I sit down this Monday morning to write a brief commentary on the events of this past weekend and to be honest with you I’m overwhelmed with emotion. This past weekend, May 13-May 15, 2011 marked the birth of something that I believe is going to have a global impact. The Grand Opening service of the Bridge Church in North Olmsted, Ohio was held yesterday May 15, 2011 with 80 in attendance, around 40 of which were first time guests. The other 40 were made up of people that have visited once or twice before and people that got on board with the Bridge during the team building phase. The Bridge Church is now an official force to be reckoned with and we have a huge vision. Our vision does not stop with reaching the western suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, but with reaching the entire metro area and having our local assembly also aid in the global cause of Christ through missions and outreach.

Our team building phase started in September 2010 with our Foundations classes where we graduated the first 16 official members of the Bridge Church. Phase two of team building was from November 2010 to May 8, 2011 where we held “practice” or some would say “preview” services to build our base, start our BridgeKidz ministry, and develop a functioning, quality Worship Band.

Friday night, (Friday the 13th), started our weekend with a bang. We did a “Gas buy down/full service fill up”. With everyone feeling the pain at the pump, we decided to go completely nontraditional with our outreach. Much of what we do at the Bridge definitely doesn’t follow any preprinted play book with the exception of the Bible, so why go the traditional route with outreach? One of our main goals, visions, and missions is to serve our community. We want to be a church of influence in our community. We want people to recognize our name, cause, and vision so that they know where to go when they are looking for a true experience with God. We are on a quest to be an “early church” church. The early church didn’t “play” church, they were the church. They went from house to house and to the marketplace and to where the people were at far more than they met in the temple. So, on May 13th, we partnered with a local gas station to pay $.10 a gallon for everyone, giving them a discount on gas, pump their gas for them, wash their windows, and aid them in any other services that they desired. Pastor and I worked countless hours setting up this event and this entire weekend and it paid off. After sending out 22 press releases to every radio and television station and local newspaper, based on an additional news tip from that night, Fox 8 News Cleveland came and featured our event on the 10 PM Friday night news. In fact, we were one of the teaser/headline stories. We have several other high profile MAD ministries (Making a Difference) events coming up including the Relay for Life where Pastor Jonathan will be sharing a sermon with the crowd that’s there to support stamping out cancer. Only God can get credit for setting the stage for the Bridge Church like he has. We are now poised to really put ourselves out in the community, serve this area, and lead people to a fulfilling relationship with God.

Pastor Jonathan has had a vision for over 10 years to plant churches in a metro area and a bulk of those years Cleveland was the target God put on his heart. The Cleveland Metro Area is very different from other parts of Ohio. It has a rich cultural and ethnic heritage that many mid-western cities do not have. Cleveland is also not at all like the heartland when it comes to religion. A majority of the Cleveland metro area is far from God or has never known God. It is definitely not a Bible belt place. There are over 48 different languages regularly spoken in the Cleveland area and our suburb of Cleveland, North Olmsted, is home to the largest Muslim population in Ohio. All of these factors combined make up the reasons why we absolutely love it here. Cleveland has historically gotten a bad rap, and rightfully so. The politics here are corrupt, the mob ties are huge, the job market is in constant turmoil, and the winters are long and brutal. Even with all of those factors working against it, the Cleveland metro area is home to 2.9 million resilient, culturally diverse, home team loving people that all need to know God. The Bridge Church, for lack of better phrasing, wants to make Jesus famous throughout the region and be a location where people can find life in Christ. The religious traditions that exist here are dying. The old, enormous church edifices that bear the cross and house the steeples are boarded up and lifeless. The Catholic Church is closing locations on an almost weekly basis and the light of religion grows dimmer. The Bridge Church is opening at the perfect time for the light of true relationship with Christ and true life change with Jesus to be made available to those who are spiritually hungry. The Bridge Church is a place for those that want to make a difference in their neighborhoods, communities, suburbs, city, region, state, country, and world. We will not have church, we will be the church.

God gave us a glimpse of what can and will be yesterday. There was an excitement and expectancy in the air. Our connect team was showing the community that we really are the friendly, all inclusive church they are looking for. Our BridgeKidz ministry ministered to a wide range of children in an engaging way. Our worship band was on their “go”. The presence of God was strong and Pastor Jonathan delivered a relevant, engaging sermon. Our service ended with a rendition of “You’ve stolen my heart” by Leeland and you could feel God doing what only He can do in that room.

Our season of team building, our season of fasting and prayer, our season of hard, focused work, and our season of wondering how in the world all of this was going to happen brought us one step closer to our destiny. We look forward to continued, methodical, sustained growth both of the number of people that attend the Bridge Church and of the individual relationships with God that people in our church have. We have a lot of ground left to still cover to see the vision that God has for our church. Please pray that God gives us a semi-permanent (lease) location or a permanent location and that God sends us strong leaders that desire to serve in ministry. We have many ministries that we would like to launch at the Bridge Church that just need the vision, manpower, and passion of a leader. We are still in extreme infancy and that makes us delicate. We need to continually nurture and care for this gift that God has given us and feed it correctly so that one day it can birth more churches from its womb.

Congratulations Bridge Church. You are 1 day old. The best is yet to come.

(My mom and my 2 sons)

This past weekend was a big weekend for so many people. May 8, 2011 marked the day that we all celebrated our mothers, celebrated being a mom, and essentially gave lip service to the fact that none of us would be here without the womb of a woman. Not all moms are created equal. There are single moms, married moms, step moms, adoptive moms, young moms, old moms, widowed moms, and divorced moms. There are skinny moms and not so skinny moms. There are attractive moms and not so attractive moms. Regardless of which category that mom falls in, the fact remains, she is perfection to her family. Proverbs 31:28 “Her children rise and call her blessed.” Even if your children are too young to speak and verbalize their appreciation of mom, it’s those little actions that speak louder than words.

