This year we have been focussing on ‘The Local Church’.

Our sermon series in February reminded us:

1) To stop dating the church: The church is the bride of Christ, we are loved by him, bought with his precious blood, we belong to him.
2) Why we love meeting together: Looking at Hebrews 10, we meet to encounter God & encourage each other as we sit under the word. So the challenge was to prepare well and participate well.
3) We are family. Looking at the ‘each other’ verses, such as ‘serve, teach, rebuke, encourage, carry burdens’ – we were reminded that if we are in Christ, we are family, with mutual responsibilities.
4) We’re missionaries. As church, we proclaim the gospel through declaration and through deeds.

As we looked at Revelation together in evening church & Connect Groups, we saw Jesus’ verdict on his church – his commendations for working hard and persevering, his rebukes for losing our first love and conforming to the world, and his wonderful promises to hold on to those who are his. Throughout Revelation we were reminded of the victory of our Lord Jesus over the world, flesh and the devil, and the wonderful encouragement of an eternity with our risen Saviour. As we’ve looked at 2 Timothy in evening church, again the centrality of the gospel in the lcoal church has been highlighted. When so called churches spring up, teaching people what their itching ears want to hear, we are reminded just to ‘preach the Word’, ‘not be ashamed of the gospel’ and to be strong in the grace that is our in Christ Jesus.

There are lots of ‘good things’ that we could be doing as a church – but I write to remind you of our primary focus. Glorifying our great God and Saviour, sitting under his precious Word, spurring our brothers and sisters on toward love and good deeds as we await the return of Jesus, and loving each other in a way that people see that we are disciples of Jesus. In our enews this week, I mentioned a sermon by Mark Driscoll entitled ‘Church is not a restaurant’.

Mark uses a very helpful analogy about our attitude toward church. If we view church as a restaurant, we will go with people we want to spend time with, wait to be served, pick what we like from the menu, complain if the service is too slow or the food is not quite what we expected, decide how long we want to spend there, get up and leave someone else to clear up the mess and then rate the ‘restaurant’ out of 10. ?But a family meal is a very different experience. We don’t ‘choose’ who we eat with - they are family. We all chip into the process - whether it’s cooking, cleaning, setting the table. We serve each other - rather than being served. We don’t get a list of 10 things to choose from! The family meal is more about spending time together than about the food we eat - and if the food isn’t up to scratch we don’t whinge and complain. And we’ll enjoy a family meal much more if we’re all willing to give a bit of ourselves (ie talk, share personal experience, get involved).?I think it’s a very good analogy for attitudes towards church. I do pray that Church by the Bridge would be more of a family meal each week, than a visit to a restaurant. Kevin DeYoung recently gave a talk on ‘The Church’, with these great one liners which I share with you:

- In this day with so much postmodern squishitude, people are hungry to listen to someone winsomely, humbly, wisely, say—with passion and conviction—‘Thus saith the Lord.’

- As long as God is interested in his glory, he will be interested and committed to the local church. He has a vested interest in your church. Nobody loves your church more than God.

- Those of you who have issues with the church, let me warn you that disillusionment can become an idol. You can easily find your identity in being jaded.

- The Church is, in fact, the hope of the world, not because she gets it all right, but because she is a body with Christ for her head. So do not give up on the church. The New Testament knows nothing of churchless Christianity.

I pray that would really love God’s local church! In His grace,

Paul Dale (Senior Pastor)