Mark Oeltjenbruns: The Bridge

Thu, 28 Nov 2002 15:34:01 GMT

Ark of the Covenant: in Ethiopia?. You thought that the Ark of the Covenant, the ancient and dangerous shrine of the presence of God, was safely tucked away in a U.S. government warehouse --- like you were shown in Raiders of the Lost Ark? Think again. According to a United Press International story, the Ark may in fact be located in Axum, Ethiopia. An archbishop of the Ethiopian Coptic Church confirms this, in any case. [kuro5hin.org]

Wed, 07 Aug 2002 13:59:07 GMT

Francis Cardinal Spellman. "Pray as if everything depended upon God and work as if everything depended upon man." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]

Wed, 24 Jul 2002 02:14:18 GMT

Frank McPherson Thinks Churches Need To "Shift," Too.

"Today I had a good conversation with Matt and his wife, Kim, about the unique perspective that Gen-Xers have on church. In particular, Gen-Xers expect far more use of computers and electronic communications such as e-mail, instant messaging, and yes, even PowerPoint.

One of the things that Matt said that really stood out is that he and his wife checked to see whether our church had a web site, and if it didn't that would have told them a lot about our church. The lack of a web site might have caused them to not come to our church.

I think that for anyone associated with Christian churches today, Matt's comment has got to make you think about how you are reaching out and communicating with today's generation.

The conversation inspired many thoughts. One would be, wouldn't it be cool if churches provided mail servers, message forums, online chats, and web server space for weblogs tools to extend their community into cyberspace? When a person joined the church they would be given an email address. They would be provided the webloging tools to contribute to the community by providing their own content. Not many churches have the ability to provide all this themselves, but it wouldn't take much for technology providers to provide this type of service. Take for example Yahoo, which provides mail, forums, and web server space.

Another thought I had would be to set up the entire church with a wireless LAN. When I say entire church I mean even the sanctuary. Then I would set up an internal web server (effectively building an intranet within the church) and put as much information on that server as I could. You could simply store PowerPoint files on that server to retrieve and view from anywhere, but a church really doesn't need PowerPoint for the types of things it would use. Here again simple weblogging or HTML generation tools would suffice to do things like project words to a song up on a wall. (Of course, you would need the projection hardware to do that too.) Video can be played using many different free tools.

Actually, projection might even be too old today. With a wireless LAN worshipers could access the words to songs, scripture readings, sermon notes, etc.. directly on their PDAs. This could also be an nice application for Mira and Tablet PCs....

The label doens't matter, but the spirit does. The point is that churches today have got to start using technology as a means to reach out to their membership and communicate with them in ways that make sense to the membership." [Notes From The Cave]

[The Shifted Librarian]

Thu, 25 Apr 2002 13:28:26 GMT

16628 » April 25 4:22 AM. No zero tolerance for ass hunting priests !! "...the group of cardinals and top bishops stopped short of developing a zero-tolerance plan to punish abusive priests" Attention all catholics ! Be sure to ask your priest if he has already used his one free, get out of jail for sexually assaulting an unsuspecting child card, before you send your kid to Sunday school. It baffles me how they cannot have zero tolerance for this. [MetaFilter]

Fri, 19 Apr 2002 02:30:44 GMT

Henry Copeland: "At Google, roughly 170,000 people a month search for The Beatles, while 850,000 a month search for Jesus." [Scripting News]

Tue, 16 Apr 2002 20:11:38 GMT

From the Pastor's Desk (Mike Richards):

Hello all,

Today is Dani and my 14 year anniversary. I know that for some of you that doesn’t seem like much and for others that means we got married while you were still in diapers (or close to it). For us it means that God has richly blessed us with the ability to serve Him as a couple in ministry as a profession for 14 years. We made it through the early on years of newlywed struggles of learning to adapt to living with another fallible human. We made it through the years of crying babies and we are not far from having our first teenager! (Something every youth pastor/former youth pastor faces with much fear and trepidation.) Thanks for joining us in this last year of our marriage on wonderful journey into a new adventure. We look forward to what God had in store for us.

I would like to make you aware of some announcements that I overlooked on Sunday.

1. This coming Sunday night I will be going to Trinity EFC’s Missions conference and sharing about our ministry in Shakopee. In preparation for that, I would like to borrow any pictures you may have of events, services, and people from the Bridge. I will need these as soon as possible this week so that I can utilize Diana Barto’s expertise at putting together a sharp display. Please send them to: The Bridge, 226 1^st Ave. E. Shakopee, MN 55379 – or drop them off personally at the office or our home. They will be returned to you.

2. On Tuesday, April 23 from 6-8 p.m. I will be at the Shakopee Showcase – at Canterbury Park. This is a large event to display Shakopee businesses, etc. We are the only Church scheduled to be there. We will have our display set up and I would love to have any of your stop by that evening. Please pray that God will use this event to help get our name into the hands of some people who need Jesus Christ.

3. The Children’s team (Connie Burt and Annette Poole) are in the process of revising our children’s area. They met with me last week and we worked through a purpose statement and guiding principles. Connie Burt will be leading an informational and training time on Saturday, April 27. This will last no more than 2 hours. The time is yet to be determined. The meeting will take place at the church office and childcare will be provided at the Richards’ home. If you have been serving in the nursery or children’s church, or would like to serve in one of these areas, please plan on attending. Issues that will be covered include safety and legal issues as well as policies and procedures and scheduling.

I look forward to seeing you all again throughout this week and especially on Sunday!

Would you join with me in praying that God would bring in 2 new families this Sunday through the regular attendees of the Bridge?

Would you pray with me that these would be unbelievers who need to know Jesus in personal way.

