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 anyway. That took something. And I know what some of you are carrying into this week. A diagnosis you haven’t told anybody about. A child who isn’t speaking to you. A marriage quieter than it used to be. A name you haven’t been able to say out loud. You are not carrying it alone, and you are not carrying it unnoticed. I pray for this house by name, and that includes you.

This past Sunday we went to Week 2 of WHO’S IN YOUR BOAT, and this one had people sitting very still.

The Person Hurting You Might Share Your Name.

The name lights up your phone and your stomach drops before you answer. Not a stranger. Somebody who was at your baptism, your graduation, your worst year. Behavior you’d end a friendship over, you excuse at the dinner table.

Somewhere in childhood a real command quietly got rewritten. Honor your father and mother became obey your father and mother. Forever. No limits. Those are two different words, and the gap between them is your whole life.

Then look at Jacob. Laban worked him twenty years and changed his wages ten times. His brother Esau planned to kill him. His deepest wounds all shared his last name.

“Then the Lord said to Jacob, Return to the land of your father and grandfather and to your relatives there, and I will be with you.” (Genesis 31:3, NLT)

God told him to go. The distance was not rebellion. It was the instruction. And Jacob doesn’t get free and whole under Laban’s thumb. He gets there after he leaves.

Write this down: Honor was never a synonym for access.

Your one job this week is simple and hard. Name one family relationship where honor has meant unlimited access, and decide one clear limit before the next time you talk. Not “I’ll try to be stronger.” Something specific. The call ends at twenty minutes. I don’t loan the money this time. Then hold it without a speech and without an apology.

Watch the Replay

Missed Sunday, or want to hear it again? Watch the full message here:

👈 Watch “The Person Hurting You Might Share Your Name” on YouTube

Go deeper: Unlocking The Boat

A sermon gives you forty minutes. This gives you the week.

Unlocking The Boat is the study guide for this series. It’s built for the part nobody sees, the Tuesday night when the name comes back up and you have to decide all over again what you’re going to hold. Work through the reflection questions the message didn’t have time for, sit with the scripture behind each week, and write down the one limit you’re actually deciding. Use it alone with coffee. Use it with your spouse. Bring it to your small group and go around the room.

👈 Unlocking The Boat

This Sunday: You Reap Whoever You Keep

Week 2 was the family you were born into. Week 3 is the ones you invited in.

You keep praying for a different harvest while protecting the people planting the weeds. It’s 11:47 on a Tuesday night, their name lights up your screen, and you’ve rehearsed the same conversation in the shower for three years. Nothing has changed except your blood pressure. You call it loyalty. Your body calls it something else.

Paul says you will always harvest what you plant. Read it again. He doesn’t say you harvest what you intended. He says you harvest what was planted, and the people closest to you are planting every single day, whether you notice the crop or not.

“Don’t be misled: You cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant.” (Galatians 6:7, NLT)

Some storms don’t leave until certain people do. Sunday we name the boat and decide who still has planting rights.

If somebody in your life has been loyal to a relationship that keeps producing thorns, bring them.

Sunday, August 2 · 10:30 AM CT
In person: Mars Hill Anywhere, McCook, IL
Online: YouTube
Plan your visit: marshillchicago.org

Thank you for holding this house up

I don’t say this enough. Thank you.

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. Neither campus is the overflow of the other. Both are real, staffed, streamed, prayed over, and followed up on.

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.

If Mars Hill has carried something for you, would you help us keep carrying it for the next person who dreads the phone call and answers it anyway?

👈 Give here · or text MHGIVE to 33777

Here’s where I’ll leave you this week. There’s a boat with your name on it, and you keep leaving the shore to go bail water out of somebody else’s flood, just because you share a name with them.

You can love them from the boat. You can pray for them from the boat. You just don’t have to drown with them to prove you’re family.

Get in. And this time, decide who gets a seat.

Pastor Clarence E. Stowers, Jr.

P.S. Before you see them or talk to them again this week, decide the one limit out loud to God, and hold it when they push. You’ll set it Sunday. They’ll test it by Wednesday. Holding it is where the freedom lives.

