For the first time in my life as a follower of Jesus, I’ve decided to join the broader Christian community and practice this season called LENT. I’ve given up coffee for lent. And I’m still alive. I like life sans coffee quite well actually, I may not go back.
Lent, a period of 40 days (not including Sundays) between Ash Wednesday and Easter was originally a period of preparation for those to be baptized at Easter. It later became a time of penitence and self-examination for all Christians. In some ways, it is meant to reflect the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert fasting and resisting temptation prior to His ministry.
By celebrating Lent, we follow Jesus into the wilderness, resist temptation, pray, and proceed “on the way” to Jerusalem, and the cross of Good Friday. The Lenten journey is one of repentance, that is, changing directions from self, self-serving patterns and an myopic focus toward the others-focused way of life of following Jesus. We follow Jesus in laying down ourselves for others and trust that the power of that raised Jesus from the dead is enough to guide us in repentance and renewal. The intervention of God’s gracious Spirit makes life-long changes become possible. Turning from the old self at Lent and experiencing a dying of old ways prepares us to truly experience the joy of Easter.
Lent started on February 17th, so you’re a little late. But because there is freedom in Jesus, I wanted to invite you to consider jumping into this stream of the broader Christian experience. The guide will serve you well. Jump in!
Peace Out-
Brian Williamson
Lead Pastor
The Bridge Bible Church
We have opportunity again this year to join with Faith Community Church of New Richmond, The River (River Falls), The Village Church (Baldwin) and Faith Community Church of Hudson for Intersect 2010. If you were there last year for Paul’s teaching on marriage, you were blown away by the wisdom and helpful truth on how to grow in your marriage relationship. This year Paul will be teaching on “Getting to the Heart of Parenting”. The cost for the conference is: $12 before March 28 and $17 after the 28th. Seminar sessions will take place on Friday evening and again on Saturday morning. Here is a link to Faith Hudson’s website where you can read more info and even purchase your tickets: http://www.faithcommunity.info/intersect/index.html This is a great investment of your time and we trust God will intersect your parenting! Check out the video here:
This Sunday at our gathering we’ll be exploring the emotionally charged issue of our finances. I trust that God’s Word will really reframe your understanding of how to manage our money God’s way. One of our values as a local church is that “We will represent Jesus in our communities with integrity, humility and generosity” To serve you in taking your journey toward generosity, here is an amazing 20 day biblical devotional by Tim Keller on the value of stewardship.
Enjoy!
This week we explored the theme of REFRAMING YOUR TIME. The big idea was that God calls us to manage our priorities so we can experience time as He intended. Different angle isn’t it? From time management to priority management. I made note of the young Jonathan Edwards who at the age of 19 crafted a document resolutions. He read these every week to make sure his practice was aligned with his principles. Check it out, it’s pretty motivating and might inspire you as you carve out space and time to plan.
Finally, after four years we are live on iTunes. This is great news for those of you serving in our ministry environments during the gathering, this is great news for those of you who want to share the love by passing on the teaching to others. This is also great news as who knows who will listen to the teaching? Perhaps God will be gracious and use the teaching to awaken someone to real and eternal life in Jesus. The more and better life that we receive as we trust Jesus.
Two ways to access our podcast:
#1: At the lower bottom right of this page, you’ll see an icon that says PODCAST. Simply click on this and you’ll see the teachings that are avaialable.
#2: Go to iTunes and type in The Bridge Bible Church and you’ll see our logo. Click on it and you’re off.
But how can people call for help if they don’t know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven’t heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it? That’s why Scripture exclaims,
A sight to take your breath away!
Grand processions of people
telling all the good things of God!
But not everybody is ready for this, ready to see and hear and act. Isaiah asked what we all ask at one time or another: “Does anyone care, God? Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?” The point is: Before you trust, you have to listen. But unless Christ’s Word is preached, there’s nothing to listen to.
The one breathe we take bullets for at the Bridge is to lead everyone toward full life development in Jesus. That mission is rooted in the biblical text Colossians 1:28, 29 which says: Him [Jesus] we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, thatwe may present everyonemature in Christ. For thisI toil, strugglingwith all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
Our vision (the result of individuals experiencing our mission) is to see God shape “A Growing Network of 3-Dimensional Communities”. In our experience “belonging comes before believing” and so our communities are vital to our mission as people encounter and experience Jesus in community. This is the second of three posts designed to inform you a bit more about our Missional Clusters (our mid-size “3-D” communities). We currently have two and are pregnant with a third (details to come at this Sunday’s gathering.) We wanted to provide a resource for you to take your time and learn about missional clusters. So, click, download and take a little bit to chew on this excellent article by Mike Breen and Bob Hopkins entitled “Introduction to Missional Clusters”. Enjoy!
I am super excited for Sunday’s in January at the Bridge Bible Church. We are going to be engaging in a series called YOU ASKED FOR IT, where I have the privilege of answering questions that have been given by the people that make up the Bridge family. Here’s where we are headed and we hope to throw in a few bonus questions as we journey throughout this month! We’d love to see you there.
JANUARY 3: How can I be sure I will be safe forever?
JANUARY 10: Why Pray?
JANUARY 17: Why and how can I trust the Bible?
JANUARY 24: How do I love people I don’t agree with?
JANUARY 31: With all the religions in the world, how can only one be right?
I promised @ this morning’s gathering that I would upload two articles that have been going like hotcakes at our coffee table. Tim Keller’s expertise in clear and real communication of the positive headlines of Jesus has influenced me in incredible ways. In the First Article, “How Can I Know God?”, Tim lays out the essentials of what it means to trust Jesus for the first time. The second article “The Centrality of the Gospel” describes how the Gospel is not just the A,B,C’s of the Christian life, but the A-Z. Read, re-read, pass out and enjoy!
