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 Shabbat… just hearing Shae (Katie’s husband) speak that word brings a sense of calm to my soul.  For the last few years, we have made it a priority to try to truly observe a Sabbath rest in our home every week.  For us, this falls on Saturday which leaves us Sunday as a buffer before the week begins.  Rather than a day full of meaningless somethings, our Sabbaths are full of meaningful nothings.  This is quite a refreshing contrast to the rest of our week!  As a stay-at-home-mom, I had a really difficult time letting go of my daily responsibilities (and I would say it’s still something I have to make an effort to do).  “Just leave it, Kate” – Shae’s encouraging words float in my head every Saturday.  He encouraged me that by honoring God’s day of rest, a sweet gift for His children, I am actually doing my job as a wife and mother by NOT cleaning the house, and NOT folding the clothes, and NOT picking up the ever-present mess created by our precious three kiddos.  Observing the Sabbath in our home means spending a day with nothing on our agenda, no plans to accomplish goals, no tasks to be checked off a list – it is a day to simply BE. 

PRACTICAL TIPS

Because of Shae’s leadership in our home and his obedience for us to have a true Sabbath, we have reaped some of the blessings that we believe God intended when He created us.  It is a weekly time of physical refreshment and spiritual renewal in our lives.  We have noticed an amazing thing – despite “losing” a day, like many in this world would see it, we gain more than I can put into words.  It is a sweet time that we gain strength and excitement through God’s Word for the gospel, our souls are rested and ready for the week ahead, and the funniest part to me is that even though I have “lost” an entire day of house-keeping, it all gets done!  I believe that God blesses our Sabbaths as we pursue to honor him, and He is faithful to provide us with energy, both physical and spiritual, to sustain usthroughout the week.

This blog is written by Bridger- Heath Hollensbe! 

Propitiation is the removal of that wrath of God against sinners by the death of Jesus. Furthermore, it is not just a removal of the wrath of God towards us, but a complete welcoming of his people into his love and favor.

To put it a different way, apart from truly, diligently obeying the Son of God, the wrath of God will continue to remain to be the largest problem a person will ever experience. In fact, sin is such a serious offense to our holy God, the result will end in eternal torture and torment. (Revelation 14:9-11). 

The great news for us though, is that God released all of his ferocious wrath against sin on his precious Son. Every single speck of that violent wrath was poured out on Jesus, leaving absolutely nothing left to hold against us. (Isaiah 53:4-6). One of the amazing truths of the Gospel is that there is a way to have the vengeance of God diverted away from us, and the incredible news is that God himself chose His Son to be that diversion.

1 John 4:10 informs us that God has made a way for his wrath to be removed from sinners. “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” God is absolutely not OK with leaving people under his wrath. However, he would not be a just God if he were to ignore sin and sweep it under the rug. Because of this, the death of Jesus was the result of his love and his justice working together to accomplish two things:

a.) Sinners to be saved forever

b.) Gods justice to be maintained forever

1 John 1:7 refers to the “blood of Jesus his Son [that] cleanses from all sin.”

Jesus removed the wrath of God from us by dying for us. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us-  Galatians 3:13.

“God put him forward as a propitiation by his blood” (Romans 3:25).

The greatest news in the entire world is that Christ endured the wrath of God on our behalf. Our sins will not be held against us because Jesus already took our punishment for us, he was our substitute.

This is what it means when we say that Christ is the propitiation for ours sins. It was so much more than Christ just dying for our wrong doings.

I love the way that William Gouge (17th Century Puritan) summarized what Christ had done on the cross so simply.

“Christ, by his death, offered himself up a sacrifice where such a price was paid for our sins, as satisfied God’s justice, pacified his wrath, removed the curse of the law, and so spoiled Satan of all his power, wrestled his weapons out of his hands, set free those whom he held captive, and brought Satan into captivity.”

So when we have been given such a large amount of incredible grace, sometimes it is hard to figure out where to go next? I would like to leave you with a verse that encourages us in evangelism, and a practical way for us to be able to be able to put Scripture into practice as we do our daily activities around our community.

“And he is not the propitiation for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world.” - 1 John 2:2. 

We are all sinners, but there is no reason that those of us in Christ need to fear. John Piper says it best,

“your attorney is the Son of the Judge. He is righteous and he makes his case for you not on the basis of your perfection but his propitiation. He stands before his Father in heaven, and every time we sin, he doesn’t make a new propitiation. He doesn’t die again and again. Instead he opens his portfolio and lays the exhibits of Good Friday on the bench before the Judge. Photographs of the crown of thorns, the lashing, the mocking soldiers, the agonies of the cross, and the final cry of victory: It is finished.”

