lengthy messages

Read an article (http://www.churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/138205-three-things-your-people-hate-to-tell-you-about-your-preaching.html) talking about things people don't like about our preaching.  The one point several commenters focused on was peoples attention span not being long enough to handle more than 30 minutes (current teaching says 20 mins).  The following is what I posted in response to those comments.  


The normal attention span is shrinking due to our culture today.  Comparing a lecture to a movie or game is really missing the point - movies have a story line that weaves through many scene changes and games have constant changes and both are presented from many angles and different people.  A lecture or sermon are one person attempting to engage and hold an audience.  The greats can do this for hours, but the people do not leave with a single unifying point to grow and change on.  This "sitting in God's presence" stuff is again really missing it - God's presence is only at that building on Sundays? (this is a very dangerous concept - we cant be in Gods presence during the week in our everday lives)?  Is the Sunday service supposed to be where people get their discipleship?  Are we to teach our people that all they need to know can be learned on Sunday and that is why we must talk so long?  Recognizing the people we are trying to reach will not sit for a 45 minute message we take all of our messages and break them down into series.  Same information spread over several different messages.  Everyone leaves each message with one concrete challenge to work on.  We also train our people to be in the Word during the week as well as joining discipleship groups.  Rather than teaching the people Sunday's message is the one time to pack all of your learning in, we teach a way of life that includes constant learning.  These comments seem to be reflective of a common trend in churches of railing against the way people are rather than meeting them where they are.  Jesus should not have had to die for us, but it was needed and He did it.  People should be able to tune into a message from Gods word for more than 20 minutes, but many can't so maybe we should meet them where they are.  With training we could get them to focus longer, but that will only happen with those that are plugged in long enough - what about the new person?  Are we focused on the already connected or on reaching those that are lost?

Love God, Love Others, Disciple All

Love God, Love Others, Disciple All - this is our purpose statement at The Bridge.  We have been working through a sermon series about this.  Digging into the Love God portion the first week we discovered many times when a reference in the bible is made to loving God it is accompanied somehow with a statement about loving others as the indicator, evidence or activity of loving God.  To love God we must apparently love His people.  Love others is nearly always referenced as an activity of meeting the needs of someone, never as an emotion.  Discipleship is a process of training we go through in the discipline of following Christ.  We are called to disciple all in the great commission - that means all of us are to be about training others in the discipline of following Christ.  The great commission was not to go be disciples, rather to go disciple all people.  This was a final instruction from Jesus and applies to all His disciples.

Knowing these are the purposes for which we exist The Bridge is focused on applying these to all of our lives.  Although we offer worship services to express our love for God our primary outlet for loving God is in the action of loving others.  Loving others is an activity of meeting the needs of people - social, emotional, spiritual and physical needs.  Discipleship is done through our small groups, peer guide program and a constant challenge to grow by reading, listening and questioning.  I am excited about what God is doing in our lives and through us in Genesee county!

Truth Project

We wrapped up the series on GPS - God Positioning System.  Really enjoyed this series.  Starting our new one based on the Truth Project now.  This past Sunday we looked into Veritology, the study of Truth.  The question was What is truth? and Do we really believe what we believe is really real?  Is there absolute truth out there at all or is it all relative?  Jesus said He came to testify to the truth when he spoke to Pilate and throughout His ministry often spoke of truth.  If that is what Jesus is all about it must be real and important. We defined truth as an accurate reflection of reality - reality as perceived by God because only He can see it perfectly.  Too often today people would agree to the "accurate reflection of reality" but then add the statement that each persons reality is different.  Although many people have differing views of reality, it is not a changeable thing.  Reality exists no matter how we perceive it and is unchanged by our perception.  The color of the wall in your room may be perceived differently by many people, but in reality it is only one color and that color is definable.  Next week we will be digging into Theology, the study of God, and truth in that arena.

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!