"The Bridge" Stories of the Church Body Becoming the Living Proof of a Loving God in a Hurting Urban Neighborhood

“The Bridge” is about a middle-class church that chose to move across town and into an unsafe urban neighborhood where fatherlessness, drugs, crime, prostitution, dropouts, and brokenness prevailed. This little group moved into this neighborhood to build God’s bridges of agape love between all people young and old. Bridge Ministry of Acadiana, a Christian Community Development organization was birthed in 2003. The Bridge is guided by their theological framework and 8-key components that were developed prior to taking any actions and are detailed in the books Acknowledgements and Forward. These key guiding components describe “why” Bridge does what it does, and is followed by many short stories that hopefully explain “what” Bridge does. These short stories tell about people in the neighborhood and community that come from all denominations, socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds, businesses, and organizations that have relationally joined with this inner-city movement of relocation, reconciliation and redemption by either volunteering, investing and/or praying for our neighborhood and community. It tells how the church and volunteers initially went door-to-door listening and learning about our neighbor’s dreams for safer streets and better lives. The church learned from our neighbors that relational development is the greatest need in our inner city. By first listening and then responding to our neighbors ‘Bridge’ became a development-type organization and not a relief-type organization. The Bridge learned how to develop and empower people by not doing “for”, but doing “with”. This book of short stories hopefully paints a picture of how this culture of trust, respect, and love is being built in the inner-city. A culture that ensures the dignity and growth of whole children and people without causing further harm. These are bridging stories of faith and agape love that deliver a hope that has the power to achieve dreams and change destinies for people on both sides of the proverbial bridge. The Bridge sees the root cause of poverty being in our broken relationships—with God, our selves, and our neighbors. These interdependent yet broken relationships cause gaps in the resource flows needed for human development, empowerment, and wholeness. These three broken relationships ultimately cause physical as well as spiritual poverty for individuals and society. When ignored, these 3-broken relationships will hold us back individually and collectively from maturing in the character of Christ and from being an irresistible and relevant people of faith. Jesus Christ, Bridge’s model, relocated into our broken neighborhood here on earth to reconcile and redeem all relationships for the Kingdom’s sake. The King now directs us in his Greatest Commandments to carry on his mission by loving God, our selves, and our neighbors with all our minds, hearts, and strength. As purposed, it is through these right and caring relationships that intellectual, moral, and spiritual resources are able to flow for the character and wholeness of our families, churches, neighborhoods and communities. Jesus Replied, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40, NLT)