It is finished Christians. You don’t have to perform anymore.

This is life altering news. Let’s not keep this to ourselves! Let’s live as proclaimers of this news: “Christ not only died for your sins, but completely satisfied the wrath of God against you, through His precious son, Jesus Christ.

Today, I want to lay out HOW we’re restructuring our staff towards our vision to make disciples, train leaders, and plant churches.  Without further ado, here’s what staff roles will look like starting June 1st…

Josh Howerton: Lead Pastor

I’ll still be our primary pastor for preaching and leadership.  I’ll be shifting some things off of my plate to devote more time to sermon prep (which I want to get MUCH better at) and vision/leadership into the future.  While I can’t continue to do all of the church’s pastoral counseling any longer (there’s far too much), there will be little visual change in my role.  I still love it and can’t imagine doing anything else.

Craig Mckown: Associate Pastor

When we hired Craig a year and a half ago, we hit a home run.  Over the course of the last year, Craig has shown a remarkable grasp for organizational leadership – developing efficient systems and structures to facilitate gospel growth – as well as the ability to coach other leaders towards personal growth.  As our Associate Pastor, Craig will be overseeing all of our part-time staff (of which there will be 4; more on that in a second), working alongside of me to make sure that The Bridge’s vision is clear and being applied in all areas of ministry, and he’ll maintain his current overall leadership of Bridge Family Ministries.

Matt Svoboda: HG’s and Training Pastor

Another home run hire, Matt’s prophetic orientation has brought a discipleship-oriented theological passion and clarity to all his areas of leadership.  Further (and surprisingly to him!), Matt has demonstrated remarkable skill and passion in pastoral counseling.  Going forward, Matt is going to assume point leadership of our HG (House Group) Network and develop the theological training arm of The Bridge, Porterbrook Spring Hill to train leaders.  As The Bridge grows, the health of our HG Network becomes increasingly important it will get more leadership attention than it’s ever had before – which we’re VERY excited about!  Matt will continue to oversee the Mission arms of The Bridge (foreign and local) and assist Pastor Josh in pastoral counseling.

Jimi Williams: Worship Pastor

What can you say about Jimi besides the guy is a stud?  Not only does Jimi give incredible pastoral leadership to the church body through his presence, he’s also now leading worship teams for all 3 WG’s and raising up more worship leaders within our church body.  He’ll continue in this role because… well, he’s really good at it.

Ben Knisley: Director of Student Ministries and Sunday Services

We’re very proud to be bringing Ben Knisley (the one on the left) onto our part-time staff to oversee our Student Ministry (Core) under Craig and take care of Sunday services.  Ben will be a student with Porterbrook Spring Hill in the Fall and showed himself to be a gifted, mature young leader during his time as a Bridge intern.  We’re VERY excited about the Student Ministry getting focused pastoral leadership, and Ben is administratively gifted to handle Sunday services such as our 1st Impressions Team, volunteer placement, and Intro to The Bridge class.

Meredith Salmon: Administrative Assistant to the staff

We just hired Meredith (the one on the left) onto our part-time staff a few weeks ago as The Bridge Administrative Assistant.  Two words: grand slam.  So that our pastoral staff can focus primarily on shepherding and leadership, Meredith will continue to assist the staff administratively, taking as many things off of their plate as she can.  A few weeks in we’re finding out that Meredith is jaw-droppingly smart and efficient.  Her husband Justin (on the right) is also a baller.  We like him

Kelley Reynolds: Early Childhood Director

We’re also very excited to announce that Kelley Reynolds (the one on the left) will be joining our part-time staff for leadership in the Kids’ Ministry. With an average of nearly 150 kids per week in Bridge Kids, we’re REALLY excited about the future of Kids’ Ministry in our context.  Kelley will be coming under Craig’s leadership in this area after showing spectacular leadership as a volunteer for a long time.  We love Kelley and her man, Brad, is well-tolerated among the staff also

Bridge Fam, let’s give three cheers to what God is doing in our midst and welcome the new leaders to our staff!

