The Warrior Mom

Taught on the warrior's heart that is in every man today. My wife warned me some of what I had to say may be difficult for some women to hear or believe. There was some push back on my statement that there is a time to throw a punch as well as a time to turn the cheek. After the service I had the opportunity to talk to several of the ladies. The mothers understood the concept of a warrior's heart pretty well - all mothers have a bit of the warrior's heart in them when it comes to their kids. The main question was on the drive to have a battle to fight in every man. The point in the message was that a man without a cause to fight for will fight against all the wrong things. Knowing our cause to fight for will help us to know when it is time to throw a punch or turn the cheek. What is your cause?

The Warrior

We have an upcoming series that starts March 8th called The Warrior. We are very excited about this series! In every man's life, there is a cause worth fighting for and a victory worth claiming. What is yours? Discover how to not only prepare for the battles ahead, but more importantly, how to emerge victoriously. It's time to stop playing the role of the nice guy and instead live as The Warrior. Ladies, you can come and learn something about the Warrior you know and we encourage you to invite the men you know to come and hear about the Warrior that God has made him to be. Men, come hear about the Warrior's cause and how to be the Warrior God has made you to be and invite other men to check this out. As usual this will be different and powerful. This series will lead us into the Easter message Jesus the Warrior. I am looking forward to seeing you there.

Free will

Why did Jesus die for us if He could have snapped His fingers and corrected our shortcomings? Jesus did not have to die to "fix" us - He has the power to change us any way He wants. Why doesn't God cause us to want to obey Him? He could!

I believe part of being made "in God's image" is free will - the ability to choose. If free will is so important to God that He sacrificed His own son rather than take it away what does that say about freedom? As Christ followers do we need to put emphasis on freedom? As we face a time that our nation is turning socialist how does freedom come into play? Socialism helps others in many ways - isn't that what Jesus wants?

update

I have been horrible about keeping up on this blog. Forgive me I beg. Six months ago I was impatient to get things rolling with The Bridge, but now time is flying by and it is difficult to keep up. Things are going great - not perfect, but great. I would like to put some real nuggets of wisdom down here, but I have used them all up I think - both of them.

We are getting more interested visitors at each service. We want to draw a larger crowd at the Dec 21st preview to get the word out so that the Launch on Jan 18 draws a good group. We have had great attendance with over 110 people visiting over the first 4 previews and an average of 65 overall. If we can get over 200 different people through the doors by the launch we will have a breaking point for word of mouth to really accelerate the attendance. I am excited!

The Message

The service was great! We had 24 new people show up. The music went well and I think the message was received - I am sorry for how Christians have behaved. The apology was sincere and well taken.

There were two things I wanted to get across - first was I wanted the group to know that God is interested in a relationship with them, not in finding some reason to condemn them. Second I wanted the group to look past Christian's behavior to Jesus. Jesus never condemned the "sinner", rather He was loving with them and harsh with the religious leaders.

Sept 28

We had an interview with the Flint Journal and got an article in the paper. The response has been great! I look forward to meeting new people that are interested in what we are doing. I want to extend an open invitation to take you out to lunch. If you want to meet with me and hear more about what we are doing give me a call and I will set a time up to treat you to lunch or coffee.

I am excited about the weekend connection tomorrow! I believe God has good word for many people at this meeting. There is so much I want to say in the message, but I will stick to our point. I will post soon on how the meeting went.

Steve Bentley
810-217-8084

The Preview

The first Preview service for The Bridge went great! We had over 20 volunteers working and over 60 people in attendance. The programs were in place for us to easily accommodate 250 or more in attendance. I, of course, hoped to have more show up, but I am very pleased with how everything went. The transitions from element to element in the connection time went flawlessly and many things went without a hitch. The changes we need to make are due to planning issues and not execution. Everything went according to plan - we will plan even better for the next one though.

The next service - Sept 28 - is getting setup. Come be a part.

The message at the first service was about what God wants from us - a relationship. That is what He truly cares about. Religion is all about rules, but God is all about relationships. I needed to extrapolate more on that in the message - about our relationships to others, but I think the point was received.