Be not envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them, for their hearts devise violence, and their lips talk of trouble.
- Proverbs 24:1

Mars Hill Global

Serving the church and spreading the gospel. Help support this effort by giving to the Global Fund. More info at MarsHillGlobal.com.

Invitation from God: Click | View Series

Isaiah 1:18—"Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool."

The sinful condition of men is terrible in the extreme... God himself interposes to produce a change. The proposal of peace is always from his side. He urges that a conference be held at once, "Come, and let us reason together."

GOD ANTICIPATES ALL THE OBSTACLES

1. The singular greatness of your sins, "red like crimson." This is met by a great atonement, which cleanses from all sin.
2. The long continuance of your sins. Cloth dyed scarlet has lain long in the dye vat. The blood of Jesus cleanses at once.
3. The light against which your sins were committed. This puts a glaring color upon them. But "every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people."
4. The grieving of the Holy Spirit. Even this is removed by Jesus.
5. The failure of your attempts to whiten your soul. Crimson and scarlet cannot be removed by the art of man; but the Lord says, "I have blotted out your sins."
6. The despair which your sins create: they are so glaring that they are ever before you, yet they shall be washed out by the blood of the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world.
   • Come now. Your minister pleads with you on God's behalf.
   • Can it be right to slight God's invitation?
   • What harm can come of a conference with him?
   • Must it not be right to be reconciled with your Maker?
   • What if this day should see you made "white as snow"?

Adapted from Charles Spurgeon's sermon notes.

Pastor Dad

Every dad is a pastor. The important thing is that he cares for his flock well. Pastor Mark Driscoll's new eBook offers spiritual insights on fatherhood. Get it here.

Click through to the Resurgence if you can't see the video.

At the recent Acts 29 AMBITION conference at Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, KY, I had the opportunity to sit down with Matt Chandler and talk about a number of topics.

In part two of our conversation, we discuss celebrity, diversity, burnout and the “one thing” he would tell church planters. As you would expect, Chandler does not disappoint.

Listen, learn, and link, tweet, facebook, blog…whatever. Help us get this great content out there to as many folks as we can. Don’t forget, there are 15+ more great interviews with church planters and movement leaders coming soon, including Dave Harvey, Ed Stetzer, and Darrin Patrick. I am humbled to have been entrusted with this amazing content.

Click here to watch Part 1 of this interview.

For more from Dustin Neeley, check out his ministry Church Planting for the Rest of Us.

Re:Train

We are launching The Resurgence Training Center (Re:Train) to prepare leaders for ministry locally and around the world. Additional details and downloadable application form here.

Click through to the Resurgence if you can't see the video.

In case you missed it, here's the video from John Piper's first talk at Advance 09: "Let the Nations Be Glad, Part 1."

You can find the rest of the Advance 09 content, including video, audio, and photos, here.

Re:Sound

The musical arm of the Resurgence offers music that is theologically unified, stylistically diverse, and musically excellent. Find out more.

How NOT To Be a Missional Church series: Click | View Series

The missional church movement has been good and bad. On a positive note, let’s focus on the bad. I want to suggest three ways to not be a missional church. In continuation of the series, this post examines some of the defects of social action-driven mission.

Social Action-Driven Mission

This approach probably creates the best community of the three mentioned in this series. A socially-minded and active church attracts socially-minded non-Christians. When my City Group recently cleaned five apartments from top to bottom for some homeless women and children, we all got a little closer. There’s something about being on a common mission—the sweat, the jokes, the empathy, and the memory–that unites folks. Creating a missional memory strengthens community and mission. It also raises questions with non-Christians you serve. But is social action enough?

1. Social action-driven mission isn’t unique to the church.

There are plenty of non-Christians engaged in social mission—serving the poor, the needy, the abused, and the homeless. They don’t need a church to engage in social mission. There are thousands of non-profits that can do this. What sets the church apart? If we are banking on social mission to be the unique contribution of the church, we’ll lose the game, and more importantly, the souls.

2. Social action doesn’t create new community.

Although social action mission creates community, it doesn’t create new community. Regenerated, new creation is the unique work of God the Spirit (Tit. 2.11; Gal. 6:15) through faith in the Son (Tit. 3:6-7; 2 Cor. 5:17). If we convert people to community and social mission alone, and not to Christ, we offer a very incomplete gospel. Regeneration is both social (Matt. 19:28) and spiritual (Tit. 3:5). The Spirit, not social mission, makes men new.

