The formula of a successful church

Watch this video and give me your honest reactions. '
(Facebook viewers need to visit benjamindurbin.com)

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

Here are mine.

I'm afraid that the deconstruction in the video is true. We have the most important opportunity in the world every Sunday. I pray that we don't waste it being consumer driven rather than gospel driven. It is also a gut check to make sure we don't follow routine and trendiness rather than the triune God in our celebrations.

How does The Bridge rate in regards to simply following this formula?

I would of said it was more true of us in year 1 and 2. Now, we plod through scripture making the Gospel the centerpiece of all that we do. The gospel is elevated as the rock star. All of our elements proclaim the gospel and challenge people to move not consume.

We definitely aren't as trendy as we once were, but we do get to spend at least six months in 1 Corinthians soon! :-) We have made it a focused effort for scripture to be elevated to a place of prominence over any of our teachers.

Now, I do believe that there are still abuses in non-contemporary or non-relevant churches.

On the other end of the spectrum, you still have churches stuck in different eras. Often instead of following the Triune God, they would rather follow the good old days. You can find abuses on both sides of the fence.

This video could be shot with hymns, special singing, and old fashioned preaching with three piece suits and still pull out the same reaction in me.

What questions does this video force us to ask?

1. Who are we pleasing? God or man?
2. Who are we following? Our own plans and strategy, or the living and triune God?
3. Are we comfortable and set it something that worked once? Or are we being led by the spirit in faith?
4. What are we growing? Consumers or Gospel-Driven people?
5. What are we imaging? Radical disciples of Jesus? Or man-made systems and strategies?
6. Have we over-contextualized? Have we under-contextualized?
7. Is Jesus the hero of our church? The hero of our leadership? The hero of our celebrations?
   

These are the things I think about all of the time. These are the reactions I had to the video.

If you want to see a video that I believe is in contrast to this one, CLICK HERE.

Building Homes in Haiti

I am heading to Haiti July 5-12 to build homes with Growing Hope for Haiti. As I write this, there are currently 8 spots left on the team. Would you pray about joining?

For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. Hebrews 3:4

Growing Hope for Haiti and The Fuller Center for Housing has partnered together to build a community in Leogane, Haiti. This community near the epicenter was destroyed by the January 12th earthquake. Opportunities for building homes for the people of Haiti exist in two ways:

1. Join my team!
2. Sponsor a home. $4,000 will provide a home for a family now living under a tarp, bed sheet, or tent, and contribute to the community well, latrines, and garden.

• We will be there July 5th-12th
• Building skills are not mandatory, but a willingness to work hard and be teachable is
• Cost is estimated to be $1100 including airfare, food, water, and transportation. (subject to change if airfare changes)
• Conditions are tough. You will be exposed to heat, rain, and sleep in tents.
  
• Passport required

Quit sitting on your assets.
Get up off of your blessed assurance.

Put your faith and money where your mouth is and join our team.

I am hoping for at least half of the team to be men.
Email me today!

Your faith doesn't have a speed limit. Quit living like it does and FLOOR it.

Click here for the SHOT list.

Our Story: Gospel Principles for my Missional Cell

Well over four years ago I began meeting together with other adults from St. Francois County in my home. We would meet for the purposes of developing community and spiritual growth. We shared stories, ate together, and dug into God's word together. I have been a part of four small groups of people (we call them cells) during this time period, with three of them being a part of The Bridge Community Church.

These small groups of people (cells) have been instrumental in my life. I have grown closer to Christ and have been moved to gospel maturity much quicker in these small communities, than I ever would have been just sitting in a pew. However, looking back they were missing something. I couldn't put my finger on it until I listened to Matt Carter from Austin Stone speak last year.

I realized that these groups were missing gospel intention. We had always aimed at deep community, but we lacked a focus on common mission and the eventual out-workings of the gospel. Because of this lack of living with gospel intentionality and common mission, our sense of deep community often dwindled over time.

This year my cell selected a common mission. We did this through prayer and cultural engagement. We looked at the specific rhythms of our county with the purpose of finding where the gospel needed to take root and grow. We asked God to open up our eyes to see how we could be missionaries for Him in our own back yard.

We settled on a common people group to whom we have been sent together to in order to make disciples. This group of people for my missional cell are the students living in the dorms at Mineral Area College. We are now working to radically reorient the rhythms of our own lives around loving and reaching these people. This is moving us away from simply focusing on a weekly meeting, and towards living a life together on mission.

We currently are 13 adults who share life and truth, love God and one another, and engage the social and spiritual needs of our county.

Together we ---

Share life and truth.
We are more than a meeting; we are a community that shares life throughout the week: meals, trials, vacation, mission, etc. We are imperfect but are united by the perfecting truth of the gospel of grace.

Pray for one another and St. Francois County
We pray regularly for one another, our neighbors, and our county because we know that it is ultimately God who renews the county.

Engage peoples and cultures.
Our missional cell engages the cultures of the students at the MAC dorms with genuine interest, love, and the hope of redemption.

Love one another.
We are bound together by mutual love and encouragement. We’re a family.

