Pastor Tim Smith says Mars Hill Portland is a one-issue church, but the congregation's single concern isn't homosexuality. (Ross William Hamilton/The Oregonian)
When news broke last week that Seattle's Mars Hill Church, a 15-year-old multi-campus mega-congregation led by Pastor Mark Driscoll, had bought a church building in Portland's Sunnyside neighborhood, the reaction varied from "so what?" to a certain wariness to an all-out "let's protest when they open their doors."
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Mars Hill Portland recently purchased a 106-year-old church at 3210 S.E. Taylor St. for $1.25 million. The spacious sanctuary, filled with curved pews and illuminated with old-school stained glass, will hold 700 people. At its largest event so far, the new church has attracted 200.
Mars Hill's founding pastor, Driscoll, is famous, online and in some circles, for his fire and brimstone sermons on sexuality, the roles of women and the authority of the Bible. Before the Portland campus could open its doors, it was portrayed as an "anti-gay" church that had targeted a liberal neighborhood to begin a door-to-door conversion campaign. Plans for a protest began on Facebook. The Sunnyside Neighborhood Association and the Q Center, which serves the LGBQT community, were more measured in their response. Leaders of both groups said they hoped to establish working relationships with the church.
It wasn't the homecoming that Tim Smith, 36, the Portland native who is pastor of the new church, had hoped for. He'd spent the past eight months, in prayer, on the phone and in meetings, working hard, he says, to "lay the groundwork for a church" in the city he loves. In a post on the church's website Thursday, he wrote that Mars Hill is a "single-issue church" that exists "for one reason, and one reason only: to make disciples of Jesus Christ."
In a lengthy interview, Smith talked about what Mars Hill Portland believes and how the congregation sees themselves and their fellow Portlanders. His answers have been edited for length and clarity.
A quick Google search reveals that Mars Hill Church is critical of pornography, homosexuality and sex outside of marriage, all based on your reading of Scripture. How do you see the Bible?
The Bible is the inspired word of God, as Paul said to Timothy (II Timothy 3), all Scripture is breathed out by God and useful for all kinds of things. It is authoritative, but it doesn't say everything there is to know about God. As it says in I Corinthians 13, someday we'll know more, when we see him face to face. The Bible is not a book of science or a political manual. It's his revelation to people who want to follow him.
We have a very conservative view of the Bible. We do read it pretty literally as our ultimate authority, but we worship Jesus, not the Bible.
Some people detect a certain arrogance in the decision to bring Mars Hill to Portland. How do you respond to that?
We don't believe we are the only Bible-believing, gospel-preaching, Jesus-loving church in Portland. We're excited to participate in the community of churches in Portland.
Why plant a new church in Portland, where there are already strong evangelical groups?
Portland is a very unique place. I felt called to lead a church, not in an ambiguous sense of "plant a church anywhere," but in Portland. I love Portland. I love how it rains less, how it's 5 to 10 degrees warmer here than in Seattle. I love the food scene, the music, the life of Portland. And I wanted to be in the midst of the city, where there is a need, a curiosity, a hunger to figure out what it looks like to live life as a follower of Jesus.
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SOURCE: The Oregonian
