Helpful people

It is interesting that when we were trying to start The Bridge we went to many traditional churches looking for help, but most I could not even get in to see the pastor.  We even had a big article in the paper about us starting this new church, yet we had no one show up to encourage us or help us from other churches.  Now that we have opened a tattoo shop in our building we get all kinds of people wanting to help us understand how wrong we are.  Again I will say most of the comments we have received have been positive, but the negative ones I find humorous.  It seems to me if the same amount of energy was put in to helping churches start we would have a revival sweeping the land - the only "help" I have gotten was to correct me rather than actually help.

We have hundreds of new christians growing in Christ that were won by us being all things to all people so we may win some.  We have dozens of people that say they were Christian, but were not being discipled or growing that are now challenged regularly and are growing in Christ.  We have people serving that are not even welcome in most churches - they don't look right, smell right, talk right for most churches.  The people that make up The Bridge, "Bridgebuilders", know they are loved by Jesus because they have felt His love through His people and now they are loving others as Christ loved them.

Another interesting thing is about the "helpful people" that want to school us in proper churchiness.  It is no wonder the church in America is in such a bad state.  While I am accused of picking verses out to support what we do the naysayers literally pick one verse completely disregarding the immediately previous verse to "prove" their point.  There are so many complaints about us using our building for "non-sacred" events and referring to the building as the church it is saddening.  The most basic of sunday school classes teaches the church is comprised of the people which is called the body of Christ.  We are sorely uneducated in the basics of biblical theology.  I completely respect the people that disagree with what we are doing and how, but don't try to twist the bible to defend your emotions.  One of the first questions I want to ask of those that want to criticize is what are you doing to expand the kingdom?  A quote I have read is something like this "I prefer the way I am doing things to the way you are doing nothing."

I know the excitement about this most recent move at The Bridge will die down.  There may be other things that happen to create excitement in the future, but we will not fall to the temptation to be sensational for publicity.  I am thankful that God is moving in Genesee County, not just through The Bridge, but many churches are reaching the lost here.  I am grateful to be used by Him.  I am thankful for the responses of those that disagree with us and promised to pray for us.  I am particularly grateful for all those that believe in what we are doing and are jumping in to make a difference.