Reader, quick update before Sunday.

This week, Mars Hill Anywhere is online only. No in-person gathering. If you were planning to walk through the doors Sunday morning, save the drive. The building is closed. The service is not.

CHECK YOUR SOURCE, Week 1: More Than You Can Handle

You did not fail the test. You were handed a weight that verse never promised to keep off you.

“God will never give you more than you can handle” is not in your Bible. What is in your Bible is a temptation verse, cropped and handed to you at the worst possible moment, usually a funeral. This Sunday we go get the real text.

“We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead.” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9, NLT)

God never promised manageable trouble. He promised sufficient grace.

10:30 AM Central. Online only. Watch at marshillchicago.org.

Send this to someone who was never coming to a building anyway

An online-only week has one advantage. The person who was never going to walk through a church door this week can watch this one from exactly where they are. Forward this email or send them the link. Nobody has to get dressed for this service.

Give

Everything you are about to watch, the stream, the team, the ministry that reaches somebody at two in the morning who is not ready to walk into a building yet, was built by people who give.

Give at marshillchicago.org/giving or text MHGIVE to 33777.

Pastor Clarence E. Stowers, Jr.

P.S. Week two is already loaded. “God helps those who help themselves” is not in your Bible either. It is Ben Franklin. Same time Sunday.

A word from this week’s sponsor

This letter lands in your inbox free, and part of what keeps it that way is the sponsor below. Take ten seconds to see what they’re about.

Good morning, Reader. Three days ago, two churches raised one prayer in one room. Here is what actually happened, and where we go from here. The Gathering What happened at The Gathering was more than a joint service. As we worshiped alongside our sisters and brothers from Ebenezer Baptist Church, shared a meal, and talked with one another, something beautiful happened. There was joy in the room. There was connection. It reminded us that we are part of one body, serving one Savior and carrying one message of hope. For a hybrid church like ours, gathering in person with another congregation showed us what’s possible when churches choose partnership over isolation. What if churches with different gifts, resources, and spaces could come together more often to worship, fellowship, and serve our communities? What if we could strengthen one another without each church having to carry every burden alone? The Gathering gave us a glimpse. We are grateful to Ebenezer Baptist Church for the welcome, the worship, and the fellowship. We are praying about what God may be building next. What was your favorite part of The Gathering? Hit reply and tell me. This Sunday: A New Series Begins CHECK YOUR SOURCE starts this Sunday. Five weeks testing the sayings you have built your life on, the ones that sound biblical and are not: “God will never give you more than you can handle.” “God helps those who help themselves.” “Everything happens for a reason.” Sayings that feel true right up until the day they cannot hold the weight you are putting on them. Week one is called More Than You Can Handle. Here is the line we are testing against Scripture: God never promised you manageable trouble. He promised sufficient grace. If you have ever quietly believed your faith failed because your life got too heavy, this one is for you. “We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead.” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9, NLT) 10:30 AM Central. In person or online at marshillchicago.org. Worth Your Time: Your Saved Posts Are a List of Things You Quit Going deeper this week. New on Second Act: your saved folder is not a to-do list. It is a record of every intention you talked yourself out of. Your brain gets the same reward from saving something as it does from doing it. That is why the folder keeps growing and the shelf stays empty. The rule that fixes it is not complicated. It is just uncomfortable: engage now or let it go. 👉 Read Your Saved Posts Are a List of Things You Quit Give Everything you are watching right now was built by people who give. The stream, the team, the ministry that reaches somebody who cannot walk into a building this morning. Give at marshillchicago.org/giving. That link is in the chat and in the description. Give as worship, not as pressure. Pastor Clarence E. Stowers, Jr. P.S. Week two is already loaded. “God helps those who help themselves” is not in your Bible. It is Ben Franklin. Same time Sunday. A word from this week’s sponsor This letter lands in your inbox free, and part of what keeps it that way is the sponsor below. Take ten seconds to see what they’re about. Supporting them helps us keep showing up in your inbox every week.

Good morning, Reader.

Four days from now, Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church walks into a room with Mars Hill Anywhere for the first joint service either congregation has held in years.

