Jesus changes lives. Jesus makes people new. Jesus redeems legacies and steps in to completely and utterly transform people.
Some of these people have been sharing online how Jesus has used Mars Hill to change them, save them, and give them life and hope. Jesus is perfect and does perfect work, even through imperfect people and churches like Mars Hill. Nobody is off limits for Jesus. He already loves you in the most lavish way. He changed the lives here; he can change yours.
Some of these posts and pictures have been re-posted here, with permission, for your encouragement. Share what Jesus has done in your life through Mars Hill using #changedlives or share your story with us online at marshill.com/stories.
“Jesus is definitely at work in Tacoma. I love Mars Hill, especially because it’s where my husband met Jesus. People will always disappoint us, but Jesus is always faithful!”
—Melissa
“I pause to consider brevity when posed with the question ‘How has Jesus changed your life?’ Not a short essay possible there, but I can provide a quick-pass of how he’s changed my life through Mars Hill Church, although that account is getting longer and longer, given the 10+ years that have elapsed since my husband and I walked in the Mars Hill Ballard doors in 2004. Well-fed on the Word has always been true of our experience. Always. Add to that prayed for and loved. Add to that supported in our desire to raise our children in faith. Add to that mercy when we were in crisis. Specifically, that would be Pastor Mark’s faithful and bold preaching; the faithfulness of children’s ministry volunteers at [the churches in] Ballard, Shoreline, and Bellevue; and the amazing brothers and sisters on staff and in various Community Groups who brought meals, words of comfort and peace, and their praying presence when we lost a child to miscarriage. My husband was baptized spontaneously at Qwest field in 2011, my first-born following his example this Easter 2014. We love our church!”
—Danelle
“God has used Pastor Mark and my Mars Hill Family to thaw an ice-cold heart and an inability to truly love others at all, let alone a love that Jesus calls us too. To be able to tear down walls and find such freedom and rest in Christ, I can never express to my savior how grateful I am. I am so thankful for this church and how the gospel is taught without a lollipop and rainbow theology and let’s us know that serving Jesus is hard, but he is faithful. I love this church and its people; they are all in my prayers.”
—Aaron
Jeremy and his wife, Leah, baptize a new member of Mars Hill Church.
“Mars Hill Church is a great gift. God’s love for us—and his care for our souls—is clear as Leah and I look back at our affiliation with Mars Hill Church. Jesus brought us to Mars Hill early in 2005 while we were raising our son and living in Olympia. The journey God has mapped for us has been circuitous, to be sure. Leah was a Jesus-loving mom trying to follow me, and I couldn’t understand how to see the truth. Dangerous! But God, in his love, treated us with grace and mercy. Pastor Mark’s teaching from God’s word went directly to our hearts. In particular, God used Mark to provide me the courage to humble myself and recognize and root out sin that was devastating to my life, to others’ lives, and to my marriage. Mars Hill pastors walked through that time with us. Healing was hard, and took a long time. During this time we established with friends the first Mars Hill Community Group in Olympia and watched as Jesus drew people to himself through his community and his Word. We have witnessed with joy and celebration people become more loving, less selfish, and more like Jesus than they had ever been—and we count ourselves among them. We’ve watched many come to Jesus and be changed and blessed by his loving care. We’ve seen Mars Hill Church in Olympia grow from a seed (complete with DNA!) into something much larger (like a tree house!) where people can come to know Jesus better. We’ve even been given the privilege of baptizing people as they come to know him better. We couldn’t be more thankful to God for providing us a kingdom family and an anointed biblical preacher who speaks the truth from the pulpit time and time again.”
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:14–21
—Jeremy
Stefanie’s family is an evidence of God’s grace in her life.
“I am so thankful for the Driscolls and Mars Hill! When my husband and I first got married, we were a train wreck. We lived in a town where attending a Jesus-preaching, Bible-loving church was not an option at the time, and out of desperation I began listening to Mars Hill podcasts where I heard and understood the gospel for the first time!! As the Word does, it changed our lives and rescued us from total destruction. Today we are celebrating the discovery of being parents a third time, and I know we would not be able to celebrate that joy if the gospel had not taken us by the hand. Here’s a picture of our family, a testament to the goodness of God that we experienced largely through Mars Hill and Mark.”
—Stefanie
