Mars Hill (Part 3)- Money, Worship, and a Quick Recap of Service #1

Mars Hill Needs Money

Remember that ever-so-slightly cryptic comment I made at the beginning of this post about the church needing to be about more than numbers and how I kind of alluded to budgets and attendance as inaccurate indicators of spiritual activity?  Yeah, this is what prompted that statement . . .

Pastor Bill returned to the now-vacant stage to get specific about stewardship.  While Pastor Mark had talked about Mars Hill’s overall figures, Bill would talk specifically about the Ballard campus.  Bill reported that 3,500 people worship at Ballard each week, of which 314 are kids.  There are 118 community groups, 1,751 official members, and Ballard counts itself as part of the full 1,246 baptisms Pastor Mark had cited previously.  Bill did not say how many of these baptisms were Ballard alone, because the Mars Hill campuses like to celebrate their baptisms as a community (which sounds to me like a good way to discourage unhealthy competition between the campuses).  Bill talked about how the Ballard campus serves as a source for the other churches, sending people and pastors out into other parts of the community and even other parts of the country, but Bill reminded the congregation that they must also make sure that they are maintaining their presence right there in Ballard.  Of course, it was in the next part of the discussion that Bill did something that kind of bothered me and Mike.

Bill announced that they had collected $4.5 million toward their budget from 1,462 members and visitors over the past fiscal year, and if I’m understanding these statistics right and doing my math correctly, then Bill was publicly pointing out that only about 41.8% of the Ballard campus are active financial contributors.  In fact, Bill went on to say that the church was falling short of budget and needed people to ramp up their giving for the month of June.  He did absolutely nothing to sugarcoat this, and Mike and I both got a little uneasy.  I was relieved when Bill elaborated that we’re supposed to give to God and not just to a budget, so we should still give as we feel led, but then he quickly squandered the good will that comment had engendered with what he said next.  Bill said that he wanted us to pray that God would surprise us this week with a little unexpected prosperity and that we would give that as a “surprise offering” to the church.  What?!  Even though I had to respect Bill’s candor, I was pretty offended by this blatant and slightly manipulative request for money.  I quietly resisted the urge to jump up and start shouting, “Mammon!”  Mike seethed in the next seat over, and the second we were both safely within the sound-dampening confines of the car, we started railing on this part of the service.

Look, I respect that every church has budgetary needs, but the Sunday morning service just doesn’t quite feel like the right place to discuss them, especially for a megachurch that attracts a large number of visitors who are still trying to make up their minds about the whole Jesus thing.  A little part of me is excited to see the leadership being so open about financial concerns, and I guess it’s good that they’re encouraging people to be charitable financial stewards, but a blatant request for money like that is just a little . . . um . . . well, it just makes me think of televangelists, and that fills my poor little pastoral heart with pain and angst.  I mean, not to pull a Judas, but if the budget’s really struggling that much, why not downsize a bit?  Maybe cut a program or two.  Maybe ask a few staffers to go part-time until you can raise the money.  Pastor Mark says right there in his book that you need to be willing to axe nonproductive programs and personnel (or, as he put it, “shooting your dogs”).  Wouldn’t that be a better approach than asking for money right there on Sunday morning and making the church look more money-focused than it probably really is?  I mean, it could also be that the church really is as money-focused as Bill’s comments made them sound, but again, I’m trying to be charitable in these church visits.

It’s a rough balance because I know that being a missional church is not cheap.  Trying to fund programs in the community around you costs money, and starting satellite campuses with their own individual buildings must cost Mars Hill a fortune.  The Bible demands tithing, and our consciences should compel us to support our churches financially, but how should churches and clergy go about telling people that they need more to support the ministry?  It doesn’t help that, as I heard somewhere recently, younger generations have gotten distrustful of giving to the church and tend to give directly to nonprofits instead.  How should a church raise funds in this social climate?  I’m still struggling with whether Mars Hill’s overt request for money was justified or not, and this is a discussion in which I’d love to involve the other future pastors studying at Duke.

Worship Continues

As the “financial stewards” (coolest euphemism for ushers ever) came forward to collect the offering in white plastic buckets, Bill said a few words over Communion.  They were fairly casual words of institution, and Bill focused on how this was a 2,000-year-old ritual that we were observing.  He emphasized the idea of penal substitution, reminding us to leave our guilt and our shame on the table as we partook in the elements.  With just the piano, her voice, and a few computerized effects, Jessica the worship leader sang “I Surrender All” with only a few church members singing along.

All to Jesus I surrender;

All to Him I freely give;

I will ever love and trust Him,

In His presence daily live.

I surrender all,

I surrender all,

All to You, my blessed Savior,

I surrender all.

