The Bridge Christian Church
The
Bridge Christian Church represents the most radically contextualized
alternative missional ecclesia within this paper. The story[1]
of the Bridge begins with an organic emergence of a community amid the
punk-rockers during the late 1990’s. Through a series of connections and events
Ken, Deborah and Crystal were invited to come and help this fledgling community
until they turned it over to the current leadership that was raised up from
amid the ecclesia. From its inception the Bridge has been an alternative
missional ecclesia that practiced the Positive Deviance Approach intuitively
without knowing what they knew.[2]
For this reason the categories that the Bridge fits into are the intuitive,
innovative and adaptive positive deviance processes. It has endured through
several reinventions coming to its current incarnation mainly due to the
characteristic of being a “contextual open society.”[3]
The interview process yielded so much information and data that a complete
paper focused solely upon the practices and strategies of the Bridge could be
written. The Bridge was created through trial and error by attempting different
practices and strategies. The participants in the interview process researching
the Bridge included past leadership represented by Deborah Loyd and current
leadership represented by Angie and Todd Fadel.
Angie
and Todd Fadel are a gregarious couple who have been with the Bridge from its
beginning. They are musicians, artists, who are passionate about Christ and
people, especially people who are displaced. Angie shared that the Bridge is
the church of “comes as you really are.” Todd shared that the Bridge is “a true
postmodern faith community” and they “practice a radical acceptance of others
and scandalous grace.” The interview with Angie and Todd provided an excessive
amount of data. Together their story is one of journeying through hard issues
of the institutional church.
Bridge Practices and Strategies
The
interview process revealed that the Bridge represents an organic community in
which the Positive Deviance Approach results from an intuitive, innovative and
adaptive intelligence found amid the leadership of the Bridge and the community
that comprises the Bridge. The leadership struggled with how to contextualize
the Gospel for the community they were now engaging. It was a community of
young people who were very talented, artistic, musical, broken and flawed, yet
spiritually hungry, but most of all did not relate or connect with the
traditional church. The Bridge represents an early adaptation of the Positive
Deviance Approach and should serve as representative model of how the Positive
Deviance process works over time and does not result in quick fix or immediate
gratification. In contrast the institutional church model would impose a
conformity culture. This would be done in order to obtain its goals in a faster
manner and attempt to avoid the messiness that comes with cultural
self-identification with Christ as represented in the Bridge community. The
contrast is a transformational culture that relies upon the work of the Holy
Spirit, as represented in the Bridge, versus a forced cultural conformity,
represented in the institutional church model.
The intractable
issue for the Bridge was contextualization of the Gospel amid a non-religious,
disenfranchised and marginalized people. The status quo practice of repackaging
the institutional church as contextualization would not work with these people.
The repackaging of the institutional church is represented by the use the
music, language, clothes and cultural nuances in superficial attempt to connect
amid marginalized people. The consequences of such a strategy and practice would
have been catastrophic for the Bridge community. This is due to the
non-conformist culture represented amid those who populated the Bridge. The
reaction to conformity, by being told what they would be expected to do in
order to belong to the community would not have gone over well. The people
populating the Bridge are independent thinkers and want to discover truth and
life for themselves rather than being told what it is. If any situation
resembles what was transpiring amid the community of the Bridge, it would be
comparable to Antioch when the Hellenists took the Gospel amid the Greeks
cultural context.[4]
The
initial leadership approached the problem from a cultural perspective. They
engaged in cultural exegesis. The leadership asked, “Can we be you?” Cultural
understanding was the highest priority. The journey into Positive Deviance
process began with this step for the leadership of the Bridge. Intuitively,
there was the understanding that they stood at the outside and were looking in
and what needed to transpire was to step into the culture becoming one of them.
The leadership went native. It is comparable to stepping through the looking
glass, thus gaining a whole new perspective. By engaging the culture from
within the culture the leadership validated the people and established the
initial foothold that would develop their cultural clout.
Second, the
leadership of the Bridge working within the culture began the process of
navigating the community toward creating its own identity. This strategy began even
before the first Sunday morning meeting of the Bridge. It was decided that the
cultural identity of the people was important and the leadership was decidedly
against the idea of practicing cultural imperialism, which is the practice of
overlaying one culture on top of another, thereby subverting the resident
culture to conform to the overlaid culture. At the first Sunday meeting of the
Bridge, the community was given, even promised, the responsibility for
developing the community’s identity as “Christians.” Ownership of the ecclesia
belonged to the community. The structure was not hierarchal, but is flat and
the pastors walked amid the people as one of them and not over them.
