Help start a movement

Hey, what's going on BFC supporters, and also inquire is thank you so much for clicking the link. I want to share with you guys the vision for our church. And so this is going to be about a 15 minute presentation. And so at the end of this my goal to my hope is that you are curious enough to the point where it's like I need to take the next step and reach out to these guys or give him my information so they can reach out to me. And so to help you get to that point. I want to work through a few questions. The first one is who am I? Yes, my name is Douglas Humphrey. But who is this guy? Where is he come from what credentials does he hold that says that he should be planting a church. Secondly, we want to ask the question or at work to the question of what is Bridge Fellowship Church about this is a new ministry. I've been here in a little bit about it. I've been seeing the logo a little bit. What is this church about and then 3rd, I'm probably most important would be how do I get involved in? So let's just start with number one and work on through. Top of the line to the top of the order is this who am I? My name is Douglas Humphrey. I'm married to my best friend and also my lover, my bride Sheila Humphrey. We've been married for 11 years and she is a very best thing about me. I wouldn't be standing here sharing with you all but it hadn't been for God working through her in my life and also over my marriage and so I owe a lot of My Success to her and we have two wonderful children together Aaron and Abigail Aaron and his picture he is eight. And Abigail is six on We Are Family who loves to have fun. We love to go on roller coasters and amusement parks. We love to read we love to cook. We love to eat and most importantly we love people will be loved to have folks over to our home and share home cook meals with them to get to know them on a deeper more intimate level. We love making new friends new relationships. That's who we are as a family and so both are Sheila and I Far from Detroit Michigan cheer was raised on the east side. I was raised on the westside was raised in a pretty sketchy part of the city. And so she was always Desiring and wanting and praying for a way out of her situation the culture that she was being raised in was violent and it was kind of shady and so she was always looking for a way out of that. So she ran away from that lifestyle and I was raised in the Westside a little bit better situation, but instead of running away from the negativity and the crime and all the things that come with that I ran towards that Sheila hears the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and she's like, I need to get serious about Jesus. I hear the gospel. I'm like stiff arm stiff arm. If I say yes to the gospel Say Yes to Jesus. He's going to block me from having my quote-unquote fund so I ran and ran and ran away from him and 2002. God puts me in a corner. He tells me you're going to die and you're going to go to hell flat-out make a decision today. And so I made that the There's more to the story. Of course by made that decision that it was time to stop running from Jesus and to run towards him to believe in him as Lord and Savior and I did that in 2002 and in shortly after I shoot and I we met at a church and we became Church sweethearts and we got serious and before long we decided to get married but during that entire process Sheila gets offered a new job in Davenport, Iowa, which means that we were relocating so Sheila moved out in the mid-2000s and I moved out six months after her we got married in Davenport. And so why were there were part of this smaller Baptist Church and so during that time God began to work on me regarding preaching and teaching out mind you I never wanted to preach I never wanted to teach never want to get in front of someone and declare that saith the Lord that wasn't my style but nonetheless God continue to work on me and I went and I talked to our pastor at the time and he said I want you to write your first sermon. I'll help you through that and I want you to Preaching about a month and so I did that my servant I got up and I preach and I think that that sermon is still a fast as one ever priest on record there and although I thought I did a horrible job when I sat down I begin to think over what just happened. I'm like God that was exhilarating. I want experience that more but more importantly I want you to further teach me or to teach me completely what it means to handle the scriptures light rightly and what it means to be a messenger of your gospel. And so with that came a new church location, so we left that Baptist church and we went looking for a new worship experience one back it up further develop us as Disciples of Jesus Christ. And so we landed on the doorsteps of Harvest Bible Chapel Davenport under the watch care of Pastor Rob Williams a senior pastor there. And so when we got there the preaching was different than the singing of the worst, but it was something about the way things were that were. The way things are presented. It compelled us to stay the people were warm and they were loving and a rain gauge and it's like this is where we need to be and we stayed there and we got more and more involved in that church and then about three years into it. They offered me a job. And so I left my profession of being a plumber behind and I went to work at Harvest Bible Chapel as a full-time pastor and it was the most challenging and also be most rewarding thing I've ever had to do in my short years of of living on the living and so was there for a number of years and loved it and was growing being guided and being developing all of that great stuff and then God begins to speak to me about what it means to be a full-time or lead