Why do we do this?
Gospel principles that guide missional cell.

We are all broken.
We are all more broken than we want to admit, and God is more holy than we comprehend.

We all need Jesus.
In Jesus we are more forgiven and accepted than we can imagine, and God is more delighted in us than we understand.

We all need one another.
We need each other to share our struggles and joys in following Jesus.

Our county needs the Gospel.
The gospel of Christ changes and renews the peoples and cultures of the county.

Interested in finding out about other missional cells at The Bridge Community Church? Contact Stan Jackson today.

Current Reading LIst

Here are some books I have been reading in the last few months.

1. The Book of Ruth (I read it once a day gearing up to teach it in May)
   
2. Doctrine by Driscoll and Breshears
3. Total Church by Timmis
4. Sticky Teams by Osborne
5. A Sweet and Bitter Providence by Piper
6. Church 3.0 by Cole
   

Learn "Like a Lion" for Easter

We often ask our community to learn a new song before special celebrations. For this Easter, we are asking them to learn "Like a Lion" and scream it out during our Easter Celebrations. Below is the Youtube video containing the song and the lyrics.

Like a Lion



Lyrics
Let love explode and bring the dead to life
A love so bold
To see a revolution somehow.
Let love explode and bring the dead to life
A love so bold
To bring a revolution somehow

Pre- chorus
Now I'm lost in your freedom
This world I'll overcome.

Chorus:
My God is not dead
He's surely alive
He's living on the inside
Roaring like a lion

Verse 2:
Let hope arise and make the darkness hide
My faith is dead
I need a resurrection somehow

Chorus:
My God is not dead
He's surely alive
He's living on the inside
Roaring like a lion

Bridge:
Let Heaven roar and fire fall
come shake the ground
with the sound of revival

Chorus:
My God is not dead
He's surely alive
He's living on the inside
Roaring like a lion

Living on Mission

At The Bridge Community, we have made it a priority to train our members to live on mission as disciples of Jesus who make more disciples. In fact, we teach that one is not truly a disciple of Jesus if all one does is consume events. Our mantra is that we desire to teach people to believe it, grow it, and send it (with it being the gospel and central to all we do). All of this is for God’s glory to spread and grow in our context!

Why? We see that scripture is filled with language that speaks to the missionary nature of a Triune God. God the Father sends the Son, and God the Father and the Son sends the Spirit, and God the Father and the Son and the Spirit sends the church.

We realize that Jesus sees himself not only as one sent but also as one who is sending: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21). We are sent as a missionary people, individually and collectively.

In fact, Acts 17: 26-27 tells us that God has determined the exact place and time where we should live so that men may find Him. Isn't it amazing to think that you/we have been chosen by God to be His representative to our surrounding context? What a privilege! What an incredible responsibility! Every member is a missionary to the people they come into contact with (family, friends, co-workers, etc).

This truly is a tremendous responsibility. Overwhelmed by the thought that if you are saved you are to join God on mission? Not sure where to start? Need help? I thought you might so I have been putting together resources to share. Most of these resources have been collected for free via the GCM Collective. I am going to break these up into individual and community/cell family helps.

Individual Helps
Integrating Mission into your normal routine
How to talk to people: The Gospel is Good news
10 Ways to be Missional

Community Helps (cell, church, community)
Questions to help you understand your neighborhood
Living in a Missional context
Contextual Assessment Starter
Missonal Community (cell,group) Covenant Template (example to be seen as a resource)

I hope that you find these resources helpful. I earnestly pray that you go on mission and make disciples in St. Francois County and our surrounding context! I am encouraged that we have already begun doing this. Collectively GAP is exploding! We now have people on mission working in the FCC, CSC, Aquinas, and the jail. We now have missional cells adopting neighborhoods, the MAC dorms, and beginning free stores for the impoverished. The list goes on and seems to be growing monthly! Keep building relationships and presenting the gospel!

May we continue to creatively and fearlessly take Christ into the broken world that needs Him most (Matthew 28:18-20).

Info on Night of Worship + video & set list

Our 4th birthday is coming up fast at The Bridge and we're having a Night of Worship to celebrate! It will be filled with music, drama, and food! Come celebrate with us! Also, we'll be shooting a live DVD and CD that night, so come prepared to sing, shout, dance, twirl, yell, hoot, holler, etc. BE THERE!

Details
The Bridge Community Church
301 Lore
Leadington, MO 63601

March 7th @ 7PM
For more details: info@bridgeworship.net

***Facebook viewers must view benjamindurbin.com for videos



In case you couldn't quite understand our speedy version of the set list, here it is in writing!

1. All Because of Jesus
2. Sing, Sing, Sing
3. Your Love
4. Beautiful Jesus
5. Lead Me To The Cross
6. How He Loves
7. It Is Well
8. Glory To God Forever
9. Today Is The Day
10. God Is With Us
11. Happy Day
12. Jesus Paid It All
13. No One Greater/The Stand
14. God Is Alive

P.S. Your worship leaders will be Ben, Matheaw, and Tisa. . . not those crazy guys in the video!

See you there!