Tag: Bellevue Church

Proposed Bellevue Church (Was Mars Hill Bellevue) Bylaws; More Details About Bellevue Church Plant

As noted earlier this week, Bellevue Church announced today that Jeff Vanderstelt will become the lead teaching pastor at Bellevue Church. The Church intends to become a part of the Soma family of churches. The bylaws for the new church has been available to those interested and are linked here.
The church will be more open to the congregation than Mars Hill Church was. Members will be able to vote on purchases over $100k but not on the elders (see below).* The Board of Elders will be a self-perpetuating board.
To read the Bellevue Church bylaws, click here.
Jason Skelton posted this information earlier today:

As we wrap up 2014, we wanted you to know about the schedule for the remaining weekends, and what to expect as we enter the new year and begin the new church.

December 21st

Jeff Vanderstelt will be preaching at all of our services to continue our“Jesus: Gift of God” series, and we will formally welcome him as our Lead Teaching Pastor who will serve as one of the elders to replant the church. We have some additional exciting news to share, including the selection of our church name (“Bellevue Church” has been a placeholder while we are in the selection process for a new name). As well, on the 21st we will have the final in our series of “Interest Meetings,” with the topic of this week’s meeting being Counseling, Redemption Groups, Kids Ministry, and Student Ministry. This meeting will be led by Jeff Vanderstelt and Alex Ghioni, with other key leaders as well. Our ministry leaders will be here to talk through plans for the new church, and they also want to hear from you.

December 24th

We will not be hosting a Christmas Eve service this year, in an effort to ensure that volunteers and staff families have a great opportunity to be with their families after what has been a very busy season. If you’re interested in the festivities, many of the area churches are hosting Christmas Eve services, and we would encourage you also to attendSnowflake Lane together with your family or community group.

December 28th

This will be the last Sunday of the year, as we also celebrate the work that God has done through Mars Hill Church. Thousands of lives have been changed, millions of sermons have been downloaded and the Word of God has been powerfully at work. We will gather together for one final service together at 10am on December 28th. This will be our only service this Sunday to have an opportunity for the whole church family to be together.

January 4th

The start of the new year will mark the start of our new church. Join us on January 4th as Jeff Vanderstelt begins as the new Lead Teaching Pastor. Service times will be at 9am and 11am.

Lastly, we want to share just a few brief details related to planting the new church, especially amidst the busyness of the Christmas season. Most of these have already been communicated, we just wanted to compile to share it as reminders.

  • Last week, we shared that we have hired a number of new staff members. On Sunday we announced that Jeff Vanderstelt had resigned his position at Soma Tacoma and now joins the leadership team for the new church plant. The elders of the new church plant include Dave Cox, Alex Ghioni, Roger Molvar, Tim Patton, Matt Rogers, Jason Skelton, and Jeff Vanderstelt.

  • In the new year we will change our service times to 9a and 11a. This will allow us to focus our efforts on Sunday morning services, as well as utilizing the remainder of the day for additional training and equipping opportunities, particularly allowing those driving from a further distance to not be required to come into Downtown Bellevue on multiple days per week. It’s our prayer that this will also help our volunteer teams who have served sacrificially these past few months.

  • Also in the new year, Student Ministry will be on Sunday evenings at 5p. We will be sharing more details about Student Ministry in the coming weeks.

  • Our new church plant will seek to become a member of the Soma Family of Churches, but we will not be “Soma Church” or directly connected in any legal or financial manner with Soma Tacoma. Jeff Vanderstelt will be our Lead Teaching Pastor, but he has resigned from his role as an elder at Soma Tacoma. He will remain in an oversight role of the Soma Family of Churches but it should be noted that this network functions solely as a relational network of like-minded churches and has no governing or binding authority over local churches. The new church plant will be an independent church. We will be sharing more about our desire to become part of the Soma Family of Churches in the new year.

  • We have attached a version of our preliminary bylaws that will serve for the next six months while we evaluate and assess their effectiveness, as well as work toward affirmation of the new elder team. These bylaws are formed from the principles we shared in November at our Vision Meeting, and have been reviewed by numerous church members, leaders through our Interest Meetings,and have also been reviewed by outside counsel. We have intentionally created a version that is not extremely robust, in order that we can learn and grow over time.

  • In addition to this information, we’ll be sharing an extended post on what transparency will look like in the new church early next week.

We’re excited, and we pray that you are too. Jesus has been abundantly showing his grace and opening doors for the future and we confidently believe that a great, healthy church for the Eastside is in store. If you have not had an opportunity to talk to us in person and have feedback you’d like to share, we have created a form where you can provide it here. That being said, our elders are always available to you, please reach out to any of us moving forward.

