One sentence stops you from finishing everyone else's wall.
Grace and peace to you this week. I want to start by saying thank you. Thank you for giving me the time away these past few weeks to rest, to breathe, and to actually enjoy the life God gave me instead of just running it. That gift did not go unnoticed. One church, two campuses, one family. I mean that every time I say it. Homegoing: Vevely A. Parker Before anything else this week, we hold a family in our arms. Our sister, Vevely A. Parker, has gone home to be with the Lord. We celebrate a...
4 days ago • 3 min readThe Shovel You Keep Handing Them
Grace and peace to you this week. This past Sunday we gathered online, and wherever you watched from, your kitchen table, your car, a break room on a Tuesday shift, you were part of this house. One church, two campuses, one family. I mean that every time I say it. This past Sunday we continued WHO'S IN YOUR BOAT with Week 3: You Reap Whoever You Keep. It's 11:47 on a Tuesday night. Their name lights up your phone and your stomach drops before you even unlock the screen. You've rehearsed the...
12 days ago • 3 min readHonor them. Don't obey them. Two different words.
Grace and peace to you this week. We gathered online this past Sunday, and wherever you watched from, your kitchen table, your car, or a hospital chair somewhere across the country, you were part of this house. One church, two campuses, one family. I mean that every time I say it. I want to say something I don't say often enough. I am grateful for you. Some of you almost didn't log on Sunday, because the message was about family and you weren't sure your heart could take it. You showed up...
17 days ago • 4 min readPut it down. It was never yours.
Grace and peace to you this week. This past Sunday we gathered online, and wherever you watched from, your kitchen table, your car, or a hospital chair somewhere across the country, you were part of this house. One church, two campuses, one family. I mean that every time I say it. Homegoing: Deacon Robert Earl Bounds Before anything else this week, we pause to honor one of our own. Our brother, Deacon Robert Earl Bounds, has gone home to be with the Lord. He gave his life in service to this...
25 days ago • 3 min readSome of this water was never yours.
There were men on a boat in Jonah 1 whose names nobody bothered to write down. They weren't prophets. Most had never heard the name of Israel's God. They were working men hauling cargo across the Mediterranean on an ordinary run, doing their job on an ordinary afternoon. By nightfall they were throwing their own income into the sea just to survive. They hadn't sinned. They hadn't disobeyed anybody. Their only mistake was booking passage next to a man running from God. The wind that nearly...
about 1 month ago • 3 min readSunday, 10:30am — you're in the room this time
Watching from your couch counts. Being in the room counts more. Sunday, July 12, 10:30am, we gather in person again at Mars Hill Anywhere. 7941 47th St, McCook, IL. New season. Bring someone who needs it, or come as you are. Still online too, if that's where you are. But if you can be here, be here. See you Sunday. Pastor Clarence E. Stowers, Jr.
about 1 month ago • 1 min readThe seven words that end every excuse
Hey Reader, You've done the work. Five weeks of it. You named the wilderness. You faced the giants. You stopped waiting to feel ready. And you still haven't said the one sentence that matters. You've circled the mountain. Prayed around it. Called it being "open to whatever God wants." But be honest, a private hope never has to be defended. Keep it vague, and if it doesn't happen, nobody ever saw you want it. This Sunday, in the finale of GIVE ME MY MOUNTAIN, we closed that exit. The Big Idea...
about 1 month ago • 1 min readYou are not unready. You are unmoved.
Sometime around 1400 BCE, an eighty-five-year-old man walked up to Joshua, commander of the armies of Israel, and asked for a fight nobody expected him to want. The land he wanted was Hebron. Still occupied by the Anakites, a people so physically imposing that an earlier generation of scouts had stood at the edge of this same territory and reported back that they felt like grasshoppers next to them. That generation chose not to move. They spent the next forty years dying in a wilderness,...
about 2 months ago • 1 min readThe promise didn't move. You did.
Sunday morning, the room at 7941 47th Street was fuller than usual. Fathers came in with sons they hadn't sat next to in church in years. Men who typically join the stream digitally showed up physically, in the room, with their families, eyes forward. Something about Father's Day made people move. And then the message started with one line: The giants are still there. Good. That means the mountain is still there too. Caleb was eighty-five years old when he walked up to Joshua and made the...
about 2 months ago • 2 min readThis Sunday. Bring your father.
This Sunday is Week 4 of GIVE ME MY MOUNTAIN. It's also Father's Day. We're bringing both into the same room. If you named your mountain last Sunday, this is the Sunday you find out what's standing on it. Caleb didn't celebrate after he named it. He went to take it. Bring your father. Bring the man who's been circling something for years without saying its name out loud. Bring the family that's been waiting on a Sunday like this one. Sunday, June 21, 2026 | 10:30 AM Central 7941 47th St.,...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read