Regular Attender - Albuquerque 2013

Gender

Male

Which describes your role at Mars Hill?

Regular Attender

What Mars Hill location(s) did you attend?

Albuquerque

What years were you involved / attending?

2013

How did you first hear about Mars Hill?

I think I read about it online.

What was the circumstance of your first time attending Mars HIll?

I was at a temporary job assignment in Albuquerque and my wife and I needed I church to attend. I have spent my whole life in evangelical churches of some form (mostly Baptist) so I was pretty much right at home. The Calvinist aspect were the only things that were really new but they were typically pretty subtle.

What were your first impressions?

I loved it, the community was great, and the worship was heartfelt. The teleconference sermons took some getting used to but their quality made it worthwhile. It was like the apostle Paul could be at all the churches at once, why not take advantage of that?

Why was Mars Hill your church home?

I needed a church home and this one was a great community. The community groups were excellent and formed my closest group of friends.

What about your time at Mars Hill has had a positive impact on you?

The sermons really did have a grounding effect at a time when I felt somewhat uprooted. It was  the closest thing I had to a church home in years

What about your time at Mars Hill has had a negative impact on you?

I really don’t harbor any ill feeling.

What would you like to have changed about Mars Hill?

At the time, not a whole lot, maybe more in person sermons. Now, just about everything, but that’s a little complicated.

Which describes you?

I left Mars Hill prior to closure.


Please describe why you left Mars Hill and what that experience was like.

It moved to another city, so it was as simple as that. I joined an Act 29 network church so I monitored the fallout closely while it was occurring.


How would you describe the reason for Mars Hill's closure to an outsider.

While I was attending Mars Hill, I told myself that this was about more than Mark Driscoll. That he was the leader of a church he started but that the organization was its own entity. Lots of CEOs leave or are forced out of the companies they start, right? But as the heat was turned up on pastor Mark, it became obvious that he had made a sufficient number personal mistakes to necessitate stepping down for a while. The open letter incident was where he really started losing my support, but when he announced his resignation and Mars Hill immediately declared its intent to disband, I realized I had been wrong. While God had a place, Mars Hill had been about Mark Driscoll all along and couldn’t hold itself together anymore.


What's changed for you since your time at Mars Hill came to an end?

For reasons that really cannot be attributed to Mars Hill or Mark Driscoll, my wife and I have converted to Orthodox Christianity (through and OCA parish). I would never have become Roman Catholic (and still couldn’t) because I disagreed with so much of their theology, but Orthodox Christianity was like discovering the early church is still around. Now I reflect on Mars Hill as a lesson about the dangers of creating human institutions as part of an invisible church. Orthodox Christianity has had some enormous problems throughout its history (external persecution, internal greed, corruption etc.) but has weathered these storms because it’s not built on the back of a single individual (be he Pope, Pastor or Patriarch).