GPS

Starting a new series on GPS - God Positioning System - in July.  Love this one - we developed this at the staff retreat and really liked it.  We will be using the story of Exodus to illustrate the principles laid out in this series.  Starting with Who Am I? dealing with the starting point in any journey, then Who Is God? dealing with the guide we will use on the journey, to The Destination dealing with where the journey is taking us or our purpose, then Prayer dealing with our connection to the GPS and finally Listening dealing with receiving the signal from the GPS.  Looking forward to this one - hope you can join us!

Father

Working through a Father series this month celebrating Fathers Day.  Talking about Father God, our example and perfect role model - Father Guardian, the role of the father in the family and any leaders role - Father Community, the fathers role in community - and Father Child, the fathers role with his children.  We have gone through a time in our society of the male role being looked down upon despite it truly being a critical role for our society.  This has nothing to do with male dominance rather everything to do with the interdependence of the genders.  Hopefully we will come through this series with the fathers and men in the group feeling empowered to use the tools being given to them and all to recognize how important it is to our society to get this right.

The Adventure

In our Adventure series now at The Bridge.  I truly believe it has been an adventure following Christ and living out of who God says I am rather than my past or what others say about me.  I have met more people and gone more places than I ever would have without being a follower.  Rather than being satisfied watching shows about people changing lives and living an adventure I have been involved in real life change and a real adventure.  Hope you all are finding your purpose and loving the adventure you are on!

Easter

 Great Easter service!  Lot of new faces, new record attendance and just a great time!  April was the first month we have averaged 400 in weekly attendance.  We have been steadily growing all along with tremendous increases each month for the past 5 months.  We are seeing God changing lives weekly.  Following is from an email I sent out to our prayer partners - this tells more of the story of what is happening at The Bridge:  My intern that is being prepared for church planting is now preaching our second service on Sundays and doing a great job.  We are adding an early service at 9 am on Sundays in a matter of weeks.  We are in the process of closing on the building, 33,000 sq ft for $275k with $130k down and interest free payments of $2417 monthly for 60 months to pay it off.  We have initiated a salary for the Lead Pastor and Childrens Pastor (pastors wife) for the first time.  This summer we have a program for kids during the weekdays to
serve the community by offering a type of daycare for free with an emphasis on breaking generational issues.  We have over 20 community groups meeting in our building weekly with another 10 Bridge Connection groups meeting each week.  Our average weekly attendance for the past 12 weeks is 321 and for the past 4 weeks 400.  Our giving has been up overall, but per capita is down due to the large influx of people over the past few months that are new to church attending and are just learning the blessings of giving.  Many new relationships with Christ each month and a constant trickle of baptisms to go along with that. We have our sad stories that occur as well - buried several people in the past few months that were needless deaths, but one of those was still a beautiful story and her family is still being ministered to.  We continue to operate in faith knowing this is all beyond our capabilities and can only be done by God.  We continue to work on fundraising to increase our abilities to help others and grow the Kingdom.  Thank you for your prayers!

Gospel of John

Working on a 2 part series in John.  The book of John is a great place to start studying the bible as it gives a  foundational  view of Jesus' ministry and what He was all about.  With that in mind we set up a Tuesday evening study in John for the next 8-10 weeks.

Getting real excited about Easter!  Trying to bring in over 400 people to hear about the Adventure God wants us to begin by accepting Jesus and living out of who He calls us to be.  Is your life mundane, boring or without purpose?  Come hear about the adventure Jesus has planned for you!

Man/Woman series

Working on this Men and Women are not Equal series.  Love this subject, but it is hard to do it justice in a sermon series.  I studied this a lot in college and after.  The real question is how to find the truth that crosses all the things said in scripture.  I believe God created us equivalent and there was not one in charge of the other at the beginning.  I believe the curse is just that - a curse, not a command to live by.  I believe Jesus meant what He said when He said "neither male nor female, jew nor greek..." etc.  The gender is just another aspect of who we are no different than skin color or family background.  What about Paul saying women can't speak and wives submit to husbands?  Next week we will look at the submission concept at least and address the NT view of women.  Chime in if you have any opinions.

Sunday's Secret

For the 2 of you that read this blog I am revealing a day earlier what the big news is for Sunday.

Last week we had a video about what the church is – it is the people that claim the name of Christ.  You are the church if you call yourself Christian. It is the job of the church to pay its way and reach out to the community. The Bridge is completely funded by the donations of the people in the seats.  All of our operations costs are covered by those donations – this includes rent, utilities, insurance, maintenance, salaries, books, videos, equipment, etc.  When we started 2 years ago we were able to raise $50,000 to cover start up costs – rent, chairs, sound equipment, utilities, books, advertising, etc.  That money has long been gone, but there have been a couple donations made to boost certain ministries or to help pay for renovations.  Other than that we operate on our giving by the people that consider this their spiritual home. 

Due to the efforts of Bob Ellery and his connections we were able to present to several investors, that wish to remain anonymous, our plans for future ministries here at The Bridge.  What we presented that we want to see occur over the next 1-3 years came to $498,000.  This starts with expanding our facility, particularly for the kids in the community, but also for the whole community.  The expansion we desire to do is purchasing the north end of Carman Plaza, 33,000 sq ft of empty space, and converting it to our uses. 

For the children we want to have an area for the kids in the community to come to in the summer for different activities, from summer tutoring to games to leadership training to outings.  We also want to offer classes for better parenting to help change the home life for kids and help parents find work or improve their work skills to find better work.  There will be year round resources and activities for children and families at risk. 

For the community we want to offer Life Coaching – this is a method of helping people find the next best step in their life.  We have a Christian Counselor, Margaret Cullen, that will be heading this up and we have a licensed therapist we consult with.  There are several people that will be receiving training and certification in Life Coaching this year as we establish this ministry for the community. 

We will be working on establishing transitional housing for people that have found themselves without a place to live or need a change in life.  This will be focused on teaching job skills, interpersonal skills, budgeting and life planning.  The classes offered through this ministry will be available to all, but we will also have a limited amount of beds for temporary housing for those that have no other place to stay until they can get back on their feet.  This will be different than a shelter – very focused on transitioning people, which will require people that are hungry and motivated to change their life.  Homeless shelters in the area we already support and will continue to support. 

All of this becomes possible by purchasing the building we are in with the adjacent 23,000 sq ft of empty space.  The landlord has thrown a price at us of $320,000.  We know it will take $40,000 to renovate the spaces.  The donors that we presented this to have committed to us $300,000.  We are not interested in taking this money and spending it all on the building so we are trusting God to come through again by getting the landlords to accept an offer of half that price.  Lets pray that God intervene and show the people that own this building the benefits of letting this building go for cheap.  This money will be going to expand our facility and kick off new ministries.  The purchase of the property will save us $2000 per month on rent which will offset the increase in utilities and maintenance.  There will be increased costs to cover the ministries we are starting, but as we have grown we have also seen increases in your giving.  All of this is possible due to your telling others about what you have experienced here and your faithfulness in giving.  There are many people that have experienced tremendous life change because of you.  Thank you for your support.