According to the Better Bridges report, as of September 2007, there were 597,815 bridges in the United States. Matsuo Bridge Company indicates that there are 6 basic “types” of bridges…girder, arch, truss, cable stayed, rigid frame and suspension. All of these bridges have the same basic purpose…to connect two geographical points that are separated by an obstacle. Yet despite sharing the same basic purpose and being classified into 6 basic types, every single one of these bridges is completely unique…they’re like snowflakes…no two bridges are exactly alike. The reason this is true is because every single situation requiring a bridge to be built has a unique set of circumstances that must be considered when the bridge is being engineered. Some of the factors that must be considered are things like: weather, wind, soil, span, load, etc. Due to the diversity of factors that impact the necessary elements of each bridge, it is necessary that every single one of the 597,815 bridges in the United States has been individually designed to fulfill it’s basic purpose in its unique context.

Nobody really knows for sure how many communities of disciples (churches) there are in America, but the number seems to be in the neighborhood of 320,000 or so. It’s hard to find a consensus on the basic “types” of churches, but there might be at least 10 different “types”…organic, emergent, community service-driven, multi-cultural, ethnicity-focused, purpose-driven, traditional, mega, multi-cultural and family. All of these churches have the same basic core purpose…to join Jesus on his Mission to seek and save the lost. And the reality is that every one of these churches is completely unique! Why? Because the context in which every one of these churches exists is characterized by a set of factors that must impact the “design” of of the church in order for it to effectively be on mission with Jesus.

Thinking about bridges enables us to identify some core principles that can inform our thinking about leading churches and starting new ones.

1. In the same way that every bridge is uniquely engineered for each particular situation, so every church must be started or adjust its ministry strategy with its ministry context in mind. Bottom line: There is no one “right way” to start or be a church…there are hundreds and thousands of ways to start or be the church. When someone tells you that their way is the only/best way, they are wrong!

2. New bridges are being built everyday to provide access to previously inaccessible locations. New churches must be started every day to provide access to groups of people are sociologically disconnected from a viable presentation of the Gospel. The fact that most Americans can turn on a radio or TV and hear a Gospel presentation does not mean that a bridge has been built to them. Without going into a long theological justification, let me just “cut to the chase” and state what I hope is obvious to you…the Gospel must be heard AND experienced for the message to be complete. Jesus commissioned his disciples to “go make disciples.” “Going” and “making” imply more than just preaching. A complete presentation of the Gospel includes providing a relational bridge to people groups and tribes that are isolated from experiencing the Gospel incarnated in a person.

3. There are thousands of “people groups”/”tribes” that need bridges built to them. I’ve written in other posts about the myth of the ubiquity of the American church…the false but widely held notion that the USA is saturated with churches. While it may be true that the majority of Americans have good things to say about Jesus and by their own definition would call themselves Christians, the reality is that the behavior of most Americans does not indicate a lifestyle characterized by even an elementary practice of Biblically sound discipleship. The best research reveals that less than 20% of Americans are meaningfully connected to an intentional community of discipleship (church). Our own AG statistics indicate over 18,000 American zip codes with no AG church present. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Yesterday, I had a conversation with a US missionary who has identified an “invisible” people group residing in a populous university town in middle America. The existing AG church has attempted to reach them and failed. They are asking this missionary to consider planting a church to reach this unreached people group who are surrounded by numerous churches (bridges) that are not engineered to reach them. He wants to engineer and build a new bridge. I want to help him.

In fact, we (the Assemblies of God) want to help him and thousands of other “bridge designers” to construct thousands of new bridges to take the Gospel where it has not gone before. If you are a “bridge designer” looking for a group of people to build a bridge to, the Church Multiplication Network is building the infrastructure to help you. Click on the Church Multiplication Network link and then follow the contact tab to begin a journey of discovery together. We’ve got a lot of bridges to build.