3. Social mission can lead to liberal church.

When we reduce mission to social action, we run the danger of becoming a socially-minded liberal church that neglects large stretches of the Bible requiring repentance and faith in Jesus. When missional communities focus on social mission alone, they disregard their evangelistic identity, gifting, and responsibility as the church of Jesus Christ, the Jesus who died and rose to make all things new—people and products, souls and society.

This series has attempted to identify some of the shortcomings in expressions of missional church. When mission is driven by events or evangelism, or social action, we engage in incomplete mission. When we engage in incomplete mission, we offer an incomplete gospel to our neighbors, towns, cities, and world. In a future series, I will take a more positive tack by exploring three areas that promote being a missional church.

This series is based on Jonathan Dodson’s talks at the LEAD ’09 conference.

Re:Train

We are launching The Resurgence Training Center (Re:Train) to prepare leaders for ministry locally and around the world. Additional details and downloadable application form here.

Here at Mars Hill Church, we’re kicking off a major effort to raise funds for a number of local ministry needs and our global effort to see as many churches and disciples of Jesus as possible.

Why? Because God has been generous to us.

As we’ve learned in the beginning of Luke’s Gospel, there’s a biblical pattern of God’s goodness and our response (see Mary’s song in Luke 1:46–55 and Zechariah’s prophecy in Luke 1:67–79):

• Historical – God acts in space and time, and people reflect on what he has done.
• Theological – God’s actions reveal his character to us. As we reflect on what God has done and what he has said about himself, we learn more about him.
• Biographical – What we learn about God changes how we live.
• Doxological – God’s actions, who he is, and how he has changed our lives lead us to respond in worship.

We’ve modeled the Generous Campaign after this pattern, and so as we begin I’d like to reflect on the incredible ways God has blessed Mars Hill Church, Acts 29, and the Resurgence in 2009.

Baptisms

As a church we baptized over 575 people in 2009. We saw fathers baptizing their sons and daughters, husbands baptizing their wives, drug dealers leaving lives of crime for Jesus, victims of abuse finding redemption in Christ, and men abandoning prolonged adolescence in order to follow Jesus.

New Campuses

We launched two new campuses and one new service location in September. With the addition of campuses in Federal Way and Albuquerque, and a new gathering at the University of Washington, what started in a living room with a small group of people has grown to nine campuses in two states.

Free Resources

Pastor Mark’s sermons were downloaded 4.4 million times in the last year. Every day we receive encouraging emails from around the globe—Australia, the UK, Africa, Brazil, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles almost daily. Jesus has used the internet to distribute the Bible preaching we enjoy every Sunday to millions of people worldwide.

New Church Plants

The Acts 29 Church Planting Network is averaging one church plant per week. God has been gracious to bring great men and leaders to the network to further its work. We’ve now planted almost 300 churches around the globe.

Acts 29 Boot Camps

We’ve trained thousands of pastors throughout America and beyond our borders, thanks to the help of Acts 29 and many generous churches within the network. Some of our Mars Hill pastors even got into the mix and helped train pastors in Ecuador.

Re:Train

This year marks the official start to our missional leadership school. An inaugural class of 75 men from around the country have been coming to learn from a top-notch faculty: Bruce Ware, John Piper, Gregg Allison, Bill Clem, Sam Storms, Rick Melson, Ed Stetzer, and Mark Driscoll. Each of the 75 men represents future church planters, pastors, and leaders. The global Church is important to us, and we want to train and raise up as many men as possible for the difficult task ahead.

Re:Lit & Re:Sound

This past year we’ve published a diverse batch of media, including the books Vintage Church and Religion Saves, the e-books Porn-Again Christian and Pastor Dad, and the Rain City Hymnal. God has blessed us with great ministry partners, editors, graphic designers, and musicians that we’re thankful to have at Mars Hill.

All of this is in addition to hundreds of marriages, new babies, restored relationships, and the thousands of little stories that we don’t even hear about.

We serve a hugely generous and wholly gracious God. As I look out over the scope and depth of what God has done and is doing, I can’t help but be completely humbled, thankful, and moved to worship. I hope you are too.

Find Pastor Jamie on Facebook and Twitter.

One way you can be generous to the Resurgence is by doing your Christmas shopping at Amazon through our Recommended Reading page.

Mars Hill Global

Serving the church and spreading the gospel. Help support this effort by giving to the Global Fund. More info at MarsHillGlobal.com.