We often get the question, “What’s Resurgence’s connection with Mars Hill?” So I decided to take a little time to explain how Resurgence works with the church.
Resurgence is a ministry of Mars Hill Church. Within Mars Hill, we train all types of leaders to encourage people in their growth as disciples and build up the church body. But we also devote a significant portion of our energy and resources to training leaders all around the world so they are equipped to disciple and serve their respective church bodies, and we do this through Resurgence.
Everyone Leads Someone
We have a broad definition of who a leader is. We don’t mean just the “leaders of leaders” like deacons and elders. We want to be involved in training all kinds of Christians in the work of ministry (Eph. 4:12). That means children, teens, students, moms, dads, Community Group leaders, Redemption Group leaders, worship leaders, volunteer biblical counselors, deacons, and elders. Ministry is not just performed by church pastors and staff; they are there to minister and to equip all believers for ministry. We want every Christian to have an awareness that they are participating in God’s mission.
Why We Train Leaders
We train leaders because, through Christ, God reconciled us to himself. We are the recipients of the good news, and God invites us to proclaim this same good news to others. This is a huge privilege for all believers that he would call us, who used to be his enemies, not only friends but also participants in his mission to the world. We want to equip Christians at Mars Hill and beyond to share the good news of Jesus and carry forward his mission to make disciples.
How We Train Leaders
We provide a wide scope of options and tools for training. Here are the ways we do that:
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Resurgence is one of the top Christian blogs in the world. On our site, we post articles every day, audio and video teachings, recommended readings, and interviews.
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Resurgence Books, our publishing line, releases great new books every year from respected leaders and new voices. -
Resurgence Events bring in top speakers from around the world to help us learn and grow. Our 2012 conference is being held in Irvine, California, on October 9–10, and registration is open now. We’re also hosting a Women’s Seminar Event that same month locally in Bellevue. -
Resurgence Training Center provides intensive, graduate-level theological study, along with practical ministry training.
Head, Heart, and Hands
When God saves us, he makes us new. This means new lives, desires, motivations, thinking, and actions. Training should incorporate all of these. We firmly believe that what our hearts loves, our minds will ponder and our wills will pursue. Unless training gets to the heart level, it fails.
Lots of training is exclusively either practical or just filling people’s heads with information. But real change begins with our desires, so we concentrate on heart-level issues like worship and idolatry, love and hate, gospel and slavery. Philippians 2:13 says that God works in us to will and to do his good pleasure. We believe that leaders need to have repentant hearts and solid theology so that they can do the work God has called them to.
Justin Holcomb is the executive director of Resurgence and leadership development, and the lead pastor at Mars Hill U-District.