In Christ,

Pastor Jason

*While it appears that the elders will elect people to their board, there is a provision on page 5 or the congregation to have some kind of input. According to the provision on the annual meeting, the congregation will affirm the elders:

An annual meeting of the church shall be held each year at a date, time, and place to be determined by the Board of Elders. At the annual meeting, the voting members shall affirm the elders assessed and appointed by the Board of Elders, affirm an annual budget, provide notice of changes to the church bylaws, and transact any other business as may come before the meeting.

This is not fleshed out. The congregation may simply get a slate of board members and be instructed to vote on the slate. If so, the opposition to one member would have to be intense for the congregation to vote down the entire slate. However, since the method of affirm is not spelled out, one cannot know how much congregational input there will be.

Jeff Vanderstelt Selected as Lead Teaching Pastor at (Mars Hill) Bellevue Church

This was announced earlier today via The City:

From Pastor Jason Skelton:

On behalf of the elders of Soma Tacoma and Bellevue Church, it is our privilege to share with you today the news that Jeff Vanderstelt has been selected as the Lead Teaching Pastor of Bellevue Church in Bellevue, WA.

Over the last six weeks, the elders of Bellevue Church and Soma Tacoma have been praying together to seek the Lord and know His will in this important decision. It has been our desire to create as many opportunities as possible to allow the congregation to speak into the process. This has included multiple public gatherings from Q&A in Bellevue, Sammamish, and Soma Tacoma, as well as Jeff preaching at Bellevue Church on November 23rd and December 7th. With a remarkable spirit of unity from both congregations, that we take as a sign of confirmation from the Holy Spirit, we now move forward with confidence in presenting this decision to you.

Today at the Soma Tacoma gathering, Jeff has resigned his eldership, and formally accepted the role as Lead Teaching Pastor of Bellevue Church. He will be publicly welcomed on December 21st when he will be present to preach that day as well in Bellevue. His first official day will be January 1st, 2015, which signifies the beginning of planting a new church.

From Jeff:

“Jayne and I are blessed to be clearly led by the Spirit in conjunction with the affirmation of Soma Tacoma and Bellevue Church to step into this new adventure. We are confident that Jesus is leading us into this and eager to serve Him as he continues to build his body on the Eastside. We can not do this without Him nor without the prayers of his people. In light of that, we earnestly ask that you lift us up in your prayers as we make this difficult transition from a church family that we dearly love to one that we are already growing in love for and anticipate loving in ever increasing ways over the coming months and years. We are eager to see the glory of Jesus fill the Eastside through his body the church as the waters cover the sea!”

With this decision, Bellevue Church will seek to become a member of the Soma Family of Churches, though the timeline for this has not been determined.

Our prayer, and our vision, is that the good news of Jesus would saturate the Eastside so that every man, woman, and child would have a daily encounter with Jesus in word and deed.

In Christ,

Soma Tacoma Elders

Don Crook

Justin Kuravackal

Abe Meysenburg

Mark Tilden

Jeff Wall

Randy Sheets

Bellevue Church Elders

Dave Cox

Alex Ghioni

Roger Molvar

Tim Patton

Matt Rogers

Jason Skelton

After the news from Bellevue recently about new staff, it was unclear that Soma was still involved.

Barring any legal complications, Bellevue Church is in line to receive what could be a substantial amount of money from the dissolution of Mars Hill Church.  Initially, there were high hopes that the involvement of Vanderstelt and Soma would bring in a new era of transparency. However, up to now, those representing Soma Church have ignored questions from the public and from Soma members about the transition of Bellevue from Mars Hill Church to Soma.

Some Questions for Soma Church from Soma Members About the Mars Hill Bellevue Replant

In recent days, several members of Soma churches have written me with questions they have posed to either their local pastors or to the leaders at Soma Tacoma. The questions relate to the relationship between Soma and Mars Hill now and after the transition to independent churches. I don’t know the answers to these questions and have posed them to my contacts at Soma with no answer as yet. The members who wrote have not gotten answers either.
I am posting them here because I think if several people are asking, then many more would like to know. I also think some readers might know the answers and might then step forward either on the blog or via email. I have combined some similar questions into one category. Here they are:

1.  Mars Hill Global Fund: Do you believe Soma has an obligation to get clarity on where the money went, and making sure what’s left gets to the right people?
2.  Is Soma going to have any role in funding any Mars Hill severance pay?  Will tithes from local Soma churches have any part in fulfilling Bellevue’s obligations?
3.  Do you think MHC/Bellevue Church as part of Soma should have the existing leadership removed of their authority as elders and leaders?  (Jeff Vanderstelt said they’d step down, now not the case) Do you think these leaders, if they knew of abusive climate but did nothing, should be disqualified?
4.  What is you policy on shunning?  Is this practice condemned at Soma?
5.  Will former MHC leadership assume leadership positions in Soma Tacoma with national governance roles once Bellevue Church is brought into the Soma network?
6. If any of the former leaders at Bellevue are brought into the RICO lawsuit, will Soma help pay for their legal defense?
7. Has Soma checked in with Acts 29 for spiritual counsel? Has anyone from Soma discussed the move with former Mars Hill elders or Paul Tripp?
8. Will Soma benefit from the Mars Hill seed money?

