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A couple of months ago, we talked about the message of the church, and how to concisely share the Gospel so that people can understand and respond. I gave four points to help guide conversations: God’s Love (John 3:16) Your Sin (Romans 3:23) God’s Son (Romans 5:8) Your Decision (Romans 10:9-13) Then last weekend, Junior brought a message from Acts 22 on sharing your God-story. From Paul’s own practice of sharing his, we learned the three elements of a Christian testimony: You

Good Christians disagree about controversial things. We certainly have seen that in recent years regarding a lot of topics. I take it more seriously when the Bible speaks clearly into the matter, but there are a lot of issues that Christians debate and argue over, where the Scripture gives principles to guide, but people on both sides are sincerely attempting to use God’s Word to form their thinking. Is that ok? Of course it is! And it’s healthy. As long as we continue to dia

A couple of years ago, my daughter Erica and I were in Guatamala and while there, visited an interesting church in the city of Antigua. We enjoyed the service. It was alive and reaching a lot of people. It reminded me of The Bridge in many ways, except I couldn’t understand most of what was being said. ?The church held its services in a hotel that had been a Catholic Church complex way back in the 16th century. The ruins were turned into a museum for the general public, so we

We are now two years into this project. It started with our merge with Prospect Heights Christian Church and the decision to plant a new Bridge campus where Prospect Christian was located. Then came plans to replace the old and very small building with a new facility that would maximize that property. Then came Beyond, our capital campaign designed to jump start the project with necessary equity. And many of you have sacrificially given your hard-earned money into Beyond to s

We’re still in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, and will be for a while. The devastation from over 40 inches of rain and the huge surge of Gulf water into the area has inundated hundreds of thousands of homes and displaced more than 30,000 people. While more than 17,000 have been rescued, we still do not know what the death toll will be.And now Hurricane Irma.Can’t God stop a hurricane?As a Christian, I believe that God is sovereign. That means that he is in control. He is

I love the church. I love the big "C" Church, and the little "c" church. I love the founder of the Church, the mission of the Church, and the people of the Church.But I have no expectation of knowing everyone in any church.The church that made the greatest difference in my life when I was seventeen…I knew very few people in that church at the time. And yet God used it to change my life.But I hear people often complain about that very thing…not knowing enough people at their c

Our church’s mission is to connect people with God, connect people with people, and connect people with service. Of that triad, the second ties the first and last together. God did not just create us as individuals, he created us as relational beings to enjoy community. When Adam was made, God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.”When it comes to our faith journey, involving other people is a big deal. It was for every Bible character and every strong Christian I’ve eve

The Bridge is one of the most peaceful churches you will ever encounter. But being full of people and led by frail humans, we do face minor conflict from time to time. Probably the most common surrounds the purpose of our church and what kind of church we are supposed to be. When you think of it, once that is settled, most other decisions are simplified and we are able to see our way through the things we do and don’t do, and how we approach every ministry.And that is somethi

I read a blog post a couple of weeks ago titled, Church Growth Strategy: Be Weird. The title did what it intended to do, it got my attention.Actually, it was a review of a book that I’ve since ordered, Destroyer of the gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World. In it, Larry Hurtado, of the University of Edinburgh, contends that early Christianity grew dramatically because, while the Christian message was universal, its messengers were unique. There was no drive

I was in the thick of Chicago traffic. At one intersection, both an automobile and a bicycle attempted to sneak through a red light at the end of a yellow. The bike was going straight and the car was turning left, and they collided. The car was barely moving and fortunately, the woman on the bike was not hurt….but she was mad! She jumped up off the ground and picked her bike up, ripped her helmet off, and with bike in tow, ran after the car screaming at the driver. Junior was

“I’ve tried reading the Bible but I don’t understand it and my mind wanders."

Jesus’ disciples had been amazed at a lot of things about Jesus. They were blown away by his miracles. But they never asked him to teach them how to do miracles. They were astonished by his teaching as he captivated crowds of thousands. Yet they never asked him to teach them how to preach. But when they heard Jesus praying, they asked him to teach them how to pray (Luke 11:1-2). They heard Jesus really pray and they wanted to learn. That’s how we received the Lord’s Prayer.