Participants: Ruthie Jacobsen (Host), Derek Morris, Tim Garrison
Series Code: IAA
Program Code: IAA000357
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00:30 Hello and welcome again to Issues and Answers. 00:33 Today we're going to be talking about creative bridge building. 00:38 Now sometimes people are thrown off a little by the word 00:42 creative. I've had people tell me, Ruthie, I'm just not 00:47 creative. I haven't had a new idea in 50 years. Well that's 00:51 not true, but people see themselves as uncreative 00:56 sometimes. But I really believe that if you're praying and 01:00 asking the Lord to help you be creative, you may have some 01:04 gigantic surprises ahead because he's the creator and he can make 01:11 you creative in ways that will bring joy to your own heart and 01:17 enjoyment and blessing to the people around you. Do you 01:21 believe that? I really believe it because God is faithful. 01:25 Today we're going to talk about building bridges with creative 01:30 new ideas, new attitudes and that's really where it starts. 01:35 It starts in your mind, in your attitude. If you think you can't 01:41 do something you probably can't. But if you are believing God he 01:46 can help you to do anything. That's what he's promised. I can 01:51 do all things through Christ who strengthens me. It's not about 01:57 you, not about me. It's all about him and his promises are 02:02 true. I love the text in Isaiah 44:2 that says, and this is the 02:08 Lord speaking to you and to me. He says, I am the one who will 02:14 help you. How about that for a promise? My guests today are 02:20 Tim Garrison from Camarillo, California. Welcome back. 02:23 Thank you Ruthie. Good to be here. 02:25 And Derek Morris from Forest Lake Church in Apopka, Florida. 02:31 Your church, Derek, is one of the fastest growing and one of 02:36 the largest in our denomination in all of North American and I 02:42 really believe it's because people have been doing some 02:45 creative bridge building. 02:47 Well it's really amazing. We've talked about the importance of 02:50 prayer as a foundation and building that foundation, but 02:54 then giving the Lord of the harvest permission to throw us 02:57 out into his harvest. That may be as simple as a friendly smile 03:02 or helping mow someone's lawn. But I'm looking forward to the 03:06 program today as we talk about creative bridge building because 03:10 I think that we do have a lot more creativity than we think 03:13 especially with the Holy Spirit's blessing. 03:15 I want to tell you about one creative idea that stumped a 03:19 lot of people. In fact, the pastor himself didn't think this 03:23 was going to work. But he'd baptized a man who was about 03:27 65 or a little more. He was a veteran; I think it was the Viet 03:34 Nam war and he had a decided limp. I think he only had vision 03:41 in one eye. He had a real problem with one of his legs and 03:46 one of his arms. So he kind of shuffled about but he was 03:52 ambulatory but he told the pastor shortly after he was 03:57 baptized, he said you know I've been praying about this and I 04:01 really believe God is calling me to a specific ministry. 04:05 The pastor said good, good for you. What is it? He said well I 04:09 want to do something creative. I want to do something that I 04:13 really think is needed in our church and in our community. 04:18 Good, what is it? Well you know that gym that we've got isn't 04:22 used very much. Let's turn it into a skating rink for the 04:27 young people of our town. And the pastor kind of scratched his 04:32 head and he thought you're the last one to do this kind of 04:36 thing. But how can you say something to discourage the poor 04:40 man when he's sure that the Lord's calling him to this 04:44 ministry. So he said, I've already been on the internet. 04:49 I know where I can get several hundred pairs of skates, shoe 04:53 skates, good condition. There's a big company somewhere that is 04:58 closing down and they're liquidating their business 05:00 and he said I found somebody that'll buy them. Well that's 05:04 creative. So he installed a good music system and put it in the 05:10 newspaper, put up signs and two days a week during the summer 05:15 he was there in the evening with those kids and they showed up, 05:20 they came. And as they came through the door they said 05:24 what's it cost? He said, nothing You need some skates, over there 05:28 There are some rules and he had installed a something like a 05:34 pipe or something, you know a rail around the inside around 05:39 the wall so that beginners could stand up and skate around there 05:44 with one hand to hold them up. And he said, there are some 05:51 rules. You have to be attentive to whatever's going on; the 05:57 girls only then it's girls only and we respect each other in 06:03 here. And he said but before we skate at all we go to the center 06:07 Everybody puts on your skates, come to the center. We're going 06:11 read a text or two in the Bible. We're going to talk about what 06:15 that means to us personally. We're going to pray and then you 06:20 can go out and have fun. Well the kids said, not a problem. 