Beyond the Picket Fences
Allison Graff, Calvin College Alumna '07
Reformed Worship Journal
Issue #86

There’s no sign for Mars Hill Bible Church along Fairlanes Ave. in Grandville, Michigan, so I just follow the long line of cars getting off the highway. I find myself in a huge parking lot outside what looks like an old mall. I make my way into a huge, dimly-lit warehouse of a space referred to as “the shed” by church members and find a seat facing a platform in the center of the space. The opening chords of a guitar-driven rendition of “Be Thou My Vision” reverberate off the walls of the mall anchor store-turned worship space. The Gathering at Mars Hill has begun.

Situated at the edge of a city that boasts the most churches per capita in the United States, Mars Hill Bible Church draws an estimated 10,000 worshipers to three services each Sunday. The draw could be attributed to a variety of things: the experimental music (one Sunday was designated “Bring Your Horn to Church Sunday”; people were encouraged to bring their instruments to play along), the innovative teaching, the thriving outreach ministries, the mass appeal of such a large congregation. What’s certain is that the church is doing something that attracts the demographic that is so often missing from many traditional churches—the twenty-something crowd. What, exactly, is getting these college and career folks out of bed and into the sanctuary each Sunday?

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