That is not a small thing. Two pulpits do not share one microphone by accident.

This Sunday: The Gathering

The Gathering: One City. One Savior. One Worship Experience.

This Sunday, Mars Hill and Ebenezer combine into one 11:00 AM service, done by 12:30. Tag-team welcome and announcements, one combined worship set, Pastor Barry carrying intercessory prayer, one sermon, one invitation. A Fifth Sunday scholarship offering will be taken.

Watching from home? Skip the YouTube and Facebook buttons below this week, they won’t carry it. Marcie (Mars Hill) and Jalen (Ebenezer) have the joint service running straight through Restream instead.

When the benediction lands, stay. A reception with light refreshments follows immediately after in Ebenezer’s upstairs dining hall.

Final artwork is approved and already moving across every channel we have. Full run-of-service details and team assignments land in your inbox this week. For now: get August 30 locked in before anything else claims that morning.

This Week’s Message

The Last Passenger You Have to Release Is Not a Person. There’s a folder on your phone you haven’t opened in four years. You know its exact name. This week closed WHO’S IN YOUR BOAT by asking who’s still sitting in the seat behind you, grading every Tuesday against a Tuesday that never came.

👉 Watch Why You Can’t Move On (And How to Fix It)

New Episode: Still Standing

Going deeper this week. Answering Everybody Is Costing You the Work just dropped on Still Standing. You are not slow and you are not disorganized. People keep bringing you their fires because every fast reply has trained them that you will put yours out to handle theirs. The episode names the eleven words that retrain it and hands you a seven-day audit to catch the pattern before it costs you another week.

👉 Listen to Answering Everybody Is Costing You the Work

Give

Everything you are watching right now was built by people who give. The stream, the team, the ministry that reaches somebody who cannot walk into a building this morning.

Give at marshillchicago.org/giving. That link is in the chat and in the description.

Give as worship, not as pressure.

Pastor Clarence E. Stowers, Jr.

P.S. Sunday’s room will hold more people than either building normally does alone. Get there by 10:45. The scholarship offering opens with the welcome, not after it.

A word from this week’s sponsor

This letter lands in your inbox free, and part of what keeps it that way is the sponsor below. This week it’s 1440. Take ten seconds to see what they’re about. Supporting them helps us keep showing up in your inbox every week.

I was gone. Not glancing-at-the-phone gone. Actually gone. And Mars Hill Anywhere did not fall apart without me, because this was never supposed to run through one man’s exhaustion in the first place.

Family. Friends. This church. You pushed me out the door and then held the ministry down while I was out of pocket. That is not a small ask, and you did not treat it like one. Thank you.

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 life that touched this church as a sister, an aunt, a family member, and a friend.

Thursday, August 20, 2026
Wallace Broadview Funeral Home · 2020 W. Roosevelt Rd, Broadview, IL 60155

Visitation
10:00 to 10:30 AM

Funeral Service
10:30 to 11:30 AM

Burial Following
Oakridge Cemetery, Hillside, IL

Church, wrap this family in love. If you can be present, be present. If you cannot, cover them in prayer.

Save the Date: The Gathering

Sunday, August 30. One address. Two churches that have not shared a room in years.

The Gathering: One City. One Savior. One Worship Experience.

Mars Hill Chicago and Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church go back further than either building. Northwood River District. Navy Pier. This is not two churches meeting for the first time. It is two churches finishing a sentence they started years ago.

11:00 AM, about 90 minutes, done by 12:30. Tag-team welcome and announcements, one combined worship set, Pastor Barry carrying intercessory prayer, one sermon, one invitation. A Fifth Sunday scholarship offering will be taken. Jalen from Ebenezer and Marcie from Mars Hill are already coordinating the broadcast so both congregations can watch it live on Restream.

When the benediction lands, stay. Weber Bakery is catering a reception upstairs in Ebenezer’s dining hall.

Artwork is approved and already moving across every channel we have. Full run-of-service and team assignments are coming in the next few weeks. For now: get August 30 on your calendar and do not put anything else on it that morning.

This Week’s Message

The Wall Has Your Name on It. Nobody Else Is Coming to Build It. Nehemiah got the same interruption four times and gave the same answer four times. If your assignment has been sitting on page two while you answer everybody else’s emergency, this one is for you.