06:23 And so he did that. 06:26 You know what's beautiful about that too is that he's taking 06:30 where he's at, an existing environment, and finding 06:36 creative ways of using it. You know sometimes we think we have 06:39 to go out and invent something new or do something new, but 06:43 the fact is that gym was there already. He just saw something 06:47 that would be different and creative and would meet the 06:50 needs of the community and actually draw them in. The 06:53 beauty of that my guess is it was much easier for those 06:57 families of those kids to come back to the church perhaps for 07:00 another event because they'd already been there once. 07:04 Well I want to say, it seems like they've had 31 baptisms 07:09 from that specific ministry because parents get interested 07:14 and they're saying you know my kid's different. Well of course 07:18 he's different. He has been exposed to the word of God. 07:22 He's been prayed over. He's been treated like a gentleman and he 07:26 has been shown how a Christian treats another person with 07:31 respect and maturity and the kids are learning. And they 07:36 respond. You know, young people, and older people, will live up 07:41 to expectations. And the bridge building, 07:44 wonderful metaphor really is breaking down the wall. It's 07:48 building a bridge that breaks down a wall and that bridge 07:52 broke down the wall of hesitancy for those people to connect with 07:56 You know, I'm in a church plant and so we don't 08:00 have a permanent building of our own. We're a portable church. 08:04 We come in, you know, with the truck and trailer and all our 08:08 equipment into a middle school in the middle of the community 08:11 and we were thinking of ways to try to build bridges to the 08:15 school that we meet in. So I went one day into the 08:20 principal's office and I just talked with her and I said we 08:23 would like to do something for your school, just to kind of, 08:28 you know, build a bridge. And she said well our dictionaries 08:32 are really old in the classrooms So I went back to our group and 08:36 we decided that we would equip every room in that school with a 08:41 brand new dictionary. And the principal was so grateful. 08:46 I want to stop you. I love it. But what did that cost? 08:51 It wasn't much. No, no it wasn't. I mean less 08:54 than $1000, to build that bridge Well the principal was really 09:00 grateful and every year the school has an opportunity for 09:04 business people to come in the school and judge presentations 09:09 made by the students and they invited me to come. You know, a 09:12 pastor, a Christian pastor, from the community to come into the 09:16 public school and actually participate in the classroom 09:20 helping the students with their presentations. 09:23 Because you had built a creative bridge. You had done something. 09:28 You'd filled a need as Christ did and they wanted to say to 09:33 you in their own way, you've become our friend. 09:35 Now that's not the end of the story. I have another aspect of 09:39 the story because one of the things we'd decided in our core 09:43 group development was we wanted to really reach out and join the 09:47 local chamber of commerce. I don't know how many churches 09:49 have really considered this, but when you consider the fact that 09:53 you have a huge business community there and the chamber 09:56 is the place where you can connect and you join and they 09:59 have a breakfast every month and you go there and wear your 10:02 badge, you know, as a pastor. You interact with the different 10:06 community people and when they have like a big event, Easter or 10:10 Christmas concert, you prepare little cards and I place the 10:14 cards at each place at the breakfast. So I did that this 10:18 one year and it happened to be the breakfast where they were 10:21 hosting all the principals from the schools in the school 10:25 district. And they were having each principal get up and give 10:27 a little statement about their school. Well when the principal 10:31 of Mesa Verde Middle School where we meet got up she held up 10:36 one of the cards unbeknownst to me and she said I just want to 10:40 encourage all of you to attend this program here at Moorpark 10:43 Community Seventh-day Adventist Church. 10:45 Ah that's wonderful. You said one thing. You said it 10:49 didn't cost that much, $1000, and some people go that's a lot 10:54 of money. Why would we bother to spend $1000 to build bridges? 10:58 I think it comes back to the attitude. If I just view myself 11:01 saying you know I'm a follower of Jesus. I just want to try to 11:05 stay out of trouble until Jesus comes and everybody else can be 11:10 damned then you're not going to spend $1000 on building a bridge 11:14 But if you really believe that it's something that Jesus has 11:17 asked you to do and something he modeled then you have the 11:21 attitude of saying that was a small investment to build such a 11:24 wonderful bridge. But you know the interesting 11:27 thing is the principles of the kingdom and building the kingdom 11:33 of heaven aren't based on $1000. He said give a cup of cold water 11:39 For instance, at a sporting event there were people that 11:46 were handing out cold bottles of water. It was a hot, hot day 11:51 in Cincinnati, Ohio and people said, I'm dying of thirst. I 11:57 needed this cold water. Why are you here doing this? May I pay 12:01 you? No, no, no. But here's a little card. This will explain 12:06 On one side it says, Demonstrating God's love in a 12:10 practical way. On the other side it has the name of the church, 12:15 the website, maybe a phone number for the pastor and people 12:20 go away drinking that cold water and reading this and shaking 12:25 their heads and they don't throw the card away. They put it in 12:29 their pocket and a lot of people have gone the churches because 12:34 there have been just little creative ways. It doesn't always 12:38 have to cost a thousand dollars. 