Posts by Josh
A quick note about upcoming HG Network upgrades…
This Sunday we have a meeting for all current HG Leaders and Apprentices as well as anyone interested in future HG Leadership. At this meeting, we’ll be pulling back the curtain on some of the significant upgrades for the HG Network we’ll be experimenting with that we’re REALLY excited about.
A few quick notes for you as you’ll be hearing more about this in the next couple weeks…
- A personal apology: I need to personally apologize to all of our current and past HG Leaders. It was a tremendous oversight for me to allow the most important area of ministry in our church body to have the least amount of staff leadership for the last year. We’re very serious about making disciples and training church leaders and I failed those goals in this decision. Guys, I’m sorry. This was a bad leadership decision and it was my decision. Thanks for your grace.
- A personal “I’m really excited”: What we’re planning right now, in many ways, is the realization of a dream our elders have had for years – a place for significant, challenging, on-the-ground training for kingdom leaders. Yes, we’re raising the bar… a lot. But MAN… this is going to be exciting.
- Have “communicative grace” with us through the process. For a lot of us, our HG is THE relational hub of our entire lives so it’s scary to hear that anything is getting adjusted. Please have “communicative grace” with us as we experiment with the upgrades. Humbly and lovingly communicate with us, but also give us grace if something is difficult or we make a mistake… because we will.
- Hold off on questions for a couple of weeks. Your HG Leaders will be communicating with you sometime next week about what the summer plan is and what’s coming. You’ll do us an incredible favor by holding off on questions until we get a chance to communicate church-wide after the HG’s have all been filled in next week.
That’s my “quick note” for today 
Guys, the future is going to be amazing. This is so fun right now 
Name that Bridger.
I’ve been out of the loop for a week so I get two blog posts this Monday.
I can’t believe I haven’t posted this before now. A few months ago I was sent these incriminating photos of a Bridge hero in his… well… “vintage” years. Let’s play “Name That Bridger!” Who will be the first person to identify this Bridge hero in his vintage years?
Also, there are many things to admire here. Tell us your favorite thing about this picture
A book recommendation (and why read Christian biography)
Don’t ignore this post because it’s a book recommendation and you don’t like to read.
On vacation I reread John Piper’s “Filling up the Afflictions of Christ” (link to FREE E-BOOK below), an INCREDIBLY SHORT book containing 3 brief stories of men and women who sacrificed their lives for the advance of the gospel in different ways. The entire book is barely over 100 pages with incredibly large print. Each bio can be read in less than 30 minutes and tell the soul-stirring stories of William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson, and George Paton…
- William Tyndale: Lived in secrecy for the better part of his adulthood under threat of death and eventually burned at the stake for translating the Bible into common language when the Roman Catholic church made anything other than the Latin Vulgate illegal. His life’s cry was “As I live, the common ploughman shall read his Bible.“
- George Paton: spent over 40 years on the New Hebrides islands planting the gospel among the native cannibals who had killed and eaten the only two Christian missionaries who had set foot on their island. Was nearly killed too many times to count (the guys’ biography reads like a thriller). When he told his local church God was calling him to the New Hebrides islands, one man shouted at him, “But You will be eaten by cannibals!”, to which Paton responded, “Mr. Dixon, you are old and will soon die and be laid into the grave, there to be eaten by worms. I confess to you that if I can but live and die serving Jesus it will make no difference whether my body is eaten by worms or by cannibals.“
- Adoniram Judson: Lost three wives and seven children while church planting in Burma. After a season of severe depression, saw an unprecedented and supernatural explosion of the gospel that resulted in thousands of conversions in Burma. This is the letter he wrote to his would-be father-in-law before he asked his first wife to marry him…
I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left is heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteous, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Savior from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?
Hebrews 11 gives the example of the value of knowing the stories of godly men and women who have gone before us, but Hebrews 13:7 specifically tells us to seek out and know those stories: “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.”
Seriously, do yourself a favor and DOWNLOAD THE FREE E-BOOK HERE or just buy this thing and make it a part of your quiet times next week. Soul-shaking… in a really, really good way.
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New staff roles.
As The Bridge continues to grow, the elders will be constantly reevaluating and adjusting our staff structure to best accomplish our mission. This means that staff roles will change as the church body changes and now is no different. Here’s a quick rundown of what the staff’s roles will look like starting in July…
Josh Howerton: Pastor for Preaching and Leadership
My role will remain virtually the same: church-wide shepherding, leadership, and preaching; oversight of the staff; and developing church-wide vision along with the other elders. Starting in July I’ll also be contributing to leadership development within our HG Network under Craig’s leadership.
Jimi Williams: Worship Pastor
Jimi Williams’ role will remain unchanged. To be clear, Jimi’s job title is intentionally NOT “Worship Leader”. Jimi is a pastor, leading our worship gatherings to be missional environments, shepherding our souls, and teaching the church body through the structure and overall content of our worship gatherings.
