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Everyone at The Bridge and anyone who reads this blog knows what I believe about politics. Unless there is clear intersection between Scripture and political positions, the church should stay out. Even when it comes to a Biblical understanding of life and morality, it is not our place to tell the government how to operate. God’s rules for his people are just that, for his people. We are of a different kingdom than the kingdoms of this world, and our calling is far higher than

It’s Nora’s fault.She had a virus…fever and stomach flu. Nicole, Junior and Madison got it. Linda got it. Erica got it. And I ended up with it as well.How did we all get it? Sick or not, I love my granddaughter and couldn’t stay away from her. We were around her, and each other, and we passed it on through the family. Viruses are like that. They move from one person to another and you don’t even know it is happening.A lot of things in life are communicable. Attitudes, good an

Two sisters, a year apart in middle school, returned from winter break after a week at Disney World with their family. One was down in the dumps and when asked what was wrong, she retorted, “I just came back from a week off school in Florida to this freezing cold weather and homework––that’s what’s wrong.”The other sister was all smiles and at the top of the world. She was asked why she was so happy. “I just came back from a week with my family in Florida, where it was warm a

Arthur Katz was a Jewish man raised as an atheist. At the close of World War II, he was in Germany with the American army and saw the gas chambers at the concentration camps. It filled him with hatred, first toward the Germans and then, as he realized that this went deeper than nationality, at the whole human race. He moved back to Berkeley and gave himself to education, but he came to see that it was not the answer. Education could not change hearts, and out of disillusionme

Today is Inauguration Day in America and a new president will be sworn in as our nation’s chief executive and commander in chief. I’d like to say a few things. Thank you President Barack Obama. You served our country these last eight years to the best of your ability and you did it with dignity. I’m grateful that there were no scandals surrounding your personal and family life to plague the nation and distract from your presidency. I appreciated your sense of humor and your s

"How do I know what God wants me to do?"I get that question a lot. Sometimes the answer is straightforward. If it’s addressed in Scripture, there you have it. But often it’s not a matter that’s addressed in the Bible. Like, “Should I switch jobs to this other opportunity?” “Is it time to buy a house?”God cares about all of your decisions and he wants to be included in them. But that doesn’t mean that there are always right or wrong answers to the choices we make. Here are six

I’ve pastored two churches. The first was a start-up, and we began in my living room with about a half dozen people. On opening Sunday, we had twelve. I enjoyed watching that ministry grow for the next nineteen years.But when I arrived here nine and a half years ago, I was struck by the sense of history in this church. The church was not in a very good place at the time. It had been in decline for years and our attendance was only a fraction of what it had been in its heyday.

My new year’s resolution this year is to never write 2016 on a form and then have to correct it. I was able to keep all of my new year’s resolutions last year. I kept them in the top drawer of my desk…so I can make the same ones again this year.I don’t really make new year’s resolutions. I do set annual goals. And I do believe the new year is a beneficial time to evaluate our lives, examine what direction we are heading in, and to make course corrections. But whether or not y

The new year is the time many of us take inventory of our lives and evaluate those things that we want to change, or at least, make improvements to. That’s a good thing. I think all of us should regularly examine ourselves and ask The Lord what he wants us to focus on in the near future. As a staff, we’ve been using the following questions within our accountability groups to help us start the new year with Spiritual Goals. I’d like to encourage you to share this list with at

In The Day Christ Was Born , best selling author and journalist, Jim Bishop wrote a reliable and true-to-life analysis of Jesus’ birth. I loved the realism throughout the book, but I’d like to quote for you what he says about young Mary, the soon-to-be mother."She no longer noticed the chafe of the goatskin against her leg, nor the sway of the food bag on the other side of the animal. Her veiled head hung and she saw millions of pebbles on the road moving by her brown eyes in

Several years ago we held a special Veteran’s Day service in our church to honor veterans. Because it was an election year, we also invited politicians to join us, thinking they would, being as they were up for election and wanted to go anywhere with a crowd of potential voters. We were right. We had a big crowd and quite a few candidates from both major parties. It was a nonpolitical service (as everything is here at The Bridge) and we saw it as an opportunity to expand our

Here it is….Christmas season! Are you ready? Decorations up? Gift list completed? Shopping started? Plans for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day settled?While most every Christian talks about Christ being left out of Christmas, they tend to be as guilty of that as anyone. Though we say Christmas is about Jesus’ birth, we get our kids more excited about the myth of Santa than we do about the truth of Jesus (and in doing so cause a lot of later doubts–see my blog dated November 26