Shepherding is done from in the midst of the “tribe.” Leadership is from behind
not out in front of the community. The community provides their direction and
the leadership operates from a culturally responsive position rather than a
dictating position.
Third,
ownership of the community at the Bridge is invested amid the people. This
would be considered extremely risky and defies the conventional wisdom amongst
institutional church planting models. The leadership of the Bridge followed the
PD process by trusting that the community itself held the answer or wisdom to
self-organize and design its own practices. In designing their practices the
driving theological praxis for the Bridge was formed within a theology of
hospitality. An open hospitality means the free flow of ideas and the search
for truth. It allows for open dialogue and nothing is off limits. The praxis of
hospitality requires faith in what the Holy Spirit is actively pursuing amid
the community and trusting God for the results. This praxis is messy, but
deeply rewarding according to the leadership.
Fourth, the
transformational nature of the community allows the community to be adaptive to
cultural changes. Deborah describes the community as going through eras or
incarnations. Another term used by Angie described the community reinventing
itself. Deborah gave examples of how this transpires. Initially the occupants
of the Bridge were punks and Gen-Xers making up the community. Several
transition or reinventions have transpired and now the occupants of the Bridge
are Millennials and Christ-archists (anarchists). This transformational nature
represents the community itself is functioning in positive deviance process.
The community of the Bridge is adapting to the internal diversity that exists
amid the attendees. The mode of operation is cultural inclusion, multicultural
inclusion and context.
To illustrate
the open contextual community that exists at the Bridge Amanda Westmont and
Joel Gunz wrote about the Bridge in their blog Year of Sundays: we go to church so you don’t have to. Joel
comments on the atmosphere of the bridge,
In this come-as-you-are church,
the pastors wear no fancy robes or expensive hair spray. A pulpit would be as
out of place as Laura Bush at a cockfight. Instead, you’ll see a slightly pudgy
hipster couple switching off between sermonizing and cuddling their oh-too-cute
baby. The Bridge is the kind of place you could only expect to see in a city
that glorifies strange bicycles, house rock concerts and tofu . . . . this
blog’s search for spiritual authenticity has yielded mixed results, this week,
we found it in the unlikeliest of places: a multi-purpose yoga studio/art
room/public space for hire. Welcome to The Bridge, captain.[5]
Amanda “gushes” about the Bridge
in her blog post titled The Bridge: A Perfectly (Im) Perfect Christian
Experience,
This church doesn’t have a PR
department or a logo or a red velvet bag for your tithe. All they have is a
scrappy, shared yoga studio on NE Tillamook and each other. The only thing I
could find lacking at The Bridge was judgment. There is no “IF” at The Bridge.
No qualifications. They literally DO love you just for being there. It’s the
“only a mother could love you” church. Everyone qualifies. Every. Single. Soul.
The more flawed the better. And if I believed in God THAT would be the kind of
God I’d want to worship. The one who made The Bridge possible.[6]
The Bridge represents an
incredible experiment in what it means to be the church amid marginalized
people. The evidence for the intuitive, innovative and adaptive categories of
the Positive Deviance Approach is all over the Bridge like children’s finger
prints on a glass door. The Bridge is a living organism. It lives within its
environment (culture) and navigates creating its own identity, designs it own
practices and adapts to constant internal changes in diversity. The Bridge is
messy, but it causes me remember the Church in Antioch as the first Greek
converts must have struggled amid the cultural conflicts.
Since the writing of this section of my dissertation the Bridge has ceased its operations. After 10 years and 4 incarnations the work and ministry of the Bridge has significantly changed. This is another aspect of positive deviance in church is knowing when to transform and transition. I applaud the Bridge for being sensitive and intuitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. They are everyday heroes.
[1]
For a brief story of the origins of the Bridge visit http://thebridgeportland.org/about.php
[2] Pascale
et al., The Power of Positive Deviance, 7.
[3]
“Contextual Open Society” would best be defined in alternative missional
ecclesia as a community that is adaptive to the cultural paradigm shifts that
require a fluidic contextualization in the life of the ecclesia. This term was supplied earlier in this
section in the interview with A.J. Swoboda concerning the nature of
adaptability within an alternative missional ecclesia. The term certainly fits within the
transformations the Bridge has moved through during it tenure.
[4] See
Chapter 3 pages 68-74 in order to review of the work of the Hellenist amid the
Greeks in Antioch and the resulting communities.
[5] Amanda
P. Westmont and Joel Gunz,
http://blog.beliefnet.com/yearofsundays/2011/03/flea-market-cathedral.html
[6] Amanda
P. Westmont and Joel Gunz,
http://blog.beliefnet.com/yearofsundays/2011/03/the-bridge-a-perfectly-imperfect-christian-experience.html
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