Mars Hill (Part Two)

So, apparently, my blog has a page limit.  Who knew?  Moving on . . 

From here, Rob went on to talk more about the importance of defending love and guarding love, rather than just guarding doctrine.  The Greek word for guarding, keeping, or obeying is teros and has the connotation of a prison warden, but Rob also used the cheerier example of his family’s Australian Cattle Dog, Finley.  “That UPS truck may look brown to you and me, but all Finley sees is a bullseye.  It’s rough too when people come to the house for the first time.  He barks and bares his teeth and asks to see your passport, and it’s all very awkward.”  Rob put up a picture of the dog looking ever-vigilant with his back against a corner of the house.  “You know what this is?  This is our dog guarding one corner of the house.  So long as he is there, absolutely nothing will happen to that corner of the house.  I walk out there and take a picture of him, and he gives me this look like, ‘Hey, what’s your problem?  I’m trying to guard a corner of your house here.’”  All of this got tremendous laughter.  As I learned from two summers working in a veterinary clinic, everyone loves a good dog story, and I’m sure everyone present now had a much clearer understanding of teros.

“My dear children . . .”

Rob began wrapping up the sermon.  Love is the core of the Christian lifestyle, of orthodoxy and orthopraxy alike.  God is for us, acting always as an advocate, a paraklete.  God is on your side.  God is faithful and just and forgiving.  God is light.  God is love.  As Christians, we seek to live honestly and to confess our shortcomings and the places where we need to grow.  In this journey, we must always be careful to guard our love and be vigilant as we love the world around us (especially those friends who might as well have “extra grace required” tattooed on their foreheads).  Let the love of God be made teleos in you.

“My dear children, God is for us.  Is there anybody here today who needs to hear that?”

Time of Prayer

As the band prepared to play, Rob invited people to come to the center of the room and pray with one of the volunteers or staff members.  Each of these people had oil on hand for anointing, and Rob reminded the church members that, throughout the ages, oil has signified God’s healing and love and patience and blessing.  “Maybe you have a special need on your heart.  Maybe there’s someone who you’re just having an impossible time loving right now, and you need help defending your love.  Maybe you’ve lived through some rough times, and now you believe that God is not for you, and if that’s the case, come so that we can pray for you that your heart might be changed.”  As great as that sermon had been, it was clear that this event was not about Rob, but about the relationships between God and the individuals in that room.  The band began playing.

Tomorrow’s freedom is today’s surrender

We come before you, lay our burden’s down

We look to you as our hearts remember

You are our only God

You are our only God.

Not many people walked forward for prayer, but since I had a lot on my mind after the John 15:13 stuff, I went over and talked to a church member named Paul.  I explained a bit about my trip and the unexpected introspection of the past few days and the desire to prepare spiritually for ordination and serve God’s Church, and Paul anointed me and prayed with me.  I returned to my seat as the band moved into another song, a bluesy spiritual that I thought was probably their best song of the service.  With its simple melody and accompaniment, it had a very personal and authentic feel to it that some of the more polished stuff had lacked:

I want Jesus to walk with me

I want Jesus to walk with me

All along life’s journey

I want Jesus to walk with me.

 In my trials, Lord, walk with me

In my trials, Lord, walk with me

When my strength is failing

I want Jesus to walk with me.

I want Jesus to walk with me

I want Jesus to walk with me

All along life’s journey

I want Jesus to walk with me.

In my sorrows, Lord, walk with me

In my sorrows, Lord, walk with me

When my heart is aching

I want Jesus to walk with me.

I want Jesus to walk with me

I want Jesus to walk with me

All along life’s journey

I want Jesus to walk with me.

Rob gave people permission to leave at any point and asked the band to keep playing as people continued to pray.  As the band played and a few people remained in prayer around the stage, the room slowly emptied, and we had about half an hour before it was time for the second service.

9:00 vs. 11:00

My stomach was rumbling a little, so I went outside to grab more cinnamon sugar bagels.  I contemplated getting a little lemonade, but as I learned from my two services at Summit, when you’re doing back-to-back services, liquids are the enemy.  Sure, my throat was on the scratchy side thanks to the Kenyon Krud, and I had been coughing from time to time during the earlier service, but better to be a bit dehydrated than to risk missing something important during a trip to the bathroom.  Besides, I had a full bottle of Arizona green tea in my car that I could use to rehydrate later, so mummy-like in my dessicated state, I shuffled through the halls of Mars Hill and observed the new group of church members entering the building.