The Bridge Church celebrated moms this weekend with a message I gave “Will the real mom please stand up?” In this message we discovered 3 things.

1) There is no such thing as a perfect mom
2) God has answers for a mother’s problems
3) There is nothing like a mother’s love

God has equipped and empowered women in their femininity and characteristics to live out a sincere faith that will have a ripple effect for generations. You, mom, have the ability to influence countless generations and God has an amazing journey outlined for you. If you have an active, visible connection between your beliefs and your everyday living, you will keep the flame of the gift of God stirred in you and nurtured. It is time for women to understand that a spirit of timidity is not what God has called us to. Too often we have misappropriated the scriptural requirement for submission to authority and our husbands and have used it as an excuse to be a wall flower.

2 Timothy 1:7 “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline.”

It is not piety before God to let your emotions dictate your life and destiny. It is not piety before God to sit without action and let your role as mother and wife sideline you from the work of the ministry. God has given mothers that spirit of love and sacrifice so that you can use it in his kingdom to fulfill your calling and destiny. Churches need nurturers. Churches need people marked by sacrifice. Churches need servant’s hearts. Churches need teachers. Churches need mothers. All good mothers have these characteristics. The church as the bride of Christ is essentially the mother of the people on this earth. It is time we recognize the power that we have in our femininity and in our role of mother to fill roles in the Kingdom of God.

Your life can be marked by explosive, influential power and by a disciplined mind that is not deceived by the temporal circumstances of life. What God is accomplishing in us, he wants to see passed on through us. The power of your legacy potential is exponential.

At the Bridge Church we embrace all kinds of moms. Single, divorced, widowed, step moms and anything else you can name. We are not a church of June Cleavers, but a church marked by a passion to change our world.

2 Timothy 1:5 “ I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuade, now lives in you also.

Recently we (The Bridge Church) just finished up a sermon series called “ReLearn: Lessons from the Early Church”. This series was taken mainly from the book of Acts and was designed to help us refocus on the true characteristics of the church, (the church being God’s church not a flavor of religion or style), and try to start incorporating those characteristics into the vision, DNA, and mission of not only the Bridge Church, but into the life of each and every believer. I learned so much from this series. It is not that any one topic was so revolutionary or fresh or new, it was that we were taking old principles and discovering that the goal of the church isn’t really to be fresh, cool, trendy, or contemporary, but to literally relearn how to organize, function, and operate as Christians. Obviously you need to be fresh, cool, and contemporary because Christ called us to be all things to all men and our focus is to reach those far from God or who have never known God, but being trendy isn’t the main focus.

This past Sunday pastor talked about the “All Inclusive God” and how if Peter would’ve had his way (Peter representing the religious and the elite), the conversion of Cornelius would never have happened and the hunger and passion that burned inside Cornelius would never have been realized. How many times have we disregarded someone who was passionate about God and hungry for God because they didn’t measure up to the standards or beliefs or sacred cows that we hold so dear to? There is nothing unclean if God calls it clean. He is for people, so you better be about your Father’s business, the people business. The Bridge church will be all inclusive. It doesn’t matter what your race, ethnicity, financial status, educational status, religious background, or career choice is, there is a place for you. As we enter into our Grand Opening season, the ReLearn Series was an important compass with which to get direction from. We will not turn the world upside down if we don’t relearn how to be a Christian.

Christianity isn’t about a building. So many people are locked into the thinking that church is a building. This makes me absolutely crazy! I know that I can get a witness from all church planters out there who are nomads meeting in high school gyms, masonic halls, golf courses, country clubs, libraries, homes, and pretty much any place that is the right price and also has indoor plumbing. We do have some standards: toilets (nonnegotiable)  although, we do know the early church wouldn’t have even cared about that. When are we going to get out of our comfort zones? I read a statistic that 33% of the world currently calls itself Christian and that in 1900 33% of the world called itself Christian. Why aren’t those numbers growing? Where is the fervor that says, “I want to be one of those that turns the world upside down”?

We need to learn to not just live on the emotion of passion where we only act on the great commission and we only sacrifice like the early church when we’re pumped and primed and feel like it, but we need to find the passion that fuels us in the down times and in the apathetic times and in the times where we really just don’t care anymore. We need the same passion that Christ had. He didn’t want to drink the bitter cup of death. He fought it. He prayed about it. He sweated drops of blood over it. However, He did it. He took on our sin and endured the cross. We need to cry out for that same passion. We need the passion of Paul, the passion of Timothy, and the spunk of Peter. You need to ReLearn how to do church and how to be a Christian.

I am thankful for a Pastor that is willing to do a 2 month sermon series on the Early Church. The multiplication of the gospel will only happen when we quit being satisfied adding slowly to our church and expecting people to come to us. I want an Early Church church. I want a church that is added to daily, that gives generously, and that loves unconditionally. Do we have a ways to go? Sure we do. We technically haven’t even had our grand opening yet, however, what happens during the gestational period is what determines the health of a birth. If we can grasp the concepts we’ve been taught and the passion and vision that Pastor is unveiling, the birth of the Bridge church and the future growth of the Bridge Church will be supernatural. Let’s be devoted to fellowship, to prayer, to unity, to outreach, and to rejoicing. Acts 2:47 “The Lord added to their numbers daily those who were being saved.”