Pray for the following people that individuals at the Bridge are trying to build intentional relationships with in order to share Christ:

Doug, Muriel, Linda, Michelle, Krista, Lisa, Katherine, Danielle, Bernadette, Christina, Amy, Barb, Dori, Cory, Kelly, Scott, Donna, Debbie, Nancy, Steve, Peggy, Kathy, Paul, Maxine, Julie, Martin, Jim, Pat, Ron, Terry, Greg, Gary, Jeanne, Rob, Ken, Sammy, Steve, Renae, Justin, Jeremy, Laura, Nathan, Chad, Debbie, Kari, John, Bev, Kristen.

(If you would like to add people to our most wanted list – email their names to me.)

God bless!

Pastor Mike

Wed, 10 Apr 2002 14:47:41 GMT

From the Pastor's Desk (Mike Richards)

April 9, 2002

Hello all “Bridgeees” – Especially Sam Geers whose birthday was yesterday and Ameila who is 17 today!

A big welcome back to Bob and Sue Eggan! We missed you so much!!!

I just wanted to drop you all a line to let you know a few things that are happening.

I received a call on Friday from a representative of Harvest Evangelism and was asked to help with a prayer walk in Shakopee that will take place on Saturday, April 27. This is a pre-national day of prayer time. I am working to organize this and will have more information for you on Sunday at Church. For now, please pray that the school will allow me to use the parking lot as a place for people to register on that day.

Sunday we had the privilege of hearing from Ed Smith, a missions candidate to Romania. This was a wonderful blessing to me both to be able to share the pulpit at our church and to be able to hear about how God is working in and through the Smith family. What a blessing to have 10 year old Alyssa play the violin for us!

This Sunday we will be having a missions moment from Gary White and Vonda Jorgenson. They are from Trinity EFC and will be sharing with us the opportunity to pray for (and maybe even participate in) an english speaking camp they will be running in the Chec this summer.

This Sunday I will be starting a new sermon series on the book of Jonah. I am excited about this series and pray that God will use it to impact all of us greatly as we are bringing His message to Shakopee and the surrounding communities.

Anyone interested, Friendship Church will have a ground breaking ceremony this Sunday at 12:15 on their new property just south of Shakopee. I will have more information on Sunday at church if you would like to attend.

For the next few weeks we will not be having children’s church as we restructure that time. Annette Poole has agreed to help develop this area and I will be meeting with she and Connie Burt this week to start evaluating and planning.

As we are continuing to Grow as a church I am excited to see lots of new faces every week.

If you are fairly new at the Bridge and are interested in knowing more about the Bridge and the Evangelical Free Church of America, the Discovery Group is one way to learn.The Discovery Group is an 8 week group that meets on Sunday evenings to discuss who we are as a church. The current class has been put on hold until we have more people who express an interest. If you would like to be a part of this class please let me know. We will start on as soon as we have a few interested.

If you would like more information on how you could be involved or if you have suggestions or questions about our ministries please contact the following people:

Diana Barto – Communications (Bulletin, fliers, newsletter, advertising, web site, etc)

Michael Barto – Facilities (set up, tear down, decorations, etc.)

Dani Richards – Worship (music, vocalists, order of service, etc.)

Blair Geers – Prayer (pre-service, e-prayers, prayer chain)

Timothy Burt – Expansion (outreach, missions, discipling new believers)

Jean Hutchcraft – Welcome (fellowship time, greeters, ushers, follow up of new attendees)

Tom Hutchcraft – Growth (small groups, seminars, etc.)

Connie Burt – Children (nursery); Annette Poole – Children (elementary age)

God bless,

Pastor Mike

Mon, 08 Apr 2002 12:59:53 GMT

Here are the prayer requests from April 7, sent out by Gene Williams.

Greetings,

May that Lord continue to bless us as we give Him praise for all the good
that He does for us and honor Him with our prayers. He hears the prayers
of those who honestly seek him.

PRAYER REQUEST
April 7, 2002

Heckels, John and Jonda

Praise, guidance, and safety for their friends Dan and Amy who leave on April 8(Monday) for Columbia to adopt a child.

Richards, Pr. Mike and Dani

Continue to pray for Dani's mom and the situation with her niece Jordan.

Pray for Jordan, that she'll be able to forgive her mom (Dani's sister) & heal.

Firnstahls, Jim and Emily

Prayer for Jim's sister Teri's family - help to place daughter in permanent home as she is severely disabled.

Pray for Jim's business sale, for God's wisdom in structuring the sale and negotiations.

Prayer for new work for Jim, which job does God have for him?

Pray for peace in the Middle East - reduction in spirit of Chaos's power.

Bartos, Michael and Diana

Praise that Stacey Knott's back surgery went well, and continue to pray for her recovery.

Prayer for friend Bill who is having surgery.

Oeltjenbruns, Mark & Sue

Prayer for a safe return for Sue's parents Roger and Verlaine Sandberg who are driving from Florida to Shakopee this week.

Eggan, Bob & Sue

Praise to God for our safe travels during our 4 week journey.

Pray for Sue's sister, Merry Ellen, as she undergoes an angiogram on her brain this Wednesday to rule out a tumor.

Tanners, Bob and Judy

Prayer for Bill, Judy's brother-in-law, he is having surgery Monday for nose cancer. Pray also for renewal in his and Jan's marriage.

Pray for neighbors who need the Lord; Maria and Beto, John and Bev, and Melissa at Cost Cutters.

Pray for Bob as he travels for the Billy Graham Association.

Williams, Gene & Judy

Pray for pain relief for Judy, through the Physical Therapy and possibly more spinal injections.

Pray for safe travel for the Geers as they deal with Sam's mothers home.

Praise for a happy birthday for Sam on Monday.

Love in Christ,

Gene Williams