In the last year alone, The Bridge has…

• Grown by about 170 people in average WG attendance
• Launched a 3rd WG
• Baptized 20 people (as of the upcoming Baptism WG)
• Almost doubled the number of people in volunteer ministry roles (I’m so proud of this)
• Rebuilt our HG Network and planted many new HG’s
• We’re on the verge of launching the theological training arm of The Bridge, Porterbrook Spring Hill
• And on the verge of launching the Titus 2 Collective for discipleship and connection of Bridge women

But during all of that growth our leadership structure has stayed the same.  This has led to some leadership “choke points” where too much leadership is flowing through too few people with too little time. This in turn has stymied the mission of our church body.  The analogy that best describes what we’re doing this year is that of a trellis and vine.

For all my fellow non-gardeners, a trellis is what a vine grows on and a vine is… well, if you don’t know what a vine is you probably can’t read this post anyway.  Here’s the deal: the vine is what’s important.  The trellis only exists to facilitate the growth of the vine.  BUT the vine can only grow as much as the trellis allows.  If the trellis is full, the vine can’t grow anymore.  Following Jesus’ analogy from Scripture…

• The vine = the growth of the gospel in people and cultures.  It’s spiritual growth.
• The trellis = systems and structures that facilitate that growth.

Right now we’re a 500 person vine trying to grow on a 300 person trellis.  Building a trellis that can support the rapidly expanding gospel growth in and through our church body is what’s happening in this year’s staff restructure. We’re hiring some part-time ministry staff and moving our existing staff into roles that reflect their unique gifts so that we’re prepared for the next level of making disciples, training leaders, and planting churches.

Hold onto your seats, Bridge Fam. The best is all yet to come… 

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Conversion is a very important topic… Especially where we live, the Bible Belt. In the Bible Belt we seem to think that conversion=any interest in Jesus. This is not biblical at all and that type of mindset has done a lot of damage in our culture. A bad understanding of conversion leads to a lot of people having a false assurance of salvation. In our culture any time someone has any type of emotional response to something Godward we assume they got saved.

We forget the Gospels when many people were very interested and intrigued in Jesus. They were following him around to hear his teaching, watch his signs and miracles, and appeared to have legitimate interest in what was going on. Yet, Jesus often said things to them that made many of them turn away. He would often turn to the large crowds following him and say things like, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:26-27

Jesus was not interested in casual followers. Jesus is still not interest in casual followers. When someone truly experience conversion everything changes.

Blind to the beauty of Christ —> NEW BIRTH —> see Him as the all-satisfying treasure of your heart.

As David Wells says it,

Conversion involves forsaking sin, with its self deifying attitudes and self-serving conduct, and turning to Christ, whose death on the cross is the basis for God’s offer of mercy and forgiveness… Conversion occurs when we turn from our waywardness and accept Christ’s death on our behalf.

In our culture many people who think they are saved (and we assume is saved) have merely added Jesus as another thing into their life, rather than totally reorienting their life around him. For many, there isnt a “turn away from our waywardness” but merely an “add Jesus on to what is already a good life.” This is dangerous. This is hell-bound.

New Birth(conversion)=New Life, not Imitation of Life.

Many people in our own church, in our families, and many friends we have are just like those who followed Jesus casually, listening to his teachings and watching his miracles. Now many go to church casually observing, enjoying the good music, occasionally motivated by the sermon, but no change happening. Conversion has not taken place.

The New Testament is very clear on what must take place for conversion to happen, for us to be born again. We must, as Mark 1:15 says, “Repent and believe the gospel.” If there is no repentance(turning away from our waywardness) there is no new birth, no conversion.  John Piper says, ”Until God awakens us from spiritual death and gives us the life that finds joy in killing sin and being holy, we are slaves and cannot get free.” God makes us born again through repentance and faith or we will forever be slaves of sin.

How Do We Know if Conversion Has Happened?

1) Evidence of Repentance

“In the new birth, our dead, stony boredom with Christ is replaced by a heart that senses the worth of Jesus.” John Piper

“The Bible has a clear and devastating message about the state of our souls. And the reason it does is so that we will know what we need and shout for joy when God gives it to us.” Piper

At some point there is a change of heart. For many people they cannot point towards a specific day that they became a Christian. This is fine. We are not looking for a day of repentance, but for evidence that the repentance happened. If someone is saved there has to be a time in which the gospel didnt not delight the heart and then a time that it did. What I posted above is helpful in understanding this, I’ll post it again.

Blind to the beauty of Christ —> NEW BIRTH —> see Him as the all-satisfying treasure of your heart.