The 11:00AM crowd

While the 9:00AM crowd had been pretty hospitable (asking questions and even offering me lodgings), the 11:00AM crowd were a little more reserved.  They were waving to each other and greeting one another, but I was slipping through their midst largely unacknowledged, and my greetings to people were mostly returned with simple nods rather than conversation.  I noticed quite a bit of name brand attire floating by on people-- plenty of Hollister and Abercrombie and North Face.  It occurred to me that, while the 9:00AM crowd had come in from many suburbs of Grand Rapids, the 11:00AM crew were a little more the RiverTown Crossings set.  Everything felt a little trendier, and while the 9:00AM service had its share of middle-aged folks, this service was far more dominated by the teenage and young adult end of the spectrum.  It also dawned on me that the room was almost universally white, at least 99% so, and I realized my heavy biases in this department when I was filled with excitement at the sight of a woman holding a mixed-race baby.  “Yes, diversity!  What a relief,” I thought to myself as I smiled in her direction.  I thought a little more about it and realized that the community around the church is about 95% white, so the overly-white presence in Mars Hill really isn’t anything out of the ordinary-- just something I’m kind of sensitive to these days (especially post-Sandtown).

I went back into the sanctuary.  To get the full range of the Mars Hill experience, I picked up my things, moved to the opposite side of the room and sat closer to the back for the second service of the morning.  It was at about this point that I noticed that the classical violin music that had been playing earlier that morning had been replaced with ambient contemporary rock.  I wasn’t opposed to the change, but something about the 9:00AM setting had made me feel a bit more at home than this.  Maybe it was the people.  Maybe it was the music.  I wasn’t sure.  Still, the 11:00AM service was definitely the more popular one, and seats filled up quickly.  Midway through the first song, the place was packed.

Steve Mayer, associate pastor

This group sang far more loudly than the 9:00AM crowd, and the worship leader even commented on their volume and thanked them for it.  Even though there still weren’t a ton of raised hands, I observed a few people getting really into it.  One person up front was even jumping up and down with both hands in the air during the second song.  As Steve got up to deliver the announcements, a cell phone rang.  A few babies cried here and there.  This was a slightly more unruly crowd in that regard, and a few parents had to take children out as the service progressed.  I wondered why they hadn’t used the baby-checking system and then figured that maybe they were first-time visitors and unaware of that service.  It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if this service had far more “seekers” in it (as many qualms as I have with that word, but I’m sure I’ll get to explore that further in the build-up to this Saturday’s Willow Creek visit).

Rob’s sermon was fairly similar, but I noticed that he had definitely warmed up a little.  His illustrations featured a few more jokes and tangents.  He was moving around more.  When he did his explanation of the courtroom, he kneeled as the guilty party before rushing up onto the higher platform as the judge.  When he gave his illustration with the soccer ball, he went ahead and kicked it into the goal.  With each Greek term, he would lead the congregation by saying, “Let me hear you say teleos,” or “Let me hear you say paraklete,” or, “Let me hear you say teros.”  Even though the illustrations had been fleshed out, I felt that some of his theological points didn’t have quite the same punch this time around, and I wasn’t totally sure what to make of that.  Somehow, his points about God and the church and love lacked some of the pinpoint precision from the previous telling.  Perhaps, even though he was warmed up, he was also feeling a little tired.  I know how draining it can be to deliver even a 15-minute sermon once.  Delivering a 40-minute sermon twice with less than an hour of recovery in between sounds like torture.  Still, the guy is good.

I feel like the real difference between the two services came at the end though.  As Rob once again extended the offer to pray and be anointed with oil, there was an immediate influx of people to the center of the room, and lines at least four-deep formed in front of every staff member and volunteer.  It was overwhelming compared to the trickle that had come forward during the earlier service.  I thought about how these people had been less outgoing at the beginning and wondered if their slight standoffishness might have had to do with wanting the worship experience to be more personal (as that time of prayer certainly was).  It could also be that there were a lot of guilty consciences and uncertainties in the room that had led to the standoffishness, and now they were being assuaged through the time of prayer and confession.  It might even be that, even though I thought the theological points hadn’t been quite as clear this time around, people’s hearts had just been more receptive in this service, and Rob’s message had just reached more people this time around.  It’s hard to know, but it was curious to see such a sudden outpouring from a more reserved crowd.

Just like last time, there wasn’t really an official dismissal.  Rob just said that they would remain there in prayer, and we could go whenever we were ready.

Meeting Rob . . .