 

Soma Church Clarifies Relationship With Mars Hill Bellevue

Amid questions about how Mars Hill Church is going to dissolve, Mars Hill Bellevue (now doing business as Bellevue Church) has announced that it will affiliate with Soma Tacoma.  The move has raised many questions among Mars Hill folk, and apparently among Soma people as well. The following communication was sent to Soma Churches nationally about the move to replant Mars Hill Bellevue as a Soma Church. The note is from Todd Morr, school coordinator and deacon at Soma Tacoma (did I mention that is fun to say?).

Hey everybody,
A growing number of you have been asking for clarification about what’s happening with Jeff [Vanderstelt] and Soma in relation to the Mars Hill Church in Bellevue.
I thought I would clarify here quick, so that you get the right information, rather than some misinformation flying around social media.
Bellevue Church (which was formerly Mars Hill Bellevue) approached Jeff and the Soma Tacoma elders sometime this past month to ask for help with replanting their church. After much prayer and discussion with the Soma Tacoma elders, many other Soma Tacoma leaders, and the Soma family of churches around the U.S., it was determined that we would proceed with helping them replant the church, with the goal to become part of the Soma family of churches. This is not being considered a transition, but starting over.
Over the course of the next month, much work will be done by Jeff and our elders in cooperation with the previous elders of that church to determine, if that’s what their people do indeed want and if Soma Tacoma should continue to help them in that direction.
There are many hurting people involved with what has happened there these past months, and at this time, we’re feeling like we should be good family to help bring healing, restoration, and a healthy future to the church there.
So, that’s the current story. Please Pray! Pray for peace, unity, healing, repentance, and right relationship with each other and with Jesus!
Abe gave a talk 2 Sundays ago about conflict and reconciliation that is an absolute MUST! Every person on the planet needs listen to this and consider the personal implications for all of our relationships. It’s really, really important!
http://www.somatacoma.org/teaching-audio/2014/11/19/jesus-relationships-how-do-we-resolve-conflict
Thanks,
Todd [Morr]

This is an informative and gracious note. It seems encouraging that the Soma leaders want to discern what the people of Mars Hill Bellevue want in addition to knowing what the leaders want.
However, many questions remain. Now that Mars Hill Bellevue is moving toward Soma, will the Bellevue elders maintain the silence about the Global Fund and Mark Driscoll’s investigation? Matt Rogers chaired the Board of Elders committee that investigated Driscoll and sits on the Board of Advisors and Accountability that currently maintain that silence about Global and the investigation. According the BoE, Driscoll needed to leave the pulpit and enter restoration; according to the BoAA, Driscoll was not disqualified. Even if Mars Hill Bellevue joins another church, some of those Bellevue elders have unfinished business with Mars Hill. Soma inherits these problems if they don’t clear them up before a transition takes place.

Bellevue Church Elders Choose Jeff Vanderstelt To Be Teaching Pastor

The elders of Mars Hill Bellevue, soon to be doing business as Bellevue Church (or will the church be called Soma Bellevue?), have decided on Jeff Vanderstelt as their teaching pastor.
They are meeting now with the congregation to discuss the call to Vanderstelt. The elders believe he is the guy but they are asking the church to pray about it before a decision is made. Is this a hint that the congregation will have a vote? Stay tuned. The note to the church is below and the letter describing the call to Vanderstelt is linked here.

From Pastor Jason Skelton:Eastside Family,
As you know, your elders have been praying about an important decision related to our search for a lead teaching pastor to plant a new church on the Eastside. The attached letter is a request for your continued prayers, and any feedback you might have, as we believe God has brought us that leader.
We invite you to join us at 12:30 p.m. today (Sunday, November 23) in Bellevue for an open conversation about the governance of our new church and to meet the man we believe God has called to serve alongside your elders as the lead teaching pastor.
We also invite you to join us for a special 4:00 p.m. service today in Bellevue to hear from him directly, and we will share additional opportunities to meet and provide feedback as we pray over this decision together as a church family for the next few weeks.
On Behalf of the Elders,
Pastor Jason
[file attachment online]

Vanderstelt is coming from Soma Tacoma (fun to say) with the blessing of the elders of that church.
As an outsider, I am surprised anyone would take the job with so much unfinished business. If the current leadership doesn’t provide answers to nagging questions soon, then Vanderstelt becomes part of the problem.
Vanderstelt’s selection is ironic. According to a former lead pastor, when Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll planted Mars Hill Tacoma, Driscoll bragged to a meeting of pastors that “We’ll hand Vanderstelt his ass once I’m [Driscoll] there.” It appears that Vanderstelt held onto his backside.