We live in a day and age when people are little more than consumers, and as ministers, we can be tempted to provide religious services for religious consumers. But we are not called to consumption; rather we are called to a commission.

The pandemic seems to have dug its tentacles into every thread of our lives, obviously healthcare being at the forefront. As one of our local missions partnerships, Victory Health Partners has certainly felt the effects of the past year.

Today, the farm that Mars Hill purchased is functioning wonderfully as both an addiction rehabilitation center and separately as a cafe. Soon, the next group of guys will start their journey to freedom from addiction at the farm. While there, they will not only be treated for addiction but will be taught trades to help them find stable jobs again once they graduate from the program. Doctors are now on-site at the farm to be able to attend to the students in a much more immediate way.

We all want authentic community because that means we know each other well enough to notice when there is a need. It means we’re paying attention to each other.

Ransom Recycling was born out of the need to provide steady work for men who have completed Ransom ReProgram.

Since 1998, Jim and Mary Mather have led the Friends of Internationals ministry at the University of South Alabama and served as surrogate family for students who are worlds away from the comforts of home.

Hey Mars Family! As a missionary with Horizons International supported by our church I want to share a little bit with you about what God is doing among Muslims in the Middle East!

We pulled up to a section of shacks, and as we piled out of the SUV, three kids emerged from one of the little box houses. One of the missionaries opened the back hatch to reveal a small stack of Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes.

We hear the personal, heartbreaking stories of families struggling through medical issues, and we want to help, we’re just not sure what to do. So for many of us, we let the compassion for these families fade as soon as the news cuts to commercial. Because when the problem is so big and overwhelming and complex, well, how could one person make a dent?

Dispensing meds and administering rapid malaria tests to people in a poverty-stricken village in Africa is not a typical day for Christa Hewett. At home in Mobile, she is a wife, mother to three young kiddos, full-time nurse, and active Mars Hill Church member.

There is the idea of slowing down and just “being.”

It could consist of being present, being missional minded, being slow to speak, being slow to anger, being willing to stop and seek rest in Christ- this is something Alan Fadling calls in his book, An Unhurried Life, is living at the “pace of grace.”

2018 has been quite the year, in a good way. So much has happened since I began officially as the general manager of Mars Hill Café back in January. As I type this evening, memories flood my head of all that has occurred so far—memories for which I am grateful.

Never in a million years did I think that place would be Salt Lake City, Utah. I had the opportunity to travel out to SLC twice in college with the college group at Mars Hill and participate in inner-faith dialogues and immediately was exposed to some of the brokenness here. A couple of months before graduating from UM, and not having any idea what the next step was going to be, I was told about an internship in SLC working alongside a church plant for the summer.

Bosnia and Herzegovina sounds like a fair destination for tourism. It is in fact a location marked with great historical significance including, the Ottoman empire, the assignation of Franz Ferdinand that sparked World War I, and an interesting Civil War that happened there in the 90’s. There are sights to see, trails to walk, information boards to read, but, no, it doesn’t carry the same ring as destinations of other short-term mission trips. It isn’t South America or Africa. It’s Europe, Eastern Europe to be exact. Wasn’t Europe the epicenter of Christianity for hundreds of years? So, why would an American church send missionaries there?

As you may already know, Nicaragua is experiencing civil unrest. Political uncertainty has thrown the economy into a downward spiral, which will inevitably hit the small business development and the "empowerment model" of our mission the hardest. As a result, our Nicaraguan friends and the One Collective (Iteams) crew have shifted their focus, at least for the time being, from development to relief.

Mars Hill college students had the opportunity to engage LDS students with the gospel on the campuses of BYI and UT this Spring. Read about the trip here.

Because of your support we have seen stories of pain turn to joy, stories of death turn to life, and stories of despair turn to hope. God has shown us his goodness and we are grateful to work alongside you as we take part in building the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

As a thank you for being a Story Teller, we want to share four of those moments with you from 2017.

We are busy. Families, work, finances, friends, church, kids, sports, science projects, homework, and the list goes on and on.

With so much happening in our lives, how do we evaluate where we are?

Our initial plan was to find one homeless person in a park downtown, get him some dinner, listen to his story, and share the love of Christ with him any way we could. And that is what we did. At the end of the night we asked if we could return the next week and our new friend said yes. None of us had ever done anything like that before. We had stepped way out of our comfort zones in an attempt to do good works for God.