👉 Watch The Wall Has Your Name on It

Growth Resource: Hands on Stone

Ten minutes on Sunday will not fix a calendar that answers everybody but you. Hands on Stone is the eight-page workbook built off this week’s message. It names the four symptoms of a broken boundary, breaks down Nehemiah’s refusal at the Plain of Ono line by line, and walks you through writing your own “come down sentence” before the next interruption tests it. It ends with a manifesto you sign with your own hand.

Download Hands on Stone (PDF)

Take This

Ten questions. Two minutes. No email required to see where you land. The Second Act Assessment will not hand you generic advice about “seasons” and “next chapters.” It names exactly how deep you are and what staying there is already costing you.

Take the Second Act Assessment

This Sunday

We are online only, August 23. Join us at 10:30 AM Central.

Give

Everything you are watching right now was built by people who give. The stream, the team, the ministry that reaches somebody who cannot walk into a building this morning.

Give at marshillchicago.org/giving. That link is in the chat and in the description.

Give as worship, not as pressure.

Pastor Clarence E. Stowers, Jr.

P.S. August 30. Two churches, one room, one Word. If The Gathering is new to you, this is your heads-up. Full run of service coming soon.

A word from this week’s sponsor

This letter lands in your inbox free, and part of what keeps it that way is the sponsor below. This week it’s Superhuman. Take ten seconds to see what they’re about. Supporting them helps us keep showing up in your inbox every week.

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 life that touched this church as a sister, an aunt, a family member, and a friend.

Thursday, August 20, 2026
Wallace Broadview Funeral Home · 2020 W. Roosevelt Rd, Broadview, IL 60155

Visitation
10:00 to 10:30 AM

Funeral Service
10:30 to 11:30 AM

Burial Following
Oakridge Cemetery, Hillside, IL

Church, wrap this family in love. If you can be present, be present. If you cannot, cover them in prayer.

Save the Date: The Gathering

I want to give you an advance heads-up on our 5th Sunday joint service with Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church, and some context from our August 4th planning meeting.

The Gathering: One City. One Savior. One Worship Experience.

This service is a reunion. It is rooted in shared history through the Northwood River District and the joint services our two churches have held before, including at Navy Pier.

Time: 11:00 AM, running about 90 minutes, ending around 12:30 PM.
Flow: Tag-team welcome and announcements, combined praise and worship, intercessory prayer led by Pastor Barry, sermon, and an invitation.
Offering: Fifth Sunday scholarship offering.
Broadcast: Jalen from Ebenezer and Marcie from Mars Hill are coordinating a cross-post of the service on Restream.
Reception: Fellowship reception with light food catered by Weber Bakery, in Ebenezer’s upstairs dining hall, following the benediction.

Final artwork and promotional materials are approved and launching across all channels now. Full logistics, run-of-service details, and team assignments are coming soon. Mark your calendar.

This past Sunday we closed out WHO’S IN YOUR BOAT with the final message in the series.

I Cannot Come Down.

You have not touched the assignment God gave you in eleven days. You have touched everybody else’s emergency twice today. Your phone went off at 7:12 this morning and you answered before your feet hit the floor. The thing with your name on it is still sitting on page two.

You are not lazy. You are booked. Nobody around you can tell the difference, and neither can you anymore.

Nehemiah got the same invitation four times. Come down. Let’s talk. He knew it was not a meeting, it was a trap designed to pull him off the wall.

“I am engaged in a great work, so I can’t come. Why should I stop working to come and meet with you?” (Nehemiah 6:3, NLT)

Four times they asked. Four times he gave the same answer. He did not argue, he did not explain himself, he just went back to work. Fifty two days later, the wall was finished.

Write this down: A boundary around your calling is not selfishness. It is stewardship.

God is not going to ask you about everybody else’s wall on the last day. He is going to ask you about yours.

Your practice this week: name the “great work” God gave you this season, and write the one sentence you will say the next time someone calls you down from it.

New on Still Standing

This week’s episode is Overturn The Verdict You Gave Yourself. If you have been carrying a sentence you handed down on your own life, this one is for you.