The greatest evidence of conversion is when a complete reorientation has taken place. This is exactly what the Apostle Paul points to in Philippians 3:4-11. Verse 7-8 sums it up when he says,

“But whatever gain I had a counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I might gain Christ“

There has to be a point in which the things of this world we treasured become strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. 

2) Fruit of Repentance

The best proof of our conversion is an obedient and fruitful life.

David Wells says,

Religious enthusiasms are easily generated. Their reality is not measured by the degree of excitement, but by the quality of endurance. The result of the test should be fruitfulness- the new character and the new direction of life that emerges.

Countless times in the New Testament Jesus says things like, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” John 14:15. And “By this all men will know you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:35. John the Baptist urged his followers to “Bear fruit that befits repentance.” Matthew 3:8.

We know we have been born again (converted) when the desires of our hearts have changed and that has led to a significant change in our lives. 

Goal of Conversion

The goal of conversion is nothing less than loving God with all one’s will, emotions, and thinking, whereas previously all of these faculties were engaged in self love. David Wells

If you have read this and you are having serious doubts of your conversion please shoot me an email (matt.svoboda@bridgesh.com) or reach out to a Christian friend you know. Repent and believe the gospel in order for the things of this world to grow dim and the beauty of Christ to become bright.

Eternity hangs in the balance. Many of you have had some type of religious experience in the past and yet you know in your heart nothing has really changed. You are not a Christian. The good news is that God offers you grace today. Turn from your waywardness and trust in the all satisfying Savior and what he has done on our behalf.

What does the life of a missionary look like right here in Spring Hill? What does it look like for a stay at home mom and the family that seems to busy for mission?

We just bought two resources to help you answer those questions! They are both $12.00 and they will be on the Resource Table this Sunday.

Here they are:

This is a great book for families. It is called “A Meal with Jesus: Discovering Grace Community, and Mission around the Table”

Families with full schedules can utilize this book greatly. It will help you see how living missionally really just means being intentional with things that are already in your schedule- like eating dinner.

This is a great book for all of you stay at home moms at The Bridge. It is called, “The Missional Mom: Living with Purpose at Home and in the World”

Your calling as a mom is an important one. Your calling as a missionary is equally important. This book helps give you a picture of what a Missional Mom can look like. Husbands, you can serve your wives big time by getting this for her. Call it a late Mother’s Day Gift.

You can pick both of these up at the Resource Table this Sunday for $12!

They are led by these three godly men:

These three guys are crazy. They have this belief that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation and that through the gospel they can reach Madison, WI with the gospel. They, like us, have the desire to not just plant one church and grow as large as they can. These guys plan to plant several churches in the Madison area.

We are honored to get to come behind these men and this church. We support them financially, through relationship, and now we get to support them by coming behind them and helping them serve their city.

For The City Video

The Details:

Dates: July 24th-29th

Cost: Maximum of $400 

Who Can Go: You! and you family. If you have been wanting to take your kids on a mission trip this is a great opportunity for that.  This might also be a chance for you and your spouse to send them off to the grandparents.  ;)

What We Wil be Doing: Serving Madison, WI and The Vine Church. We are going there to be a blessing to the city and the church. We will be doing several different service projects out in the community. This is a way to love on Madison with The Vine Church and help them build relationships with people in their city!

What To Expect: Sleeping arrangements will be made for us. We will be staying in people’s homes and potentially at a larger church in the area. This means bring your own sleeping stuff. Air mattress, sleeping bag, pillows, etc. We will be buying some groceries and stuff while we are there for breakfast and lunch things, but we will also be eating out 4 nights in Madison (really looking forward to this!). Once you pay the $400 per person it will cover everything. That will pay for the groceries and the dinners.

That money also goes towards blessing The Vine Church, helping pay for some of the service project materials, and travel expenses!

Let’s go be crazy with the guys in Madison who want to see their city transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ! Sign up at Connection Center in the lobby!

This is a great opportunity for us to love on and serve our community. We will have the chance to engage with several families, have a good time, and serve them. We started our volunteer sign ups on Sunday. We still need several more.

The Details:

Date: June 2nd

Time: 11 am-5 pm

Entrance Fee: some canned goods or a pair of shoes!

Volunteer: we will be setting up our own booth along with the other sponsors. We wil be helping with parking, handing out literature at our booth, engaging families, and having cookie decorations at our booth for the kids.

Be sure to sign up at Connection Center this Sunday. We are going to do it in two different shifts of 3 hours. This way people are also able to simply enjoy the festival as well as serve.