run out of more than a few towns after taking a good beating. Paul writes Philippians while he is sitting on the floor of a filthy Roman jail (Philippians 1:1317)-a brutal place and nothing like the Paris Hilton Camp Cupcake Clubhouses that we see today. Alone in his jail cell, flat broke, tired, hungry, sick, abandoned, and facing the prospect of a brutal death, Paul sat down to write a letter to his friends in Philippi, who enjoyed one of the few churches written to in the New Testament that did not sound like it had been taken over by drunk carnival workers.

Founded by Paul in roughly 50 AD, the church at Philippi was the first church in Europe. The church began when the team of Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke met with some Jewish women at their place of prayer in Acts 16. Their first converts were a wealthy upper class Asian businesswoman, Lydia, and her family; a demon-possessed lower class Greek slave girl; and a middle class Roman jailer and his family. Despite racial, economic, gender, and political differences, the church grew to be very healthy and filled with joy as they grew together in their love for and service of Jesus Christ.

(more…)

Community Group Leaders!

Mars Hill Ballard is requesting your help in a very important manner. We are in the process of recruiting new communion servers and wanted to present the opportunity to our community group leaders. We wanted members of our church leadership to be a visible part of this crucial element of worship. Although it is a vital part of our worship and Sunday services, it is not a huge commitment. Please let Samson know if you are available to serve communion at the service you attend. I appreciate your time and thank you in advance for your help.

Contact samson@marshillchurch.org for more information.

Foundry:

Historically, a foundry was a location where tools and weapons were forged and fashioned. It was a place where iron would sharpen iron, which corresponds to the biblical concept of community (Prov. 27.17).

As Mars Hill¹s one-day educational program, Foundry fosters community and spiritual refinement through one-day (Saturday morning) classes.
Participants can take the content beyond the classroom setting using an optional study guide, provided for further individual study, family devotions, and/or Community Group discussion. Foundry is open to members and church attendees.

EVENT:

If you are interested in better understanding Jesus in the Old Testament, there¹s an important event on the Mars Hill calendar for you.

On October 6 at the Ballard Campus, a course called ³Emmaus Road: Seeing Christ in all of Scripture² will be offered.

Luke 24:27 ³And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself²

Just as Jesus taught the disciples on the Emmaus Road after His resurrection to see himself in the Old Testament, this class will lay the foundation of the overarching Biblical story, studying Jesus in the Old Testament and our role within God¹s story.

This Saturday seminar is a great opportunity to grow in your knowledge of Jesus and to gain a broader view and respect for the story of God found within the Old and New Testament. Come by yourself, with your Community Group, or with your family for this valuable teaching seminar.

Schedule for the day:

9:00-9:45 Big Picture Overview (Pastor Gary Shavey)

9:45-10:15 Seeing Christ in the Old Testament: Garden of Eden

through the Exodus (Deacon Greg Joines)

10:15-11:00 Seeing Christ in the Old Testament: Conquest through the

Church (Pastor Bill Clem)

11:15-12:00 Breakout:

Track A: Christ in the Wisdom Literature (Pastor Zack

Hubert)

Track B: Christ in the Psalms (Deacon Andrew Pack)

Track C: Christ in the Prophetic Literature (Deacon Wendy

Alsup)

12:00-12:30 Conclusion (Pastor Bill Clem)

Here¹s the link to register.

https://www.sporg.com/pom/registration?cmd=event_info&event_id=93902

By Mark Bergin

For the past few years, several Mars Hill members namely Alex Kim, Kristian Ellefsen and me have made regular trips to Pioneer Square to fill the pulpit at the Bread of Life Mission’s nightly chapel service. We have opened the scriptures and preached the gospel to an audience of homeless and often substance-abusing men. Some of those men have since met Jesus and become members of our church and fixtures in our community.

But many others remain unchanged, some passionately resistant to repentance, others simply callous to a message they’ve heard hundreds of times before. Tragically, a third segment of this unregenerate contingent struggles to separate truth from the twisted theological perversions of misguided teachers and preachers. Frequently after delivering a sermon, I am approached with challenges to the plain reading of scripture. These alternate interpretations typically align with the prevailing evangelical heresies of our day self-esteem, health and wealth, open theism.

Where is Seattle’s most hope-starved population hearing this junk? From myriad pastors and church leaders more enamored with the man-centered cultural orthodoxy of our day than the timeless and God-centered word of life. The solution, of course, is more Bible-teaching, Jesus-exalting churches and by extension more Bible-teaching, Jesus-exalting preachers.

So I write this post as both an admonition and an invitation to any God-fearing man at Mars Hill who’s ever watched Pastor Mark on a given Sunday and secretly wondered, “Could I do that?” Here’s your chance: Both the Bread of Life Mission and the Union Gospel Mission open their pulpits daily for teams of industrious evangelical church folk to sign up and run a service. Between our 100-plus community group leaders and countless more apprentices and Bible-loving dudes, I figure we could flood those slots with gospel preachers and crowd out any pretenders.

I’m looking to coordinate a regular circuit of preachers who will learn from watching each other, read books together on preaching and ultimately see more hope-starved men redeemed by our great King. If you’re interested, shoot me an email at mjbergin52@msn.com. I’d also love to hear from any musicians willing and able to lead in song.

Who knows where this might lead, what gifts you might discover, what vision you might catch. I happen to know of a large and rapidly expanding Seattle church always on the lookout for future campus pastors and church planters. Maybe that’s you.

By Mark Bergin

Maybe all those contemporary praise and worship songs calling for revival to rain down are onto something more than just catchy choruses. Maybe they’ve tapped into the next new rage in missional strategy. After all, sunshine is no friend to religion. Church attendance dips as summer temperatures rise and Mars Hill is not immune from that inescapable law of American ecclesiology.

Community groups feel the squeeze on a smaller scale. By June, family vacations, summer concerts and double-shot margaritas have often trumped Bible study, leaving some leaders to facilitate discussion in a group the size of a beach volleyball team though usually better dressed.

So it is that many leaders choose to cancel regular meetings for the summer, opting instead for the occasional community group barbeque or sending their people to one of Mars Hill’s weekly outdoor parties scattered throughout the city. That plan seems agreeable enough, but what about sin? People still do that when it’s warm, right? How are leaders to shepherd their mini-flocks apart from regular contact and group prayer?

Here’s a thought: Use that weeknight usually devoted to community group to invite one family or individual over for dinner. Then poke and prod into their lives until you find some junk, smack them in the face with the gospel a few times and send them home with a summer assignment all in humility and love, of course.

Just because community groups are taking the summer off doesn’t mean Christians get to. It’s grow time. And if you’re people resist, pray for rain.