In between services, I had a chance to walk up front and meet Rob.  Obviously, there were a few other people who wanted to talk to him, and one of the church members had informed me that I should double-check with an associate named Brad before just walking over and striking up a conversation.  When I came over and asked Brad if I could talk to Rob, he responded, “Sure,” but he said it in a tone that really conveyed, “Dude, he’s like ten feet to my left.  Why are you asking me?”  Feeling substantially stupid after this encounter, I walked over to Rob himself and was immediately reminded of just how tall he is.  More than that though, I was struck by how profoundly human he is.  As you might expect from watching his videos or sermons, Rob Bell doesn’t come off as some larger-than-life spiritual authority; he’s just a normal guy.  I thought back to my eight-part question about being a celebrity pastor and realized that it really seemed kind of irrelevant.  Rob is just the kind of guy who doesn’t let a little media coverage or international speaking tours or pastoring a megachurch go to his head, and I think that, if I pressed him, he would give all the credit to God anyway.  In fact, my conversations with the people attending the service were pretty strong evidence that people weren’t there just to hear Rob; they were there to hear about God.

Instead of pursuing some very academic line of questioning, I decided to go ahead and get Rob’s pastoral opinion on something.  I told him a bit about my summer project and then explained that I had been working in churches for two years now, and even though I’m not burned out by any means, I do feel ever so slightly scorched-- kind of tired, kind of cynical, looking to reconnect with God this summer.  Since I’m preparing to be ordained in three months, I need to know how to deal with the possibility of burnout, so I asked Rob point blank, “What should I do when I feel called but also just don’t want to deal with it?”

Rob barely missed a beat in his response.  “All of this,” he said as he waved his hand around the room, “and even this,” he said as he gestured up toward the heavens, “can’t save your ministry if you’re feeling empty in here.”  He balled his hand into a loose fist and placed it against my heart.  “As a pastor, you have to do whatever it takes to stay fresh, even if that means just jumping in your car one day and taking off on a journey to who knows where, because, if our hearts are not full, then we are nothing.  Orthodoxy, orthopraxy, and all that stuff aside-- in our line of work, you do whatever it takes to keep your heart full, or you’re no good to anyone, especially yourself.  Keep your heart full so that you can do His work,” Rob gestured upward again, “and so that you can serve them,” he gestured around the room.  “So safety in your travels, Tom, and make sure you let your heart be filled this summer as you go.”

I thanked Rob and then admitted, “This is kind of embarrassing, but there is one more thing.”  I pulled my camera from my pocket, and Rob seemed just a bit disappointed as he said, “Oh, you want a picture.  Sure, no problem.”  Yep, I cheapened a great pastoral moment by acknowledging his celebrity status, and we both knew it.  I like to think that I would’ve grabbed pictures with Pastor Thurman or Pastor J.D. as well if I had had my camera handy during either of those services, but the truth of the matter was that I was just a little excited to have my picture taken with an internationally-known author and speaker of Rob’s caliber.  Being gracious about the whole thing, Rob grabbed a passing church member and asked, “Do you take pictures?”  We posed for the picture, and he shook my hand one more time and wished me a safe journey.

Last Thoughts

Okay, I really need to move on to Chicago stuff at this point, so I’m going to try to close the book on Mars Hill with this post even though I’m sure I’ll be revisiting some of this stuff later (especially when I finally get my hands on a copy of Love Wins).  I found a few areas of concern here and there, but I was still very impressed with the church.  I worry about the church’s relationship with its local community there in Grandville, but I was reassured by their very active focus on the global community, especially their work in Rwanda and their upcoming work in Haiti (the next target for 20 Liters).  I’m impressed by how much they’ve been able to mobilize their congregation, and I think they’ll continue to grow that ministry as they find new ways to motivate the church members to participate in events like Walk for Water.  Between the two services, there must have been well over 10,000 people in that church this morning, and I can only imagine what Mars Hill would be capable of if all those people were plugged into the church’s mission projects.

I was also very impressed at how the church handles having such a celebrity for a pastor.  From what I saw today, Rob Bell really is an all-star both in terms of his preaching and his one-on-one counseling abilities.  Still, he doesn’t let the limelight go to his head.  Even with his references to the Love Wins controversy, he seemed to treat it more like a fifteen-minutes-of-fame than some great accomplishment.  Also, the church seems just as content to hear the other pastors on staff as to hear Rob, and I found that reassuring.  I think that Mars Hill would certainly suffer if they didn’t have him, but that certainly wouldn’t be the end of the church.  The focus is on God, not Rob.  What makes Rob such a great pastor there is the content of his message, not just the way it’s delivered (even though that was one impressive delivery).  Rob’s message had a lot of things that resonated with me quite deeply, but the main thing that I took away from today was his simple instruction:

“Keep your heart full.”

On to Chicago.

Peace and Blessings,

Tom