Church Profile: Mars Hill Bible Church | Grand Rapids

Last updated on: September 10, 2011 at 3:24 pm by Billy Kangas

Church Profile: Mars Hill Bible Church | Grand Rapids 2011-09-10T15:24:00-04:00 Billy Kangas

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I recently visited the “Mars Hill Bible Church” in Grand Rapids, MI. This is not a church in my own tradition (Lutheran / Evangelical Covenant), but it is one that I have had some history with (my brother has been a member of this community for about 9 years).

Mars Hill is a church that was planted in 1999 by Calvary Church pastor Rob Bell and a core of people from that community. It comes out of what could be described as “mainstream evangelicalism”. This basically means that it’s been influenced by the polity of American Revivalism. This is reflected in the service in it’s emphases on preaching (this makes up over half the service, and is VERY well done) and lack of traditional liturgy.

There are many things that make Mars Hill distinctive. Their theology stems a great deal from the ideas of “Narrative theology”. They are also influenced by the writings of N.T. Wright, Richard Rohr, and many others that are part of what many consider more “progressive” movements in the church. Rob Bell’s teaching has been greatly impacted by the Rabbinic tradition and he has often drawn from the Talmud and Mishnah in his interpretation of the Bible. Another Pastor, Shane Hipps, comes out of the Mennonite tradition.

The Worship Space at Mars Hill is very plain. The chairs are arranged in a square all facing the center where the music and sermon are presented. Above the heads of the musicians is a Cube that is made up of four screens where white text is projected on a black background. There is one cross in the back corner of the church, and Psalm 119 is written in chunks by each door. My wife, who is Catholic, says that when she goes there she almost feels surprised when God is mentioned since the space is so devoid of things that point to God, and actually devoid of almost anything interesting to look at. My son got much more fidgety there then he does in a typical catholic church since he didn’t have anything to look at (he is less then a year old).

Music there is done by a band with all the typical rock and roll accouterments (drums, bass, guitar, keys) but they add a little flair with xylophone or electronic music thrown into the mix from time to time.

The congregation is fairly young, very white, and seems to be mostly middle class. Generally men run the service, but they do occasionally have women teach and lead.

The service has no liturgy of the word per se, but the sermon is started out with a passage of scripture that is commented on. There are no consistent liturgical actions but the week I was there there was an interesting practice of turning your body toward where a person you were praying for was (this led to some awkwardness, but I thought it was kind of cool).

The service started with music (very loud, very rock-and-roll, mostly new interpretations of older material the week I was there). Then there was prayer (leader led, but subjective in nature. We prayed for people we knew that fit into categories but the church didn’t pray together for one thing). The remainder of the service was the Sermon.

I believe that there is communion quarterly.

The language at Mars Hill is informal, but well thought out. It’s clear a lot of time goes into planning everything that goes on, and there is a certain cadence that the leadership uses that everyone seems to fall into (lots of pregnant pauses). Very little “churchy” vocabulary is used.

The focus of the service seems to be the preaching. People are here to be taught information about the Bible and the world around them. The sermon is the main attraction and the longest part of the service. Even beyond the service Mars Hill offers a lot of classes. This might be contrasted with a Catholic church which has a very small homily, and tends to offer things like adoration and the rosary, or an Orthodox church that offers Vespers service. It’s not that Mars Hill doesn’t have times for prayer, or social justice (they do!) but it seems that teaching is the main focus of what they do, and thats why people are there and not somewhere else.

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