Harbor Church sits on a street corner in Olympia, Washington, a few blocks from both the frigid waters of Puget Sound and the capital city’s vibrant, quirky downtown area. The building—modestly covered in beige siding—looks like it could house offices, but a sign above the steps to the front entrance declares its true function: “Harbor Church,” it reads, beside a logo of a tall-masted ship.
Inside, Preaching and Vision Pastor Seth Winterhalter delivers the week’s message. He’s in his thirties, wearing jeans, a button-up, and a cardigan; his head is shaved, and his beard reaches to his chest. He interacts with his congregation: inviting participation, asking questions like, “Anyone conquer death yet?” or “Anyone here feel secure?” The crowd laughs, some raising their hands. Sometimes they shout back replies. It’s a comfortable space.
A first-time visitor may never guess at the chaos Harbor was experiencing just a year ago, when it was known by a different name: Mars Hill Olympia.
A first-time visitor may never guess at the chaos Harbor was experiencing just a year ago, when it was known by a different name: Mars Hill Olympia.
What is now Harbor Church was formerly a satellite campus for Seattle megachurch Mars Hill. The Olympia site was one of 15 Mars Hill locations in five states, with most of the locations spread throughout western Washington. These satellite campuses each contained their own church leadership teams, but the majority of the preaching came via video screen. Each week, sermons from Mars Hill lead pastor Mark Driscoll—whom Seattle newspaper The Stranger had once named "The Christian equivalent of a rock star"—would be streamed at the campuses.
Seth arrived at the Olympia campus as executive pastor in 2011, after serving at the Mars Hill location in Bellevue, Washington. “The Olympia campus was struggling,” Seth says, “so they said, ‘Hey, why don’t you go down and help it out?’”
The issues he found in Olympia stemmed largely from what he now deems Mars Hill’s “identity search”—the problems that inherently accompanied a stratospheric increase in size and recognition.
“What’s interesting about Mars Hill is it [was] the ever-changing beast,” he says, “because it grew so rapidly.” And grow it did: Mars Hill’s peak Sunday attendance reached 13,000 during its 18 years as a church. Such immense growth meant various explorations of “how the internal structure [of the church] functioned”—and such functioning was often imperfect.
Those imperfections manifested themselves in the Olympia location. “When I came to Mars Hill in 2010, the locations were very unique,” Seth remembers. “They operated according to their budget.”
As an organization, Mars Hill may have been breaking ground in terms of branding, media, and communications, but often the Mars Hill “brand” was the lone common element among the various locations. The disparity caused some frustrations. “We had no philosophy for what satellites would be,” says Seth.
“Satellite churches are hard,” he added.
When Seth first came, the Olympia branch was meeting at a middle school. Mars Hill Olympia eventually began meeting at a local community college, and plans were made for a new, permanent location downtown.
And then came 2014, when Driscoll was forced to confront myriad accusations and allegations. These ranged from schemes to land one of his books on best-seller lists to descriptions of his "bullying and abusive behavior."
Being nearly 60 miles from Seattle and Mars Hill’s central locations, the Olympia campus was protected from the full impact of the commotion. “There was a beauty, a grace of God, [in] being so distant,” Seth says. “The lead pastors, good friends who were in Seattle, they took a whole different brunt than we did.”
Lean Into the Community You Have
In terms of attendance, Mars Hill Olympia didn’t lose too many congregants because of the growing controversies surrounding Driscoll: primarily because of the connections that had been made within the location. “People, for the most part, trusted [our site’s leadership],” says Seth.
But some people did leave—and Pastor John Bennett, who served with Seth at the Olympia satellite and now serves as Family Discipleship Pastor at Harbor, remembers the difficulty of that time. “We are a church that has a large military presence, so we are used to seeing people leave all of the time as they are re-stationed or deployed,” he says. “However, this was different.”
Confused, hurting church members came to Seth with questions about what exactly was going on—but often, Seth didn’t know the answers. “It was just an overwhelming wave,” he says. “It wasn’t one thing; it was a perfect storm of so many.” He and the many others who were relatively new to Mars Hill found themselves lacking the knowledge and context with which to explain incidents from long before their time. “We had none of this history,” he says. “None of that was ours.”
Driscoll resigned in October 2014. Two weeks later, Mars Hill announced its dissolution. The satellite campuses were encouraged to create their own independent churches.
“The saddest thing,” says Seth, “is that both Driscoll himself and Mars Hill as an organization were making incredible strides within to change culture, to work against the past, to learn our lessons, and so things had been in process to change and none of those were able to take fruit.”
Acknowledge the Elephant in the Room, but Don’t Obsess
A year later, Harbor Church isn’t ashamed of its former association with the church that once had so much promise.
“We talk about it,” says Seth. But they don’t advertise it. “We’ve decided not to—not out of a disrespect … it’s just because Mars Hill doesn’t exist, it’s a waste of time. I don’t know if [it’s] a win to plaster it on there.”
There are certain elements Harbor has carried over from its Mars Hill days: an emphasis on quality music and quality branding, and sermon series that still work through books of the Bible (as Driscoll’s did).
They have also done some things differently: “We’re being a lot more intentional about making sure [of] communication,” explains Seth. “Because I think that’s one of the things we could have done better at the end of Mars Hill.”
Reconsider Your Church’s Identity In Light of New Leadership
But Harbor Church is also just trying to be itself, and is enjoying its newfound abilities as an independent church that can make its own choices that are ideal for the culture and people of Olympia.
“We’re not trying to grow a Mars Hill replica,” says Seth. “There’s 250 of us. We’re not replicating anything. We’re trying to be us.”
The change from megachurch branch to local, independent church—from 13,000 to not-quite-300—has been perhaps the biggest transition of them all. John points out some of the effects that come with a church of significantly smaller size. “We no longer have people making choices for us. So the choices we make affect a smaller group, but are more pronounced in our body.”
Yet with all these changes and adjustments, Harbor hopes to sail far.
“Our focus,” says Seth, “is what we can do in the capital city of Olympia, the capital city of Washington state.
“It’s not that we’re not interested in being 15,000—it’s just not a concern,” he says. “It’s not even on the radar. We’re not interested in attendance. We’re interested in assimilating people into a life of transformation.”
Emily Lund is an editorial resident with Leadership Journal.