12:40 Well that's true, that's true. Every year in Moorpark they 12:43 have what they call a peach festival and the chamber 12:46 sponsors it and local businesses can buy booth space and so we 12:52 always get a booth for our church. We had made 12:56 up these little 12:57 stress balls you know, stress balls that you squeeze and it 13:00 was actually a world globe, a little world globe and we just 13:05 put on it He's got the whole world in his hands. We handed 13:08 those out and people were squeezing them and looking at 13:12 them, you know. Just small things like that. 13:15 Was there anything that told them who was giving them this. 13:18 Yes, our logo was right there Moorpark Community Seventh- 13:21 day Adventist Church. Because they want to know. 13:23 Exactly. We have a fair in our city and 13:26 know about our Prayers and Squares Quilting Ministry which 13:29 is typically give to people if their sick or if they're facing 13:33 a challenge to remind them that people are praying for them. 13:36 But we noticed they had a grandmother of the year award 13:41 for the city. So we thought well what about one of these 13:45 beautiful quilts that our quilting ministry makes and give 13:50 that to the grandmother of the year without thinking how much 13:55 advertising we get from that but just building a bridge and that 13:59 has become an annual tradition of the fair that the Forest Lake 14:04 church Prayers and Squares Quilting Ministry presents a 14:08 quilt to the grandmother of the year. So someone somewhere 14:12 will remember that and perhaps will say you know those are 14:16 people who build bridges rather than walls. 14:18 I like in your book, and you can remind me of the author, but 14:24 it's called Seed Flinging. 14:26 Oh yes, Steve Sjogren. 14:27 Yes and that's such a nice thought because that's really 14:31 what we're doing; we're flinging seeds. You know stress 14:35 balls or wonderful quilts, you know whatever it is we're 14:38 planting those seeds and the Bible tells us clearly that we 14:41 are seed planters and he is really the harvester. 14:45 I think there's a very important principle here and we would be 14:49 remiss if we didn't point this out and that is. That is 14:55 sometimes we have been taught that in order to be sharing our 14:59 experience or sharing the love of Jesus in just the right way 15:04 we have to be able to expect and measure some results. Wrong! 15:08 I think we need to be doing anything that we're doing with 15:13 no strings attached. 15:15 Not only are there no strings attached, Ruthie, but there's no 15:19 stereotypical way of responding. Sometimes we think 15:23 well I'm supposed to be witnessing and we have this kind 15:27 of regimented approach and some people say well I'm just not 15:29 like that. The beautiful thing about bridge building is I'm 15:33 doing things with no strings attached and I'm doing them 15:37 in a creative and spontaneous way and just allowing the Spirit 15:41 to use my gifts... 15:42 And it doesn't have to look like anybody else's. 15:44 Exactly and I think that what makes it so enjoyable because 15:47 I'm just saying God just lead me, the prayer that you talked 15:50 about, Tim. Just lead me and I'll just be building bridges 15:53 all day. And you never know, you never 15:55 know where he's going to take you. 15:57 Well that's the exciting part really is just move into your 16:02 day of being sensitive, allowing God to sensitize you 16:05 so you understand that there will be opportunities that will 16:08 come. For example, in our church plant one thing that I talked to 16:12 the Lord about was the school district sends a paid custodian 16:17 to be there every week and I said I am going to develop a 16:21 relationship with this custodian each week and the 16:24 custodians take turns because they make time-and-a-half on the 16:27 weekends, you know, so it's a good thing for them. Anyway so 16:31 they do about five weeks at a time. Now I kind of compared it 16:35 to Paul when he was in prison and he had the guard there and 16:39 he determined to witness to that guard. 16:42 A captive audience. A captive audience, exactly. 16:43 So I've made it a point to learn the names and ask about their 16:47 families, to develop a relationship with them and now 16:50 after five years I know the full custodian staff of the Moorpark 16:55 school district. I know them by name, I know their families and 16:59 when I come for a setup they come right over, Pastor Tim how 17:04 are you. I just see that as a way of connecting with them, 17:09 planting seeds and seeing them and how they respond. 