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, 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 church, to his family, and to the God he loved. Today we hold his family close in prayer, and we celebrate a life that mattered. Celebrating the Life & Legacy of Deacon Robert Earl Bounds Public Viewing Friday, July 24, 2026 · 2:00 to 7:00 PM Taylor Funeral Home · 63 East 79th St, Chicago, IL Celebration of Life Saturday, July 25, 2026 Wake 9:00 to 10:00 AM · Celebration 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM Miracle Revival Center · 2010 St. Charles Rd, Maywood, IL 60153 Interment Oakridge Cemetery, Hillside, IL, immediately following the service Church, wrap this family in love. If you can be present, be present. If you cannot, cover them in prayer. That is what the boat is for. When the storm has a name, we row together. This past Sunday we opened a new series, WHO’S IN YOUR BOAT, and the first message hit a nerve I know a lot of you have been protecting. Why the Strong Ones Burn Out First. Here’s the truth we sat in together. You’re not failing. You’re overfunctioning. You answer every text, cover every gap, carry every name, and somewhere under all of it the real you went quiet and nobody noticed. Including you. Paul says two things in Galatians 6 that sound like a contradiction. Verse 2 says share each other’s burdens. Verse 5 says each of us carries our own load. So which is it? Both. And the difference is your whole life. “Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ… For we are each responsible for our own conduct.” (Galatians 6:2, 5, NLT) There are two different words hiding in the Greek. A burden is the crisis you run toward. The hospital bill. The funeral. The sudden collapse. Carrying that is the law of Christ. A load is the daily responsibility somebody keeps handing you. Carry that for them and you rob them of their growth and bury yourself under it. Write this down: Tired is not the same as faithful. Your one job this week is simple and hard. Name one load you’re carrying that God never assigned to you, and hand it back to its rightful owner. Watch the Replay Missed Sunday, or want to hear it again? Watch the full message here: 👉 Watch “Why the Strong Ones Burn Out First” on YouTube Go deeper: The Sacred Art of Letting Go If Sunday started something in you, don’t let it fade by Tuesday. I put together a resource to walk you further into this message, called The Sacred Art of Letting Go. It’ll help you name the load, find the person it actually belongs to, and put it down for good. 👉 The Sacred Art of Letting Go Thank you for holding this house up I don’t say this enough. Thank you. 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. If Mars Hill has carried something for you, would you help us keep carrying it for the next person who’s drowning quietly and calling it faithfulness? 👉 Give here Here’s where I’ll leave you this week. There’s a boat with your name on it, and you keep saving one seat for a weight God never asked you to bring aboard. Leave it on the shore. P.S. Before your head hits the pillow tonight, name that one load out loud to God and physically put it down. It was never yours. 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.

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 split that ship in half didn’t check the passenger list. It hit the guilty prophet asleep in the hold and the innocent sailors bailing water on deck, in the exact same storm.

So before you spend one more week asking God what you did to deserve this season, ask a harder question: who’s in the boat with you?

New series starts this Sunday, July 19. WHO’S IN YOUR BOAT. Peace isn’t a place. It’s a passenger list.

Last Sunday In The Room

Last Sunday the room was full. Chairs went out toward the walls, and a good number of those chairs were filled with people we’d never seen before. First-timers found seats late, sat next to strangers, and stayed anyway.

When we got to the moment where I asked you to name who’s still in your boat, people didn’t just nod along and move on. Some stood in the lobby for twenty minutes after, working up the nerve to say a name out loud for the first time, longtime members and brand new faces in the same conversation. That kind of thing doesn’t come through on a replay.

If you weren’t in the room, you missed the moment this stopped being a sermon and became a decision for the people sitting near you, some of whom had never sat in that room before. This Sunday we’re online only, so set your reminder now, and don’t let it be your story again the next time we’re back in the room.

Watch the Replay

The Storm You’re In Might Not Be Yours

This message ends right where the new series opens. Jonah’s storm. Joseph’s blessing. Caleb’s mountain. Watch how proximity works in both directions, and why obedience never made anybody waterproof.

► Watch the sermon

The Question We Keep Getting

After service, I lost count of how many of you asked some version of the same thing: what do I do if the person in my boat is my mother? My brother? My spouse?

I’m not skipping that question. I built an entire week around it.

Week 2 of WHO’S IN YOUR BOAT goes straight at Jacob, Laban, and Esau, the family that nearly destroyed him before it ever blessed him. “Honor your father and mother” was never a command to hand somebody the keys to your peace. You can honor a person and still not obey them.

If the name you’ve been avoiding shares your last name, July 26 is not optional.

