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How did it come to this? It started out so great . . .

My wife and I and several others started this church called Mars Hill in February of 1999 with dreams of what a revolutionary new kind of community could be.

I was twenty-eight.

What do you know about anything when you’re twenty-eight?

But anyway, we did it. We started a church.

People who are starting churches, or want to someday, often ask me when I knew it was time to do it. And I actually have a coherent answer: I knew it was time when I no longer cared if it was “successful.”

I’m serious. I had this moment in October 1998 when I realized that if thirteen people joined up with us, and that was all it ever was, that would be okay.

This thing inside of me was so strong that I had to act on it. Can you relate to this feeling? That sense that there is something deep in the fiber of your being that you have to do, and if you don’t do it, you will be violating something . . . or somebody?

Better to try and fail, because at least you are being true to yourself.

And the worst thing would be to live wondering, What if?

Unleashing a Monster

The dream actually began years before when Kristen and I were living in Los Angeles. We heard about a church called Christian Assembly, so we visited it. What I saw changed everything for me. It was like nothing I had experienced before. This community was exploding with creativity and life—it was like people woke up on Sunday morning and asked themselves, “What would I like to do today more than anything else? How about going to a church service?”

I could not get my mind around this at first.

This concept was so new and fresh—people who gathered because they wanted to.

There wasn’t a trace of empty ritual or obligation anywhere in the place. I felt like I was going to see my favorite band. The anticipation. The fact that I would do whatever it took to get there. It didn’t matter how far away I had to park. The bond I had with the other people in the room.

Not “I have to” but “I get to.”

Not obligation but celebration.

Not duty but desire.

Kristen and I starting attending these services regularly, and then we’d go to the Taco Bell on Colorado Boulevard and talk about what a church could be.

Desire.

Longing.

Come as you are.

Connection.

A group of people who can imagine nothing better than this.

And so several years, two internships, and a cross-country move later, we did it. We started a church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Now you have to understand that I started out playing in bands, back when alternative music was . . . alternative. Are there any Pixies fans out there? Talking Heads? Violent Femmes? Midnight Oil? I understood music to be this raw art form that comes from your guts.

Do it yourself.

Strip it down.

Bare bones.

Take away all the fluff and the hype.

This ethos heavily shaped my understandings of what a church should be like: strip everything away and get down to the most basic elements. A group of people desperate to experience God.

Please realize that to this day I have never read a book on church planting or church growth or been to a seminar on how to start a church. I remember being told that a sign had been rented with the church name on it to go in front of the building where we were meeting. I was mortified and had them get rid of it. You can’t put a sign out front, I argued; people have to want to find us. And so there were no advertisements, no flyers, no promotions, and no signs.

The thought of the word church and the word marketing in the same sentence makes me sick.

We had these ideas and these dreams, and we went with them.

People would come in, there would be some singing, I would talk about God and Jesus and the Bible and life for about an hour, and then it would be over.

And the strangest thing happened: People came on the first Sunday.

I remember like it was yesterday. A few people came to get me five minutes before the first service and said I had to look out the front windows. I was not prepared for what I saw. Cars and people everywhere. They proceeded to tell me there were traffic jams in every direction; they had run out of chairs; and people were giving up trying to get through the traffic and just pulling over on the side of the road, parking, and walking the rest of the way.

Chaos.

I loved it.

Now I am going to give you some numbers. And I hesitate to do this because few things are more difficult to take than spiritual leaders who are always talking about how big their thing is. But it happened and it’s true and it’s part of my story.

There were well over 1,000 people there the first Sunday.

People in the aisles. People on the floor. Packed. No more room, not enough chairs.

I ended the message by inviting people to join us on this journey. I talked about the need to explore what a new kind of Christian faith looks like for the new world we find ourselves in. Whatever it was and wherever it led, we were going.

“Join us.”

The energy in the place was unreal.

The next morning I held a staff meeting. Which means I sat in my office and thought to myself, What have I gotten myself into? Followed closely by, Sunday’s coming again.

It was during this first week that the practical people stepped forward to be helpful and remind me that people were there out of curiosity the first week and to help me feel encouraged with my new little project. They made sure I understood that I wasn’t to get my hopes up, that all these people wouldn’t return, and that we’d be able to see in the next few weeks who was really going to be committed to this new church.

You can guess what happened.

More people came the next week.

And even more the following week.