Parishioners connect at new campus of Mars Hill Church

Seattle-based congregation one of fastest growing

By Diane Huber | The Olympian • Published August 11, 2008

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Last year, Dan and Debby Swecker started bringing church to their Rochester living room.

They fell in love with Seattle megachurch Mars Hill and began broadcasting the week's sermon via satellite video for other local Mars Hill fans.

Debby Swecker said founding Pastor Mark Driscoll offered a message and style she hadn't found in Methodist, Lutheran and Assembly of God services she has attended during the past 35 years.

"It's a dream come true," she said of the nondenominational church. "The teaching is genuine and real. It's biblical, it's cultural, it's relevant."

The local group grew to about 45 people, and in January, they started meeting at McMenamins Olympic Club in Centralia.

In July, the group started meeting in a lecture hall at South Puget Sound Community College, but members hope to rent a larger location this fall. And so began the new Olympia campus of Mars Hill, the church's seventh and southernmost location.

The expansion demonstrates how far the church has come since it started in 1996, when 12 people met in Driscoll's living room in Wallingford, a Seattle neighborhood. For the next seven years, Mars Hill met in locations throughout Seattle until, in 2003, the church moved to a renovated hardware store in Ballard. In 2006, the church opened its Shoreline campus, and branches followed in West Seattle, Lake City, Bellevue and downtown Seattle.

Each Sunday, 6,000 members attend services at the campuses to hear Driscoll's message via satellite video. An additional 400,000 download the sermons from the church Web site each month.

On a recent Sunday, the message was about praying like Jesus. Driscoll, 37, delivered his sermon dressed in an untucked shirt and jeans, Bible in one hand. He gestured, made jokes and incorporated stories of parenting his five children.

His casual-but-direct approach appears to be resonating in a region that's considered the least churched in the nation, according to the North American Religion Atlas. At a time when attendance at the majority of churches is at a plateau or a decline, Mars Hill is among the fastest-growing. Groups from Portland to Chicago have requested campuses in their cities.