17:12 I like that. You know somebody has said, may have been my 17:17 husband, he gets pretty profound sometimes. But somebody said if 17:22 you go too long without listening you forget how to talk 17:27 and if we aren't listening to the people around us, if we 17:31 aren't gearing what we're doing to meet their needs, if we 17:36 aren't just flinging seeds, if we aren't doing something 17:40 totally for them, totally for the kingdom then we can be 17:44 doing our own thing and be totally out of touch. 17:48 That's correct, yeah. I had one of these custodians come to me 17:52 one week with a very personal family situation and right there 17:57 at the entrance to that gymnasium at that school, the 18:00 two of us bowed and had prayer and I was able to provide 18:03 pastoral care for this custodian as he was going through a very 18:07 tragic situation. And I think that's what happens when we 18:11 plant the seeds then the Lord uses us to minister to people. 18:15 You know, here's a very, very simple, simple thing but it 18:19 means everything in our community. For instance, we had 18:24 a bathroom party and because... That's a true story. 18:29 Explain what that means. 18:30 Because we needed a bathroom remodel and all the people who 18:35 came to work on the bathroom liked what we were doing because 18:38 we knocked out a wall and put in a window and brought in some 18:42 pretty tile and everybody that was working on it said, I want 18:46 to see this when it's finished. My wife would like to see this 18:49 when it's finished. So what could we do? We had to invite 18:52 everybody and have a party. Well they loved the idea of having a 18:56 bathroom party. But there have been so many serendipity things 19:00 that have happened since that time. People have said to me 19:04 we've got to get better acquainted, could we study the 19:07 Bible together. These are invitations. I want to come to 19:11 your home and we want to get better acquainted with you. My 19:15 boyfriend wouldn't go to your church for anything, but he 19:19 would come to your home if you'd invite him to come up for 19:23 a meal and we can pray together at your home. See these are open 19:27 doors and one of the vendors, our cabinet man said I have a 19:34 new place of business, and he has a gorgeous new office and 19:38 showroom and he's worked very hard and it's a beautiful, 19:43 beautiful new place of business. He said I want you and Don to 19:47 come down and bless my place of business, have a special prayer 19:51 service. And we still are planning to do that. But I drop 19:55 by once in a while with something like cookies or something. The 20:00 other day he said to me, why are you so good to Lucille and me? 20:05 I said, you're just great people He said, Wow we are aren't we? 20:10 So let me get this straight, Ruthie. You're literally and 20:13 figuratively breaking down walls, huh? 20:16 You know what you illustrated which is so important is once 20:21 you've built a bridge, you can pass back and forth and this 20:26 cabinet maker can also come across that bridge and say 20:30 would you pray for my new showroom. Because the bridge is 20:34 there it is easier for that person to come back and connect 20:38 with you. And I think that emphasizes that it's not a 20:42 one-time event. It's a process. 20:44 No it's a cultivated relationship. And something that 20:47 by husband does; and at first I thought this seemed a little 20:53 strange and what difference does it make, but every time he drives 20:56 by on the way to the post office the bank, whatever, he has to 21:01 go by Phil's new showroom and so he taps on the horn three time, 21:05 beep, beep, beep and I thought who's going to hear that, who's 21:10 going to care. But he and Phil were talking about it and Don 21:14 said, you know every time I drive by I give you three little taps 21:18 on the horn. That's saying, we love you, we're going by and we 21:22 care about you. The last time that I stopped by to see Phil 21:26 he was talking to me about something that was coming up 21:29 and he said, I've got to tell you something. I said, what's 21:33 that? He said, you know what your dear husband does? I said 21:38 hard to tell. He said, he gives me a three-tap on his horn 21:43 hello every time he drives by here. You know I really didn't 21:48 think it was such a big thing, but apparently God can take the 21:53 simplest things and if we're praying, I believe that's the 21:59 bottom line. If we give the Lord our day, if we acknowledge our 22:03 need of him and if we say Lord I'll be obedient then he can 22:08 take the strangest, simplest things and used them for kingdom 22:13 business. Yes, and I think people need to 22:14 hear that. They need to be reassured that in their setting 22:17 there are ways that God can use them in simple, easy things. You 22:22 know, it's not complicated, this is not difficult. It's simply 22:26 being open and using their unique gifts in a simple way. 22:30 You know, in our neighborhood I've tried to connect with the 22:34 people and it's a very intimate, close