It is official: Quest Church in Seattle has purchased the old Mars Hill Ballard location. In a press release out late last night, the church announced that it will rent the building to Cross and Crown Church, the current occupant until they can move into a new facility.
Sources in a position to know have told me that Cross and Crown Church leaders (formerly Mars Hill Ballard) plan to move into the old Mars Hill University District building sometime later this year. Mars Hill Church is in the process of selling and distributing assets, including this sale and the distribution of the University District building to Cross and Crown. Mars Hill has been silent about the pace of dissolution. At one point since the announcement of Mars Hill’s closing, executive elder Dave Bruskas told me that the [email protected] account was being monitored. However, no answers have come as the result of inquiries to that account.
Category: Mars Hill Church
Quest Church to Occupy Old Mars Hill Ballard Building
Although details are few, an announcement in church this morning indicated that Quest Church, pastored by Eugene Cho, will occupy the old Mars Hill Ballard building.
An unidentified staffer indicated that a press release would come out later this week with more details. It is not clear at this time whether Quest Church will purchase the building or enter into some other kind of relationship with what is left of Mars Hill.
Mars Hill Church ceased holding services on the last Sunday of December 2014. The church continues to function as a legal entity to dispose of property and other assets. Church sources have gone silent about the pace of dissolution. The potential lawsuit is still potential.
Mars Hill Ballard became Cross and Crown Church in 2015. For now, Cross and Crown still meets at 1401 NW Leary Way in Seattle. I wonder where they will go next.
UPDATE: Several reliable sources have informed me that the current plan is for Cross & Crown Church to take control of the old University District church.
Another Former Mars Hill Church Pastor Posts to Repentant Pastor Website
Demonstrating that the fall out from Mars Hill’s demise is ongoing, former Mars Hill pastor James Harleman posted an essay of confession on Saturday. It begins:
I sat on a bed upstairs in our room at the retreat home, my head in my hands, asking my wife if our lead pastor was fit to be an elder… if the state of his marriage was in a place wherein he needed a sabbatical, and if his verbal evisceration of another elder’s wife – simply for offering a gentle word of counsel – was anything but deplorable. I didn’t know what to say, or even what to think.
All the elders had been there and seen it. No one had countered or interceded in any way.
It was summer 2006, more than a year before the infamous bylaw change and terminations at Mars Hill Church that many would see as the first sign of a problem. I was just over a year into my tenure as a pastor but still felt like the new guy. The unspoken acceptance of all the other pastors at that elders’ retreat became a justification for my own omission.
Not a true justification, mind you – simply in my own mind.
Harleman is apparently speaking about Mark Driscoll in the first paragraph. He is also one who was involved in trying to bring change internally before he decided he could not.
Mars Hill Church Letter: Maybe the Most Positive Spin I've Ever Seen
Rob Smith posted a donor thank you letter from Mars Hill Church he received recently. It has to be the most positive spin on the situation I have seen yet.
I gotta say that must have been a hard letter to write. There probably is no how-to course in how to this.
Read Rob Smith’s take on it; there are still many unanswered financial questions that were not addressed here.
Are Mars Hill Church's Kids Ashamed of the Parent Church?
Last week, I noticed something about the independent churches “birthed” by Mars Hill Church (see directory). Most don’t mention their parent church on their website.
To me this seems odd since the Mars Hill Church website says this:
If I had given birth to 11 kids, and they didn’t talk about me, I might be a little hurt.
I did a Google search of the new church websites and found that only Mars Hill Albuquerque (now North Church), described the link to the Mars Hill legacy. One church — Ed Choi’s Rainier Valley Church — acknowledged that Choi had been a pastor at Mars Hill, but there was no explanation of the relationship between the two churches. Two of the church website searches returned mentions of Mars Hill (Resurrection Church and Cross and Crown) but when I went to the page, the reference to Mars Hill had been deleted. Mars Hill West Seattle archived Daivd Farichild’s sermons as being preached at Mars Hill West Seattle but did not give an explanation. The rest had no mention of Mars Hill.
The presentation on these websites make it seem like the churches just emerged without history. In fact, Mars Hill hasn’t dissolved as a corporation and these churches are waiting for more money from the mothership.