Pastor. If you will what it means to be a church planter and unsure what that meant a little bit confused. I went and talked to our elders and I share with them when I thought God was saying to me and over a period of a few months they begin to see these things and We see these things in new Douglas what you got to school. We want you to get some more credentials. We want you to get some more training if you will and so over about a few. Of a few years. I got further trained and equipped to be a senior pastor. And so one of my favorite experiences before we left Harvest Davenport was our commissioning service and to the left of me in that slide. You see Pastor Rob and then you see Sheila next to me in those other men around us. Those are the Elders of that church and sell it this spider this picture. This is the service was special to us because it was symbolic of people saying we see these things in you Douglas and Sheila we want you to pursue them. We are with you we're praying for you. We are affirming the calling on your life and you're not sending yourself, but you're being sent by other people and so we were sent out by Harvest Davenport and then we let it here in Raleigh and then Pastor Mike he picked us up quote on quote. And so Harvest Davenport and harvest Raleigh they were Together to get us here and we are partnered with Harvest rolly with Mike Willis and the north part of the city. And so we worship with them on Sunday mornings. And then in the Sunday evenings, we do our own thing, but none the less. I want you guys to know that I didn't send myself but rather I have been sent by other people and I have people who have my back who are trustworthy and also notable. All right. So that was who I am and not want to talk to you guys about what we do. What is Bridge Fellowship Church? What are they about? So flat out that the long and short of it down to the most of the matter is that we exist to bridge people back to God through the gospel Jesus Christ. We exist to bring people back to God to the Gospel of Jesus Christ that we that's what we are about that's it. Nothing else. Nothing more. That's the most important calling we can we can answer and so with that comes the name of our church why Douglas have you chosen the name Bridge people typically ask me and so the long and short of it. Is this a few years ago. We were at Harvest Davenport and a man came from Papua New Guinea and he shared his Jesus Christ conversion in the face and he talked about how there was his Gap. What is Chasm if you were between him and God and Jesus and his gospel bridging that Chasm so he view Jesus as a bridge with took. Watch him back with God. And so that name that that I did Jesus being the bridge man. It is stuck in my heart. And so when we got ready to plant a church and talk about the name of the church and articles of organization in all that stuff. The name bridge is kept coming to my mind. I'm like, we have to call our church Bridge Fellowship Church. That's what we need to call our church. And so that's the name of of our Church Fellowship Church next. I want to share with you guys are four characteristics. These are for nonnegotiable. These are the four things that penicillin is it the four things that undergird is this is our foundation when I go to go outside of these the first one is this that we are a gospel proclaiming church choir gospel reclining Church. The gospel is necessary for salvation. Yes, it saves our souls but it also matures is he also grows as his sanctifies as it grows is deeper and deeper regarding our walk in Jesus Christ. And so we are going to be in the gospel. Pulpit Rossman proclaim the gospel through our everyday lives right as members of the church. We're going to evangelize other people who don't know who Jesus Christ is. I don't have a relationship with him as technically. We are a prayer depending church. We rely on God and one of the ways we get our our our our communication took out one of the ways we let God knows what we need so they can rely on him is through our prayers and we don't just pray hoping and wishing with fingers crossed behind our backs, but we believe we believe it the full heart that God is going to answer our prayers. We prayed earnestly about planting his church and God has been providing so well and so plentiful we can't help but have our trust in him emboldened and in our prayer life and bold and because God Is providing for us and that came through our Reliance on Hindu prayer. Should we are prayer depending church. We better pray before after and during anything that we do from the smallest decision to the most grandiose decision. We are prayer depending Church MP3 we are a bold preaching church. That's not just me getting up and yelling and a microphone with the Bible open, but that's us opening the scriptures together and wait for the work to understand what the text meant to the original recipients. We're going to work to understand what the text means to is Dania 21st century and they're going to talk about how to apply that text to us as we live as Christians and Raleigh North Carolina. That's the application part. We're going to talk about coming down our own personal Street with the scriptures and how it applies to our personal lives. And so we're going to open up a book. We're going to go verse by verse word by word and we're going to understand the text to say and talk about what it means for us today. We are a bold preaching Church number for we are a god worshipping church. We are God worshipping church. We want God's people to experience the Manifest presence of God. We got it together. We want people to experience is Manifest presence when we gather together. We are not simply we're not satisfied with merely singing about God, but we want to