neighborhood and there are 22:39 four pastors in our neighborhood and we all know each other and 22:44 one neat thing about planting seeds and about reaching out and 22:48 building bridges is you can go both ways on the bridge. And 22:52 it's a mutually beneficial type thing. And I actually have a 22:55 Catholic priest that I'm a good friend with that lives down the 22:58 street and when we see each other out on the street, he 23:01 calls me and I go over and we talk to each other and 23:04 inevitably he'll say let's pray for each other and so he prays 23:08 for me and I pray for him and together we have a sense that 23:12 we're both in the work for the Lord. That's the beauty of 23:16 creating these bridges because there's this greater community 23:21 out there of people that the Lord is using in his work. 23:23 You know, once you've built the bridge you have the credit to be 23:27 able to do that. If you just walk randomly up to someone and 23:31 say let me pray for you, you're invading their private space, 23:34 they don't know who you are, maybe you're going to steal 23:36 their wallet, you know. Once you've built that in simple ways 23:41 a smile, a honking horn, whatever it is, then you have 23:45 those time, like with the lady where you could pray for her and 23:49 pray together. So maybe to use the analogy of the bridge, the 23:52 bridge gets broader and stronger as time passes. 23:56 I couldn't believe that Phil said to me every time your 24:01 husband goes by he honks and I could tell that was really 24:07 meaningful to him. It was a reminder to him that 24:09 there was a bridge between you. 24:10 Now how hard is that? 24:12 That's a simple thing that makes a connection and to carry the 24:16 analogy further, I think as you make the connection you find 24:20 more people on the bridge. You know, in the community, in the 24:25 neighborhood as the word gets around; well I had prayer with 24:30 that pastor or he helped me then others collect that word and 24:34 pretty soon they know that you're open to the possibility 24:38 of you ministering to their needs. 24:40 What's happening in my development, my wife and I walk 24:43 together and one lady fell down while we were walking and we 24:48 prayed with her and she asked about us and I told her I was a 24:52 pastor and somehow word got around to all the walking people 24:56 and sometimes people I don't even know will say Morning 24:59 pastor, you know. A bridge has been built and they had bridges 25:03 to other friends and only God knows where that ends up. 25:08 Just recently we had an interdenominational event 25:11 in our little town. And before we did that a little group of us 25:16 interdenominational, got together and prayer walked. 25:19 We prayer walked the entire church where this was going to 25:23 be held. We went to the pulpit and we prayed for the sermon. 25:27 We went to the piano because we knew that was going to be used. 25:30 We walked up and down the aisles and prayed for the people who 25:34 would be there and we prayed that God would send unchurched 25:39 people. Now when you say prayer walk, 25:41 you pray as you walk? 25:43 That's right. Yes. One person prays out loud. You usually have 25:48 two or three in the group. One person prays out loud and the 25:53 others pray silently. But you are agreeing in prayer. You're 25:57 asking God to do something at that specific place. And it's 26:01 based on the text in Joshua where God said wherever you step 26:05 your foot, I'm going to give that to you. 26:08 Now you just said something that I think is really important. You 26:12 said that's what it says in Joshua. You know, what's 26:15 interesting is when we have this attitude and we pray that God 26:18 uses us, suddenly the scripture comes alive with ideas. 26:22 That's right, that's right. But this prayer walking became a 26:27 very significant event not only for the people who were going 26:32 to be there, the speakers, the musician a couple days later, 26:35 and we told them. We said we have prayer walked this place 26:39 for you. They loved it. But it also was meaningful for the 26:44 group who was prayer walking. They loved it. And that's just 26:48 creative bridge building. 26:49 You were building bridges with the group as well as bridges to 26:55 the community. And there's no end to prayer 26:58 walking or to bridge building. You can use prayer walking 27:04 anywhere. You can use bridge building anywhere. 27:05 When you consider that, it's only as big as God's potential. 27:10 Which means that it's absolutely limitless. 27:12 That's right, that's right. Well we're just about out of time, 27:16 but I want to think you both. It's so good to hear your 27:20 stories and to hear your profound wisdom from scripture 27:24 and your experience. I'm sure that our audience enjoyed it as 27:28 much as I did. And I hope that it piques all of us and our 27:33 curiosity and our minds to think I want to be creative. I want to 27:38 ask God to use me to build bridges wherever I go, wherever 27:42 he puts me because he has a purpose and a plan for my life 27:46 and he is faithful. He has big surprises. Thanks for joining us. 27:51 We'll see you again next time. |
Revised 2015-06-01