Mars Hill Church: Don't Call Us 'Campuses' Anymore

A Seattle-based megachurch is dropping the use of campus and its leaders are now referring to each of the other 11 locations (eight existing and three future) where Sunday sermons are delivered by video broadcast as a church.

Mars Hill Church made the announcement via blog post on its website with the headline, “No More Mars Hill ‘Campuses.’” Pastor Mark Driscoll leads the church, which is expanding to Portland, Orange County, Calif., and Everett, Wash.

"Mars Hill campuses now become Mars Hill churches," Executive Pastor Jamie Munson wrote in the blog.

“The word campus is not in the Bible. Not that it has to be. You won’t find podcast or MacBook in your concordance either (or Trinity, for that matter); that doesn’t mean we’re going to stop using these critical tools for ministry,” Munson wrote. “But the Bible does give us a word to describe a body of believers gathered together on mission for Jesus: church.”

“In addition to being more biblical, it’s also more natural to describe our locations as churches (the term campus usually refers to academic institutions or offices) and more accurate, because every location is a church,” he added.

Munson then went on to say that every Mars Hill church fulfills the biblical criteria for a church and listed eight principles that define a church. Included in the list were the facts that churches are made up of “regenerated believers in Jesus, organized under qualified and competent leadership,” and “regularly gathers to hear God’s Word rightly preached and to respond in worshipful ways.” To read more, click here.