Posts by Josh
What I’ve learned from preaching the “Hurt” series…
If you’re an out-of-towner or you’re just checking out The Bridge, we’re finishing a sermon series this weekend called “Hurt” that we’ve been in for the last 4 weeks. I know I’m a really young pastor, but I think it’s safe to say that I’ve never preached a series that impacted how I viewed preaching more than “Hurt”.
I spent some time yesterday reflecting on the lessons I’ve learned during the last four weeks…
- Scripture is powerful. As soon as I started planning “Hurt” I realized I was going to be speaking into situations that, frankly, I have no business speaking to. I’ve never had my kids stolen by my ex-spouse, been molested, had an abortion, gone through hell in my marriage, held my one-day-old as she died in my arms, discovered that my newborn was permanently disabled, or been homeless. <—All conversations I’ve had with people during the last four weeks. As soon as I realized this I committed to pack more Bible into my sermons than I ever had before because while I have no business speaking to these situations, God does. As I’ve injected more Bible, God has seemed to inject more power into my preaching. Not a coincidence.
- The depth of pain in people’s lives. There hasn’t been a single week of this series that has failed to bring to the surface things in people’s lives that I’ve never dreamed of. You know those people who seem to have it all together? I found out once and for all that it’s just a sham; they’re just as jacked up as I am!!! No one escapes a Fallen world until heaven or Jesus’ return. No one.
- The Holy Spirit’s special affinity for hurting people. It freaks me out a little being a nice Southern Baptist, but the Holy Spirit has swept through worship gatherings in an unprecedented way during this series. The pain has been incredible. But the healing and hope has also been incredible. I REALLY wish I could share some stories without breaking confidentiality, but two literal miracles took place in our church body this month. This tells me that God’s Spirit is attracted to people experiencing pain.
- Pain is God’s megaphone. I haven’t used it this series, but there’s a CS Lewis quote that’s been buzzing in my head the whole time: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” As pain has been highlighted, it seems like people have almost naturally begun to see areas in their lives that need to change. This is something I didn’t expect, but it’s been a trend all over the place. People are realizing their need for God through the pain in their lives and responding.
- People need encouragement. More than anything else, this has been something that will probably change the way I approach preaching forever. I have the heart of a prophet so it’s intuitive for me to look at Scripture and see how it illuminates sin. When I started working on the week 2 sermon about depression, I kept coming back to the fact that what the depressed person needed was encouragement and hope… and that the gospel provides UNENDING resources for those things. Do people desperately need to be shown their sin? Yes; seeing and repenting of sin leads to healing. But do people need JUST AS MUCH encouragement as they do conviction? A thousand times YES! Huge lesson for me.
A feature series coming in January…
I’m excited to finally let a cat out of the bag that the Creative Media Team and I have been working on for about a month. Earlier this year we spent 17 weeks preaching through 1 Corinthians. One of the things I realized as I was preaching through that book was that the letter is mostly Paul responding to questions the Corinthians sent him about how they should express gospel faith in their particular culture. So that got our wheels turning and we started planning a series based on that concept that we’re going to call 1 Spring Hill(ians).
For the next month we’ve opened up a section on our website to take questions, any questions, that you would like to see responded to in a sermon. At the end of that period we’re going to post the top 20 questions we received for voting and you’ll have a chance to vote for the six questions that you’d most like to see addressed in the 1 Spring Hill(ians) series.
We started taking questions at Trunk or Treat and here are some samples of what we got…
- My brother is a practicing homosexual. Does this mean he’s going to hell?
- Why didn’t God heal my Dad when our family prayed for so long?
- Does God predestine some people for heaven and not others?
Bridge Family, this is not only a way for you to see questions that are important to you processed Biblically; it’s also a way for us to contend for the gospel in Spring Hill by giving friends, neighbors, and coworkers a chance to ask honest (and hard) questions they have about faith in Jesus and see them responded to in a gospel-centered way at a worship gathering. Use this as a missional tool by getting the word out to Spring Hill.
To submit a question OR to email this and post this to your facebook or Twitter account, visit…
www.BridgeSH.com/submission
[all questions are submitted in complete anonymity]
Read MoreTop o’ the Monday to ya
I’m getting home exhausted but today has been such a good day. Both worship gatherings were full and full of activity of the Holy Spirit, there was a LOT of response to today’s sermon (which is so encouraging to me), and Trunk or Treat was… well, awesome. We think a good guesstimate is that around 1,200 people came through tonight and ate our 600 hotdogs and INSANE amounts of candy.
SO, to celebrate the day and kick off the week on a positive note I give you this. Last week I mentioned that our Kids’ Minister Ben Lawson’s staff picture may or may not (but definitely does) look like Syndrome, from The Incredibles. Then I got an email with an attachment from Josh Johnson that proved it…
TELL ME I’M WRONG ABOUT BEN LAWSON’S SECRET IDENTITY!!! Am I wrong here???
Ben Lawson’s secret identity?
So here’s your “Happy Monday” laugh after two of the most powerful worship gatherings I’ve been a part of at The Bridge yet.
This was brought to my attention this week. Our new Kids’ Minister, Ben Lawson, has a picture on our site that may or may not bear a striking resemblance to The Incredibles’ villain, Syndrome.
Coincidence? You tell me…
PS - if someone can photoshop Ben’s hair in this picture red and send it to me (josh.howerton@bridgesh.com) then we’ll have a REAL comparison on our hands.
Read MoreThank you, Jim McCarthy.
If you don’t know Jim McCarthy, you’re kind of missing out. Jim gave his life to Jesus recently, got baptized at our last baptism service, and now he’s one of our drummers and part of our Creative Media Team with video editing. Jim recently reached out to me with this heartfelt gratitude in light of pastors’ appreciate month…
I’m speechless 
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