I noticed that the traditional “thee” in the chorus had been replaced with “you,” and though I’m usually in favor of updating such language, in this case, it really disrupted the rhythm of the lyrics.  Still, it was nice to have a beautiful old hymn like that accompanying Communion.  Of course, when I went up to receive Communion, it hit me just how traditional I am when it comes to the ordinances.  I reached into the bread basket and took a piece of bread from the fauxhawk-sporting usher as he stood there in silence.  I waited for a moment before realizing that he wasn’t going to say his line.  “The Body of Christ broken for me,” I mouthed to myself.  As I dipped the bread in the grape juice held by a second silent usher, I realized that I had accidentally grabbed two pieces.  Does that symbolize something?  Eh, nothing I could do about it.  Putting it back would probably be unsanitary, and I understand that Resurrection isn’t the only church that gets hung up about that sort of thing.  It turns out that Mars Hill, while normally having Communion in every service, dropped the ordinance entirely during the Swine Flu scare, but I’m getting off-topic.  I popped the two pieces of juice-soaked bread into my mouth as if they were one and said a little prayer of thanksgiving in my head as I made my way back to my seat.  The drummer kicked into a heavy groove, and the band began playing in a rock ballad feel.  There was even a synthesized accordion in the mix (which I realize might sound terrible to anyone over the age of 40, but trust me, it’s awesome).  Again, Mars Hill’s heavy arts focus and the Seattle indie music culture come together to make some really cool stuff, and anyone looking to study aesthetics and theology should probably check this place out.  Jessica sang out over the instrumentation.

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;

Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.

Thou my best thought, by day or by night,

Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Ah, one of my favorites.  The altered melody was a little difficult to follow, but Jessica’s transcend voice cut through the air over our heads like a scythe through fresh grain.  That was an impressive set of pipes.  Despite the altered melody, people were singing along, and a few hands were going up throughout the room as people swayed.  As this song wrapped up, another musician came on stage, this one a male guitarist who stood stage right from the other musicians.  The lights called our attention to him as he led us into another song.  This one was a more typical praise chorus, but the band had swung it into an upbeat, piano-heavy honkytonk number.  As much as I enjoyed Jessica’s voice, I have to admit that this new male worship leader did more to get the congregation really singing out.   People bobbed around, and the number of raised hands grew as we all sang,

I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart
I will tell of all your wonders
I will be glad and rejoice in you
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High

Sing praise to God who reigns above
The God of all creation
The God of power, the God of love
The God of our salvation
With healing balm my soul He fills
And every faithfulness murmur stills
Sing praise to God who reigns above
To God all praise and glory!

There was clapping at the end of the song, and I was starting to get tired.  Two songs, a family dedication, a 50-minute sermon, a somewhat offensive plea for money, offering, Communion, three more songs-- this was turning out to be a long service.  I remembered that, based on what Reba told me, I would be experiencing a much longer service at the Potter’s House in Dallas, so this was a good test of endurance for me in preparation for that marathon worship experience six weeks from now.  Mike, on the other hand, had consumed an entire travel mug of coffee, so he had other concerns at this point.  The band kicked into one last song with yet another great drum lead-in.  In fact, with the possible exception of Jessica’s voice, the drummer might have been the highlight of the band for me.  Every drum was wired into the sound system so that we got the maximum feel of each slightly-affected percussive blast, which engulfed the room as though the whole sanctuary were contained within a giant tribal drum that had been warmed by the side of a fire.  Sure, it felt a little like a concert, but it’s hard for me not to enjoy good drums.  The next song was yet another classic hymn, so please note that more than half of the Mars Hill music was comprised of reset traditional hymns.

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What can wash away my sin?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus;

What can make me whole again?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Oh!  Precious is the flow

That makes me white as snow;

No other fount I know,

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Mike actually didn’t know this hymn ahead of time and was a little creeped out by it.  In retrospect, it is a little creepy, but it also carries with it such a great theme of Christ’s purifying power, and that seemed appropriate given the Judgment-themed subject matter of the sermon and the ever-present reminder of Communion.  Bill returned to the stage to tell us that there were free copies of Pastor Mark’s book Pastor Dad available to all fathers today in honor of Father’s Day.  (Sorry, Dad, but I didn’t snag one for you.  I figured that Mark’s Doctrine book would have been more your speed-- a Calvinist tome that would have looked nice and out of place next to your copy of Love Wins.  Sadly, as you probably read yesterday, I didn’t get to take one of those either.  Still: Happy Father’s Day!)  Bill also informed us that, for people interested in joining the church and/or learning more about Mars Hill small groups, there were free rootbeer floats in the lobby!  Oh man, a rootbeer float sounded so good.  I had done my usual practice of completely dehydrating myself so that I wouldn’t have to go to the bathroom and miss part of the service, so my parched mouth cried out in longing.  Still, Mike and I needed to go decompress about the request for money, and I really needed to go grab lunch and do some writing, so we didn’t stick around to take advantage of Mars Hill’s generous rootbeer float offer.  Besides, surely such a precious resource would have been in limited supply, and I didn’t feel right taking a float from someone who might have really been interested in joining the church.

