Exciting things in store for Bridge Kids

Posted by Craig McKown on Feb 6, 2012 | 6 comments

Guest Post by Lance Howerton. Lance is not only the Director of Children’s Training and Events for LifeWay, we are also blessed to have him volunteer in the role of Elementary Ministry Leader in Bridge Kids!

Did you know that most people make their decision for Christ when they are children? 43% of decisions are made before age 13. That is nearly one-half of all believers. Children are a gift from God and are a gift that we need to hold precious and sacred.

I have spent all of my adult life in ministry to either students or children. I believe there is simply no greater calling than to teach kids about our Savior. In March, you will notice some significant changes in our children’s ministry.

First, you will see some physical changes. As we continue to grow, we need to break our kids into smaller groups that are age-specific. Currently, we have large group time followed by either continued large group or two smaller groups, kindergarten through 3rd grade and 4th and 5th. This works fairly well when you have 15 kids, but not when we are running 30 plus (in each worship gathering). Kindergarten and first graders are in very different educational and developmental stages than a 4th and 5th graders. Our strategy for now will be to break them into Kindergarten and 1st grade, 2nd and 3rd grade, and 4th and 5th grade. We will do that by setting up tents on the second floor for each group. Kids will love going to their tent each week after large group time.

Another significant change coming in August will be new curriculum. We love our current curriculum that teaches strong Biblical character values; however, we want more for our kids. We want more Biblical content, more of the major Bible stories driven by a strong Gospel-centered message. Therefore, we will be switching to The Gospel Project curriculum. Each lesson has one of the major Biblical stories with the gospel at the center of everything we do and teach. Not only will it have strong Gospel-centered Biblical content, but it will have all the major biblical stories IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER! Can you imagine what it will mean to our kids to learn about the Gospel of Christ through stories in the order they actually happened?

I hope you are as excited about what God is going to do as we are! If so, we need your help. We need volunteers who are passionate about our kids knowing the Gospel. We don’t want them just to know about the Gospel, but for their lives to be completely shaped by it. Uncle Sam use to say “we need you.” We need you to be one of the many volunteers who cares about the lives of our kids. If you think that God might be calling you, contact Craig McKown at craig.mckown@bridgesh.com or me at Lance.Howerton@lifeway.com.

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Meet our city: Old School Cafe

Posted by Josh Howerton on Jan 31, 2012 | 0 comments

At The Bridge we are “for our city” and are devoted to seeing Spring Hill become the best place to live in America.  One of the ways we can be for our city is by supporting local businesses that both help our local economy and make Spring Hill unique.  Toward that goal we’ll be taking some time on the blog for the next few weeks to “meet our city” by highlight some local businesses. Share the blog posts on your Facebook walls to love our city by helping promote these Spring Hillian-owned businesses.

The local business we visited this week has become kind of a “heart of Spring Hill” kind of place for locals – we headed over to Old School Cafe for breakfast.  Located in the old building for Spring Hill High School at the corner of Duplex Rd and 31, this place has done the city a REALLY cool service by turning a historic Spring Hill landmark into a nostalgic – and EXTREMELY good – breakfast and lunch cafe.  The vibe of the cafe shows you how they’ve embraced its history…

Coolest part of Old School, to me, is the fact that when you’re there you feel like you’re stepping into a nostalgic movie scene in a 1960′s diner.  In all the cool ways and none of the bad ones, it feels like you’re stepping back in time 50 years. Very cool vibe.  The food is AWESOME.  Bill, the owner, has been a high-end chef in multiple locations and apprenticed under a German chef for a few years. Even though the food is classic diner food (eggs, bacon, potatoes, biscuits, etc) it’s seriously incredible. Everything hits the spot and all three of us ‘gents cleaned our plates  Ours was $6/person but you get a LOT of food.

Breakfast is classic breakfast foods and the lunch menu is a solid “meat and 3″ menu.  Old School is apparently renowned by its regulars (of which there are many) for its Derby Pie

Old School cafe is owned by Bill and Maude Corbett.  One of our favorite aspects of Old School Cafe was why they’re closed for dinner. Bill and Maude have a special needs son with Down Syndrome that they love very much.  Even though it might be good for their business to be open for dinner, they’ve chosen to stick to breakfast and lunch so they can be home in the evenings with their son, who needs extra attention from them.

Other facts about Old School Cafe…

• Located in the old Spring Hill High School building, which closed in 1992
• The cafe closes at 2pm and is closed on Sundays
• It’s cash only, so bring yo’ wallets
• Famous for their Derby Pie… save room for dessert
• You can expect to spend around $7-8 for a REALLY GOOD breakfast or lunch

All in all, we LOVED everything about this place – food, vibe, and ownership – and will be having meetings there in the near future.  Help out “Old School” by sharing this post on your Facebook pages and dropping by for breakfast or lunch!

 

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FROM THE VAULT: 10 important posts

Posted by Josh Howerton on Jan 30, 2012 | 0 comments

We did this a few posts ago with the most-requested sermons post (which you can see HERE), but there are a few blog posts that seem to either answer common questions people have or that address issues that people often deal with as Christians.  So here’s some posts “from the vault” that will hopefully be helpful to you…

10 FROM THE VAULT

1. How do I decide which Christian preachers, teachers, and authors to listen to and which to avoid? In the over-churched Bible Belt where which Christian author(s) you read is kind of a weird status symbol, this post was both highly-trafficed and highly-important.

2. Profiles of the Religious, Irreligious, and Gospel person. The Bible doesn’t teach – like the church often does – that there are “two ways to live – God’s way and Man’s way”.  This post covers the “3 ways to live” that Jesus talked about and helps you figure out who you are.

3. Some thoughts about church size. I wrote this post for everyone who – like me – has either felt that “bigger churches are better” or felt that “smaller churches are better”.  Some thoughts from the Bible about church size.

4. Suburban Christians: change your fuel. A post about why many suburban Christians seem tired in their zeal for God.

5. Why aesthetics and media are important to Jesus’ mission. I wrote this post to help people understand why our graphics, video, multimedia are really important to us as good missionaries in our culture.

6. Will people just keep sinning if you preach too much grace?  This was a followup post to a sermon that highlighted the scandalous nature of grace. Many people left this sermon wondering, “But won’t people just keep sinning if you preach too much grace!?”  Here’s a Biblical answer to that question.

7. Is church membership Biblical?  Is church membership just a social construct? An organizational necessity? Or is it actually Biblical?  If so, why don’t I ever read about it in the Bible?

8. A third way to read the gospels.  This post highlights why many people read the story of Jesus’ life and come away discouraged instead of hopeful.

9. Why does our staff schedule meetings away from the church building?  For everyone who asks the question, “Why do those guys schedule meetings at Starbucks when they could have meetings at the church building for free!?”

10. What are proper and improper ways to express yourself in corporate worship?  Am I OK to raise my hands during worship? What about running flags down the aisles?  Can I set off M-80′s in response to God’s greatness in worship? This post answers all the questions many Christians have about how they can express themselves in worship.

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