Craig Mckown: Pastor of HG’s and Family Ministries
Craig Mckown’s role is changing the most. Craig will continue identifying and equipping leaders that God is raising up to oversee the Kids’ and Student Ministries, but “Connections” will come off of Craig’s plate as he takes leadership of our HG (House Group) Network. The Elders have seen that Jesus has gifted Craig with strong leadership ability and our HG Network has been in need of full-time leadership for a long time. Under Craig’s leadership, all full-time staff will be involved in leadership development and oversight of the HG Network as we’re significantly upping the amount of training and leadership that our HG Leaders will be getting in the future.
Matt Svoboda: Pastor of Membership and Mission
While Craig’s role is changing the most, Matt’s role needs the most explanation because of the word “membership”. While we associate “checking the box to associate myself with this church” with the word “membership”, the New Testament has a MUCH bigger concept in mind. In the New Testament (Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4), being a “member” of a church is like being a “member” of a human body – like a hand, eye, or arm. You’re a “member” of a church when you’re so connected to it that you contribute to its health and it contributes to yours. In the same way, Matt will equip leaders for everything involved in the process of missionally connecting to guests, connecting them to the church body in HG’s for discipleship and mission, moving people into places of life-giving ministry, and developing our Gospel Partnership process.
As Pastor of Mission, Matt will lead both local mercy ministry (aka “benevolence”) and missions abroad. Additionally, Matt will oversee the upkeep and usage of our facilities and contribute to leadership development within our HG Network.
ONE FINAL NOTE: Looking to Ephesians 4, the elders view the role of a pastor as “equipping the saints for the work of ministry”. In other words, all of us feel primarily called to identify leaders within the church body, invest in them, and raise them up for ministry. The minute we begin to view “ministry” as “the pastors jobs”, our mission to make Jesus famous will fail and the church will die. All four of these men’s primary calling is to “attract, identify, and equip” YOU for world-changing, Christ-exalting ministry God is calling you to. This is going to be so fun
5 things our new staff addition means
Yesterday we introduced the Cornhusker-loving Matt Svoboda to the church body with some quick bio info. In addition to being excited about the Svobodas as a family, the elders are VERY excited about what adding him to the staff is going to mean with respect to The Bridge’s mission.
Here are 5 significant things this is going to mean immediately…
- Significant upgrades to our HG (House Group) Network. Over the last few months, the elders have realized that Craig Mckown is a uniquely gifted leader with a special ability to raise up leaders around him and build effective systems for ministry. As The Bridge’s primary vehicle for discipleship and mission, our HG Network is the most important aspect of leadership in the church body and has been in need of full-time leadership for a long time. Going forward, Craig is going to be taking point leadership of our HG Network with both of our other full-time staff devoting part of their energy to leadership of the HG Network under Craig’s direction. We’re fleshing out the vision of what we want the HG Network to look like in the future, but know that some really excited things are going to start getting rolled out this summer.
- Significant upgrades to Leadership Development in our church body. The first priority on every pastor’s job description at The Bridge reads the same: “Attract, identify, and equip leaders…” Our elders take this cue from Ephesians 4, which says that the role of a pastor is to “Equip the saints for the work of ministry”. Jesus continues to raise up people with incredible gifts in our church body and this addition will mean that more leaders get invested in and better equipped for the ministry Jesus has called them to within The Bridge.
- Full-time leadership of mission, local and abroad. One of the strange things about our staff structure to this point has been that we allocate a MUCH larger percentage of our budget to mission than any other area, but mission has lacked full-time leadership. With Pastor Matt coming on as our Pastor for Membership and Mission, this will no longer be the case. Both local mercy ministry and foreign mission will now be getting full-time leadership.
- An aggressive process for connecting to guests. By God’s grace, lots of people are visiting The Bridge right now and we’re getting a chance to broadcast the gospel to more people than we’ve ever been able to before. What we haven’t been great at to this point is aggressively connecting with people that visit and moving them toward HG’s to make sure that they get saved (if necessary) and shepherded for discipleship and mission. Matt will be overseeing this process, mobilizing the church body to reach out to people who visit our WG’s (worship gatherings) so that people Jesus died to save don’t fall between the cracks.
- An efficient process to help people into life-giving areas of ministry. One of Matt’s other roles in overseeing “Membership” will be helping people identify the gifts Jesus has given them for his church and helping them move into life-giving areas for ministry so that “the church builds itself up into maturity” (Eph 4). Honestly, we’ve never been very good at this and, as a result, many people have never really understood the exhilarating joy of ministry in a role you were created for. This will significantly bolster our effectiveness in mission and discipleship among people who are serving.
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