vision, fools and failures

There’s a statement that’s been trying to get out of me for weeks, and it’s been next to impossible to get into words. Every time I sit down to write I get scared and tied up and everything I want to say seems disconnected and stupid and impossible. I’m trying to describe where I think Bridgepointe is being called and what we’re asking people to join and I’m failing. So in the midst of that failure and foolishness, here goes.

We want Bridgepointe to be a church.

I know, it sounds simple, but it's not, and I think all of us know that. We’ve all been part of churches that for whatever reason failed to be what they claimed to be and wanted to be. I’m not here to criticize other churches, but we want Bridgepointe to be a group of people who are who we say we are, who we do what we say we’re going to do, and when we fail, as we surely will, we admit our failures and foolishness to God and the world and to ourselves and we jump back in again.

What if we could become a group of people who actually believe that we have good news for the world? What if we shared that good news with people as naturally as we told them about a great album or book or movie? What if we really welcomed people and allowed them to change us and expected them to be changed? What if we really believed that we are God’s people and he is guiding us and that when we prayed, someone actually listened and something actually happened?

I think we might change the world.

or at least our world

or at least us

So how do we get there?

At the proposal stage of this thing I had to come up with lots of plans and strategies for connection and assimilation, and those are important and good and smart, but the reality that I know with every bone in my body is that we aren’t cool enough or smart enough to make this thing happen by ourselves. The kind of community we’re dreaming of only happens if and when God shows up.

You know what the fun part is?

He said he would.

After the fall and the flood in Genesis, God took the first step to begin his plan of salvation by asking a guy named Abram to get up and move his family to a place God would show him. (Genesis 12) God said that he would bless Abram, and that through Abram, God would bless everyone on the planet. And Abram did. And the amazing thing about Abram wasn’t that he was so wise or spiritual or cool or a brilliant strategist or was working with the best model. The amazing thing about Abram was that when God said get up and go, he went.

When God said get up and go, he went.

I believe that’s what God is calling us to. And like Abram we’re going to fail and be fools and some of us are going to get new names and some of us are going to walk with limps, but God promised that he would bless the world through us.

So the question today, bigger than Bridgepointe or a new community or anything else that might be going on, is this: When God asks you to get up and go, will you?

More than anything else at this point, that’s what Bridgepointe is about

Thanks,

Dan