Posts by Josh
6 success stories
The Bridge has had an incredibly fruitful season of ministry lately. It’s been awesome. Baptisms, people trusting Christ, lots of life change… the works. I shot these “6 success stories” to the staff yesterday, but wanted to share them with the whole church body. The names and “identifying marks” have been omitted to protect the innocent…
- First off, we had 20+ adults at the Crossing the Bridge class for membership on Sunday. I got a bunch of emails from families who couldn’t make it that day so I’m looking on the bright side and saying that means we already have 15 signed up for the next class!
- One of our staff recently got to talk to a guy who was raised Catholic but has been out of the church for years. At first his wife dragged him to The Bridge, but he said Sunday that “things are really starting to make sense to him” after being at The Bridge for a couple months. This guy is wrestling with the reality of the gospel for the first time in his whole life right now and he’s already taking steps to connect with a House Group!
- One person emailed me last week about a family friend they’ve been bringing to worship gatherings who’s not a believer and leads a really rough life right now. This friend of theirs actually talked to me a few weeks ago about wrestling with where he stood with God, and the Holy Spirit is CLEARLY working on this guy right now. The person who emailed me said in the that this friend said to him this week, “for the first time in my life, I’ve started looking forward to Sunday mornings.”
- One of our staff was in a group of people who had been visiting The Bridge or were all very new. One couple had come from a very “religious” (in a negative, works-oriented sense of the word) background, left the church years ago, and just recently got connected to a House Group at The Bridge during some extremely hard times for them. In front of the entire group, this couple said about their experience so far at The Bridge “We have never experienced anything like this before.”
- One guy who trusted Christ and got baptized at a worship gathering a few weeks ago has not only brought friends with him every week since he was baptized, but has gotten connected with a group of Bridge men who meet together at 6am on a weekday to read Scripture together for discipleship.
- A couple that one of our staff developed a friendship with in Spring Hill had struggled with a life-altering substance addiction a few years ago that ravaged their family and caused them to disassociate from the church for the last few years. They’d been very hesitant to step back into a church setting, but visited the last 3 weeks’ worship gatherings. In the words of the husband, his wife has “loved every visit to a service”. Her first week she was “swarmed” by people wanted to greet her and their second week she was invited to two House Groups after the worship gathering.
THIS is why we’re here. And this is still just the very beginning. The best is all yet to come…
Read MoreThe Kimyal people receive the New Testament
Showed this in both worship gatherings yesterday and it almost uniformly broke the spirit of our church body (in a good way). THIS is what it looks like to truly understand what the Bible is.
“Festival Tennessee”. Spring Hill theme park press conference recap.
“This is much bigger than a simple amusement park. This is a family-themed recreation development that will include over 80 restaurants, a sports complex, a theme park, a water park, a charter school, an amphitheater, and many other items.”
Quotes from Dennis W. Peterson, CEO of the company who’s building Festival Tennessee…
“We have a water park coming in – one of the largest in the United States.”
“We have two resort hotels with 4,000 rooms each.”
“We are contacting the NBA to try and bring an NBA team here to Spring Hill.”
“The revenue from this project will generate $400-800 million yearly.”
“We’re gonna hire local people; we’re not hiring people from out of state.”
- Theme park, 80 acres
- Theme park expansion, 8 acres
- Theme park parking, 50 acres
- General parking, 83 acres
- Service area, 37 acres
- Amphitheater, 4 acres
- Water park, 10 acres
- Park Hotel, 12 acres
- Entertainment Complex Hotel, 10 acres
- Conference Center Hotel, 25 acres
- Timeshare parcel, 35 acres
- Pool ammenities, 12 acres
- Conference Center, 12 acres
- Entertainment Complex, 20 acres
- Lake, 10 acres
- They’ve been in talks with the NBA about bringing a team to this area (we want LeBron!)
- Over 80 restaurants have committed tobe a part of the development
- A charter school for kids is a definite part of the plans
- Two resort hotels with 4,000 rooms per hotel
Enews testing post
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Read MoreDiagnosing your heart by its response to Truth
One of the most helpful things any Christian can learn to do (both for personal spiritual growth and for mission) is learn to diagnose the status of a human heart – primarily your own. There’s an old Puritan saying that’s really helpful for this goal…
The same sun that melts the ice hardens the clay
This phrase arises out of Hebrews 3, which says…
Today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts… Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.”
Scripture depicts God’s voice like light. When he speaks he exposes the darkness of sin and Scripture says that people will have one of two responses to coming in contact with the light of truth…
- A genuine Christian’s heart will melt like ice. The Christian has been given a new, soft heart by Jesus and while they may struggle against the truth for awhile, the Christian will eventually melt under its light and repent. They will do this because they want more than anything else to walk with God. This heart will be characterized by things like brokenness, humility, confession, action steps to turn away from sin, and warmth toward God in abundant joy. Over time, this person’s heart will become softer and softer toward God’s voice and their love & joy will proportionately increase.
- A non-Christian’s heart will harden like clay. A non-Christian’s heart is dead and hard like stone (Ezekiel 36) and when their sinfulness is exposed by light, they will harden their hearts like clay hardens in the sun. They will do this because they are ultimately still a slave to sin and want more than anything else to continue in the very sin that is (unknowingly) destroying them. This heart will be characterized by things like denial, defensiveness, deflection to people or circumstances they believe are “causing them to act this way”, separation from sources of truth (the church, friends who love them enough to humbly confront them, etc), and anger that someone would dare accuse them of doing something wrong. Over time, this person’s heart will become harder and harder toward God’s voice, usually either avoiding it or denying its truthfulness altogether.
Living in a city that is so massively overchurched and so tragically under-gospeled, every professing Christian should often take time to seriously and honestly examine the state of their hearts. Ice or clay. Hardening or melting. Brokenness or anger. Confession or denial/deflection. God is BEGGING you to run to him and experience the UNBELIEVABLE depths of his love for you.
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