Tilling and Training

Last Saturday, we held our Fall Carnival here at The Bridge. As always, it was an amazing event that brought people from our surrounding community through the doors of our church building, giving them the chance to get to know us and experience our hospitality. Thank you so much to all those who participated! Afterward, I was reflecting on the fruit, or the outcomes, of an event like that. It doesn’t usually result in immediate, dramatic church growth. We can probably count on one hand the number of people who came to a community outreach event and later became a follower of Jesus. However, I think it accomplishes at least two big purposes: one external and one internal.

Externally, events like the Fall Carnival soften the ground around us. They tell people that our church is here for the good of this community, not for its harm. They tell people that we’re interested in them and want to serve them. To go to the oft-repeated gardening analogy, it’s not just about planting seeds. Events like this remove some rocks in the field and help break up some of the hardened soil that hinders people from even considering Christian faith. It’s a tilling event. I had one conversation with a neighbour who said that while he and his wife aren’t religious at all, they believe they share a lot of our values and are so glad our church is in this community.

Internally, I think events like this shape our church for service and mission. It’s a training event. We cannot possibly host the Fall Carnival without significant buy-in from a lot of different people who are willing to spend a couple of hours on a beautiful Saturday afternoon serving others. One of the most encouraging things I saw at the Fall Carnival was people who didn’t have kids or a family nevertheless volunteering. Even if they didn’t have a “personal” stake in it the way a parent would, they saw the vision and wanted to participate. The Fall Carnival doesn’t happen unless a lot of people catch the vision to make Jesus known in this community. Doing events like this are an important reminder that we’re not here for ourselves, we’re not part of this church to get an experience, to hang out with friends, etc. We’re here as a people on mission together, with a common objective to introduce people to Jesus.

It’s tilling and training.

Now here’s the turn. I would love to see the number of people in our church who serve on Sunday mornings significantly increase. Compared to the number of people who attend our church, there are a relatively small number of people who serve regularly in areas like children’s ministry and hospitality (ushers, greeters, parking, etc.). Those people end up being spread thin, being asked to volunteer week after week. That would be troubling already. However, because of the exciting growth we’ve seen on Sundays, we recognize a need to move to two services in the near future. The purpose for that is the same as our church’s vision, it’s the same thing that drives us to host the Fall Carnival: we not only want to know Jesus Christ personally, we want to make him known. We want to create space for people in our community to come and join us and hear the good news of salvation. We’re running out of space currently, which is why we are going to do a second service. However, if the number of people serving on Sunday mornings in those areas doesn’t change, we’re really going to spread those few people thin. We’re going to burn them out. We need to start sharing the load to an extent we haven’t before.

So consider this little article an attempt at both tilling and training. I’d love for you to consider what “rocks” the Holy Spirit might be leading you to remove that keep you from serving on a Sunday, and to consider how stepping into an area of service might form you more in the image of Christ. You may have legitimate limitations at this point in your life. I don't mean to lay a burden on you that you can't carry! My point is that we need more people to step into some of these ministries so we can continue to make Jesus known to our community and be trained up for the mission He’s given us. Join us in the work of tilling and training on Sunday mornings.

Children’s ministry: Tati Neves  (tati@bridgenorthvan.ca)
Pre-teen ministry: Matt Pearman (matt@bridgenorthvan.ca)
Hospitality team: Bob de Ridder: (deridder.bob@outlook.com)

Let’s keep going together! God has more in store for us!