As a pastor of a church in 14 places, I kind of feel like a dad with 14 kids that I love. I love all of our people and all of our locations, and I am genuinely happy to go wherever to serve whomever.
In 17 years at Mars Hill Church, I have preached regularly in at least 21 different buildings, according to my memory, and it’s time to change the rotation yet again. Here’s the plan, starting this weekend, May 5th.
Downtown Bellevue
Mars Hill Downtown Bellevue is our largest and fastest-growing church. The city is a hub for the entire east side of the Seattle metro area and a place from which we can reach and serve more people more effectively. To accommodate the ongoing growth, we are going to four Sunday services:
- 8:30 a.m.
- 10:30 a.m.
- 12:30 p.m.
- 4:00 p.m.
I will be preaching live at the 8:30 and 12:30 services. The 10:30 service will be on video, while I drive to Mars Hill Downtown Seattle.
Downtown Seattle
Beginning with our upcoming Acts series, services at Mars Hill Downtown Seattle will sync up live with the Downtown Bellevue church. New services times for Downtown Seattle will be:
- 9:00 a.m.
- 11:00 a.m.
- 5:00 p.m.
I will drive in to preach the 11:00 live, while the 9:00 and 5:00 will play the video feed piped in from Bellevue. Our church in downtown Seattle is meeting in an amazing new building—one of the oldest church buildings in Seattle—and we have a big opportunity to love and serve the entire west side of Seattle from this location.
Other places I’ll go
In addition, I will be getting around a bit to preach at other Mars Hill churches. For example, I recently preached at Mars Hill Orange County and the afternoon service at the Ballard church. I genuinely love doing these visits. In Ballard, where I preached for years, every time I show up I get so many hugs from so many old friends it always feels like home, and any chance I get to be there is a blessing to my soul.
As you can see, this schedule is literally all over the place. It's subject to change, as it has for almost two decades now, so your best bet is to choose a location and a service where you can consistently attend, dig in, serve, and be a part of the local church family.
Please pray for the technology we’ll be using to make all of this possible, and my shuttling back and forth between the two cities of Bellevue and Seattle. Lake Washington in the middle carves up our region, and so we are trying to love, reach, and serve both areas.
More and more, the surrounding area is becoming like the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, with both Bellevue and Seattle contributing something unique to the Puget Sound region. The west side is the old urban core, home to many of the college students, cultural creative types, and singles working for companies like Amazon. The east side is the new urban core, home to many young professionals, families, and major companies like Microsoft.
We have an amazing series of opportunities for which we praise God and solicit your prayers.