sing to God we want to oddly praise God for who he is and what he's been doing and side of each and every one of us and we do that corporately Adorn our Sunday worship Gatherings. And so we are definitely a God worshipping Church. And so our focus is a quality disciple. We want everyone to be grown into mature into equality disciple and one of the ways that we measure a person's maturity measure with an that. We are doing a good job of growing quality disciples is through our three W's that's worship Christ walk with Christ and work for Christ worship is both praising God and also got a living please show me when I say that worship is also praising God with our voices, but also got me living through the week are Sunday Gatherings. They draw hearts. Vertically. It focuses us back on God write Psalm 96, it tells us that we should declare to God the salvation and he's provided to us but is also doing that throughout the week. Number two, we walk with Christ. So short and sweet as is are you growing spiritually? Are you more mature this week? Spiritually then you wouldn't and you were last week. Are you trusting God more this week than you were last month? And how do we help you? Walk with Christ how to help you grow spiritually what we do that not just of the Peace Court on Sundays, but we do that in personal private devotional time with this is us got our Bible in a pen and paper. We do that in the in the in the safety and the encouragement and the love and the the context of a small group come and gather and small pockets of people and open up the scriptures and discussed the scriptures and confess with our mouths when we're struggling with and what's going on and we invite folks to speak into our lives and we allow people to hold us accountable and we grow a community that way so that's walk with Christ. And the last work for Christ in the word for Christ is evangelism. How are you doing at sharing your story. Are you telling people about what Jesus has done for you? Are you inviting people to believe on Jesus as their lord and savior? So it's we talked about this idea of focusing on. Quality disciples we measure that are we engaging at in three ways. There are three W's worship Christ walk with Christ and also work for Christ. And guys, I want to share this with you. The why behind are what we just got done sharing are what we are about are four characteristics and we talked about our focus is equality discipleship. That's great and it's important but it says that the Y this is the heart behind the motivating factor that keeps Us Faithful to what we are doing We believe We believe I've seen as I've experienced with Stephen scripture. We believe that God is glorified and people are joy-filled when they have are thriving relationship with Jesus and are part of the local church or a local church. Think about that as we were designed and created to do what to glorify our heavenly father and the cheap way that we can do that is by hearing the gospel getting saved and having a thriving relationship a growing maturing a healthy relationship with Jesus and then in addition to that as we had a relationship. We also need to have a right relationship. Each other's with other people need to be growing a community with other believers, right? We'd be provoking each other on and love as the scriptures tell us and we do that in the context of the local church and your local church probably will bbfc will be Bridge Fellowship Church. And we we believe that God is glorified. When we do those things. We have that relationship with Jesus Christ that's thriving and we are connected and we are being held accountable to each other in the local church Ripley your local church being Bridge Fellowship Church.

And then finally, how do you get involved? We are attempting to start a brand new church weekly the God desires the God is with us and he wants this for sure. And so with that being said I'm asking you guys to pray ask the ask if your lord and savior earnestly like God, what should I be doing? Should I partner with Bridge Fellowship as a core team member should I become a part of this team to help start a brand-new ministry here in Raleigh. And then after you be praying you seek him he responds TV answers your prayer. I want you to do whatever he tells you to do if he tells you to join and you need to do that. He tells you to stay put in your current church or maybe party with a different Church you need to do that. My point is wherever God tells you to do. You have to do we tell you to do don't be disobedient to the Lord and number three regardless if he tells you to partner with us or to do something totally different, please tell someone else about this tell them this time. Hey, I heard this guy's Vision cast name Douglas. He's animated. He's passionate. He's serious God is blessing that Ministry. I think you need to go me and I think you need to hear about that. This is why I tell people if you give someone my business card if you pass my information on as someone else that buys him a free coffee or lunch so I can share with them God's Vision. I am so serious about this thing that we are willing to do whatever it takes to get in front of as many people as possible to share the vision that God has given us for bridge Fellowship Church. All right. Guys, you can get ahold of me by calling me at 919-679-1222. That's 919-679-1222. Or you can follow the links on this website to my email or you can simply just follow us on Facebook at Bridge Fellowship Church. Okay, so I think you for your time. I prayerfully you you consider partnering with us. Would love to have you would love to love to have your talent on our team as you worked establish a brand new church, and I'll be praying for you and I look forward to meeting you soon.