A Four-Hour Intermission

Once Mike and I got to the car, we immediately started lambasting Pastor Bill’s request for money, and we decided that, if we were to write a Jim & Casper-esque review, we would say something along the lines of, “While we respected the church’s candor in discussing money matters, we found the idea of praying for a ‘surprise offering’ to be in very poor taste.”  There.  Succinct, diplomatic, and with just a hint of righteous indignation-- perfect.  Moving on . . .

Because Mike is Roman Catholic, the concert-like feel of the music was a bit more of an adjustment for him.  Admittedly, even though I oscillate frequently in this department, my worship leanings lately have been kind of contemporvant, so I felt right at home in the Mars Hill worship setting.  In fact, my worship tastes have kind of bordered on this the past few weeks:

Even better, the Mars Hill musicians were drawing on oldschool protestant hymns that I could practically sing in my sleep, so I took to that service like a duck to water.  Mike, on the other hand, seemed to take to it more like a 17th Century Salem, Massachusetts, housewife to water.  I’m of the opinion that innovative instrumentation and traditional lyrics present the best of both worlds, but that might just be me.  Pastor Mark explains in his book that Mars Hill worship strives to be “culturally liberal but theologically conservative,” and I feel like that goal was met pretty well in the service.

Mike noted that most of the people in the room were taking notes during the sermon, and he felt like the in-depth analysis of the Scriptures was probably the most important thing Mars Hill had brought to the table that morning.  People there really seemed to care about the sermon and about the content of the Bible, and Pastor Mark had communicated everything in a way that may have been forceful, but he still got people talking and thinking.  Of course, then Mike made a point that kind of caught me off guard.  “Where does Driscoll get off suggesting that members of his own church might be enemies of the Kingdom?  I mean, I sort of felt like he was suggesting that we were all just doing nothing, and then I thought to myself, ‘Dude, Tom is becoming a freaking minister this summer.’  Maybe other people in the church were at that level of commitment too, and here Driscoll was just calling them out!  It’s just not right to tell a church that they’re not investing enough and to call them out publicly like that.  You don’t know what’s in the people’s hearts.”  Even though I sort of think people can always do more, and I believe that sermons ought to challenge us to go above and beyond, Mike had a point.  Mark was making some pretty uncharitable assumptions about his church in his sermon, and given the size of the place, there’s no way he could know the content of every heart there.  While he was speaking with a very strong prophetic voice, it needed to be supplemented with some more pastoral concern.

Still, I had read enough of Reformission Rev. to get why Mark had made this assumption about his church, so I explained the context to Mike:

Mark Driscoll has a longstanding grudge against what he calls “consumer Christianity,” and frankly, I don’t really care for it either.  Consumer Christianity is the mentality that the church exists solely to provide goods and services to its members like any secular business or private social club might.  Not unlike having a Verizon plan or a Sam’s card, a consumer Christian sees membership in a church as little more than having someone to perform your wedding/funeral/kids’ weddings (if applicable) and maybe having someone you can call up if things get really bad in your marriage/job/appendectomy/midlife crisis/etc.  Other than that, you can just show up on Sundays and maybe tithe or sing in the choir, and in return, the church provides entertainment, programs for your kids, and maybe a little spiritual nourishment if you’re in the mood for it.  The church exists to meet your needs, and that is all.  This is what Mark Driscoll is pushing back against, and this is the subtext of his whole ministry.  When he talks about how much he hates religion, he’s talking largely about consumer Christianity.  When he writes and speaks about the missional church, he is talking about supplanting the consumer Christianity model and replacing it with a church that is just as concerned with sending people out as bringing them in and meeting their needs.  For that reason, I can see why he would preach a sermon that challenges his congregation not to be lazy with their investments of time and energy.  He wants Mars Hill to be a church that is active in the community and constantly growing and evangelizing and satisfying community needs.  His particular weapon against lackadaisical consumer Christianity just happens to be slightly vitriolic sermons, and I can see how that would rub people the wrong way if they didn’t know the context.  Mark is not looking to condemn; he’s looking to motivate.  He wants his church to be out in the community making a difference with every member acting as a missionary.  It just so happened that today’s motivational message also came tinged with a little hellfire.

This seemed to make Mike feel a little better, but I think we both still approached the 5PM service that evening with a bit of trepidation.