👉 Listen to “Overturn The Verdict You Gave Yourself”

This Sunday

We are online only this week. Join us at 10:30 AM Central.

Thank you for holding this house up

Being a hybrid church means we are doing two things at once. We gather in person in McCook, and we open the doors online to people who may never walk through a physical building but still need a place to belong. That takes prayer, and it takes provision. Your continued prayers cover this ministry. Your continued giving keeps both campuses running.

👉 Give here

There is a wall with your name on it, and people are going to keep calling you down from it. This week, stay up there.

Pastor Clarence E. Stowers, Jr.

P.S. Before your head hits the pillow tonight, name the great work God gave you out loud. Then write the sentence you will say the next time someone calls you down from it.

A word from this week’s sponsor

This letter lands in your inbox free, and part of what keeps it that way is the sponsor below. This week it’s 1440. Take ten seconds to see what they’re about. Supporting them helps us keep showing up in your inbox every week.

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 same conversation with this person in the shower for three years. Nothing has changed except your blood pressure. You call it loyalty. Your body calls it something else. Tight jaw. Shallow sleep. Sunday dread that starts on Saturday afternoon. Here’s what we sat in together. Access is agriculture. Every person you let close is planting in you every time you talk. The group chat is planting. The late night vent session is planting. The one who apologizes better than they change is planting. Write this down: Every person with access to you is planting something you will eventually have to harvest. “Don’t be misled: You cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant.” (Galatians 6:7, NLT) Paul doesn’t say you’ll harvest what you intended. He says you’ll harvest what was planted. That’s the whole sermon in one sentence. This week, name the one relationship producing a harvest you don’t want, and decide what access it loses. Not a list. One name, one access, one decision. You didn’t pick the crop. You picked the company. The crop came with it. Watch the Replay Missed Sunday, or want to hear it again? 👉 Watch “You Reap Whoever You Keep” on YouTube Go deeper: Unlocking The Boat If Sunday named a person you’ve been protecting, don’t let the conviction fade by Tuesday. Unlocking The Boat walks you through deciding what access comes down and how to hold the line once you’ve said it out loud. 👉 Unlocking The Boat Text these numbers, get help before the next 11:47 PM text Every keyword below is fixed and live on our premium number, 33777. One text, one email, no duplicates. MARSHILL — the Second Chance Starter Kit. Short, practical, made for the exact week you’re in if you’re starting over from anything. NOTES — the F.A.I.T.H. Plan. The framework behind the podcast, condensed to one page you can actually use. MHPRAY — 5 Prayers You’ve Been Avoiding. Prayers for the conversation you keep rehearsing in the shower and never say out loud. MHGIVE — give straight from your phone. Text it once and you’ll get the full link. Text it again later and you’ll get a quick one-line shortcut, no need to sit through the intro twice. All four go to the same number: 33777. This Sunday: I Cannot Come Down Sunday, August 9 · 10:30 AM CT Online only: YouTube Plan your visit: marshillchicago.org We’re online only this week. No in-person gathering. We close WHO’S IN YOUR BOAT. Bring the name you’ve been protecting. This one’s for what happens after you name it. Thank you for holding this house up Being a hybrid church means we’re doing two things at once. We gather in person in McCook, and we open the doors online to people who may never walk through a physical building but still need a place to belong. That takes prayer, and it takes provision. Your continued prayers cover this ministry. Your continued giving keeps both campuses running so nobody gets left on the shore. 👉 Give here or text MHGIVE to 33777. Stop planting your future in soil that keeps growing thorns. An empty seat in your boat is not loneliness. It is obedience. Pastor Clarence E. Stowers, Jr. P.S. Next week: four times they told Nehemiah to come down and talk. Four times he said no. The enemy doesn’t always attack the wall. Sometimes he just keeps calling you off of it. I Cannot Come Down. Week 4, the finale. Same time Sunday. A word from this week’s sponsor This letter lands in your inbox free, and part of what keeps it that way is the sponsor below. This week it’s Superhuman. Take ten seconds to see what they’re about. Supporting them helps us keep showing up in your inbox every week.