This Sunday: WHO’S IN YOUR BOAT

Last week you found out the storm might not even be yours. This week we start naming who put it there. Four weeks. Real names. No more performing peace with people who are drilling holes while you sleep.

This Sunday is online only, YouTube and Facebook. No in-person gathering this week, so set your reminder now.

Sunday, July 19 · 10:30 AM Central · YouTube & Facebook

► Watch Sunday

Go Deeper: The Promise You Keep Whispering Is the One You’ll Lose

You’ve kept a dream vague on purpose, because a private hope never has to be defended and a promise you can quietly abandon is one you eventually will. I wrote about why the mountain you won’t name out loud is the one you’ll let die quietly, and what a woman in my office and an 85-year-old named Caleb both had to learn the hard way.

► Read it on Substack

Support This Ministry

You’ve been bailing somebody else’s water for free. Partner with a ministry that’s actually rebuilding your boat.

► Give at Mars Hill

Text MHGIVE to 33777

With love and expectation,
Pastor Clarence E. Stowers, Jr.

P.S. Caleb didn’t climb his mountain with a crowd. Sunday we name the one person you climb with, and the ones you finally put down. WHO’S IN YOUR BOAT starts July 19.

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.

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

At 85, Caleb walked up to Joshua in front of the leaders of Israel and said seven of the most audacious words in the Old Testament: give me my mountain. He named the exact hill country, named the giants still living on it, and claimed it out loud in front of witnesses. The moment he did, it stopped being a promise and became his inheritance.

Your second act is not a request you whisper. It’s a claim you make out loud. A promise you can quietly abandon is a promise you eventually will, the whisper isn’t safer, it’s just a slower way to lose it.

Watch The Full Message

If you missed it or want to sit with it again, the full message is up now.

► Watch Give Me My Mountain

This Week’s Practice

Name your one mountain out loud in front of at least one witness this week, the specific mountain, not a vague “I’m believing for big things.” Then take the first irreversible step toward it, the one you cannot quietly walk back.

Join Us This Sunday

Our next in-person gathering is July 12, 2026 at 10:30 AM Central. We’ll be at 7941 47th Street in McCook, Illinois.

This is our monthly in-person service. If you’ve been watching online, this is your moment. Bring somebody with you, or just come as you are. New season. New room. We want to see your face.

July 12. 10:30 AM. 7941 47th Street, McCook. Be there.

► Plan your visit

Listen: Still Standing

This week’s episode goes deeper on the same fight: what it costs to stop whispering a promise and start claiming it out loud. If Sunday’s message got under your skin, this is where it gets personal.

► Listen on Apple Podcasts

► Listen on Spotify

P.S. You’ve claimed the mountain. Now you need a system to actually take the ground. That’s exactly what the Second Act Intensive is built for, the on-ramp from claim to conquest. Reply to this email and I’ll send you the details this week.

That’s the finale of GIVE ME MY MOUNTAIN. Six weeks. Thank you for walking the whole thing. Now go take it.

With love and expectation,
Pastor Clarence E. Stowers, Jr.

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, waiting to feel ready for a fight they never took.

Caleb didn’t wait. Joshua handed him the deed to Hebron in one verse. By the next verse, the giants were gone. No gap. No preparation phase. No waiting for a better season or a stronger back.

What’s the one move you’ve been calling “not yet”? You know exactly which one. You’re not waiting on God anymore. You already have the word. You’re waiting on a feeling that was never going to show up before you moved.

Week 6 is this Sunday. GIVE ME MY MOUNTAIN closes. Be in the room.

Watch the Replay

Stop Waiting to Feel Ready

Caleb’s whole story turns on the seam between two verses. Watch what happens in that seam, and what it costs you to keep waiting for a feeling that only shows up after you move.

► Watch the sermon

New: Still Standing Podcast

This week’s episode goes further than Sunday could. Thirty years in, what stalling actually costs a leader, and what it takes to move before the feeling arrives.

► Listen to the episode

New on Substack

The full written version of Stop Waiting to Feel Ready, with the story behind it: a man who sat on a business idea for four years waiting to feel ready, and what actually happened the day he stopped waiting.

► Read the article

Support This Ministry

You already know the move you’re avoiding. So does this ministry. Every gift is us not waiting either.

► Give at Mars Hill
Text MHGIVE to 33777

With love and expectation,
Pastor Clarence E. Stowers, Jr.

P.S. July 12: we’re back in the room together, in person. Save the date.