A Short Intro

Mars Hill, you don’t know me yet but I’m a "new guy" here on staff. My name is Nick Bogardus and I’m the new PR and Media Relations Director. Very quickly, before coming to Mars Hill I spent my first year and a half of marriage in Mongolia with my incredible wife. Prior to that I worked in the music industry, owning a management company that oversaw the careers of bands like Thrice, Cold War Kids, Dustin Kensrue, and Matt Costa. Up until being approached about this job 2 months ago my wife and I were planning on going to Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. The reason those plans changed, and the reason I’m so excited to write this post, is because of what I see and have experienced in my first couple weeks on the job here at Mars Hill. I’ve listened to and watched Mars Hill’s sermons for years - my wife and I would even download them in Mongolia and listen to them together - and what I’ve observed from a distance is, up close, the reality I thought it would be. What do I mean? Look at all God has blessed Mars Hill Church with in the last week alone.

A Snapshot

First of all, staff and volunteers created an iPhone app for Mars Hill at no charge. This blessing was turned around to provide all of our media content for free. What does this look like practically? In the first day 4000 people from 26 countries downloaded the app. When I asked on Twitter where people who downloaded the app were from we heard from a pastor in Sweden, people in Austria, the UK, and Denmark; and from nearly every state in the US. That’s thousands of people who don’t come to church in Seattle with us on Sundays but who are blessed by what we do as a church and who hear about Jesus and how He is working in our community. That is the air war Mars Hill always talks about. Secondly, the same day the iPhone app was released we had the first day of the Re:Train pastoral training program. Over 70 men who want to be pastors, start new Mars Hill campuses, or plant churches through Acts 29 converged on our Ballard campus to be trained in missional leadership by some great teachers. That is part of the ground war. Together, that is how Mars Hill uses its influence to strengthen and serve the church and the cities they are in. "That’s great", you might say, "where are you going with this?"

For Jesus, the Church, and Cities

To me that is a perfect microcosm of what Mars Hill Church - and more specifically Mars Hill Global is all about. In one day you can see not only how Mars Hill Church, the Resurgence, and Acts 29 work together but you can see how they are extensions and expressions of what Mars Hill is passionate about. We love Jesus, seeing Him glorified, and people coming to know Him. Both the iPhone app and the Re:Train program work together on different level towards that. We love the Church as Christ’s bride and as His representatives on earth. We love different expressions of church and raising up leaders. We love that those leaders love their local churches and create communities where Jesus is proclaimed and people are redeemed. We love giving away our resources and using our influence to strengthen the global church and individual Christians. Mars Hill loves cities. We love Seattle, Albuquerque, and anywhere else the Holy Spirit might lead us. We love that the men we train will serve and love the cities where they are planted. That’s just one day and it’s not even taking into account any of the hundreds of stories that happen across Mars Hill every week on individual campuses and in redemptions groups and community groups. I’m just the new guy, but I wanted to hold up a mirror for you guys and to tell you that what I’ve seen from a distance is even better up close.