The former primary campus for the multisite Mars Hill is reporting considerable growth in the three years since the Washington State-based church disbanded.
In 2014, Mars Hill’s lead pastor, Mark Driscoll, resigned due to a controversy surrounding his leadership style. Soon after, it was announced that the 15-campus church was going to dissolve by the start of 2015.
Mars Hill Bellevue, located in the Seattle area, was the main campus for the Driscoll-led church. It changed its name to Doxa Church.
Donald Zimmerman, worship and communications pastor at Doxa Church, told The Christian Post via email that over the past three years the campus has experienced considerable growth.
Zimmerman reported that currently Doxa averages between 900 and 1,000 worship attendees. By contrast, in 2015, the average was between 400 and 500.
“Doxa has grown and we are thankful for the incredible ongoing grace God has shown His people along the way, particularly in light of what the church has come out of,” said Zimmerman.
Dissolution
Mars Hill was founded in 1996 and headed by Driscoll, one of its co-founders. At its peak, Mars Hill had 15 different worship communities and boasted an average attendance of approximately 15,000 people.
In October 2014, Driscoll announced that he was resigning as lead pastor, coming in response to calls by church elders for him to step down due to issues with his divisive leadership.
Although initially Mars Hill’s Board of Overseers announced that a process of “pastoral transition” would take place, it was later announced that the megachurch was going to be dissolved.
In a letter to the congregation released later that month, Mars Hill Teaching Pastor Dave Bruskas announced that each of the campuses would become autonomous.
“Following much prayer and lengthy discussion with Mars Hill’s leadership, the board of Mars Hill has concluded that rather than remaining a centralized multisite church with video-led teaching distributed to multiple locations, the best future for each of our existing local churches is for them to become autonomous self-governed entities,” wrote Bruskas in 2014.
“This means that each of our locations has an opportunity to become a new church, rooted in the best of what Mars Hill has been in the past, and independently led and run by its own local elder teams.”
Click here to read more.
Source: Christian Post
When you purchase a book below it supports the Number #1 Black Christian Newspaper BLACK CHRISTIAN NEWS NETWORK ONE (BCNN1.com) and it also allows us to spread the Gospel around the world.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
