Building Social Bridges
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| The Bridge to Nowere |
The bridge was built in 1936, but in 1938 a serious flood washed out the only approach road from civilization. The need to rebuild the road was thought unimportant and unnecessary.The bridge remains.
You can cross it, but there's nowhere to go!
Building Bridges to people.
Real-world bridges connect one place to another. They "bridge a divide" such as water, canyons or difficult terrain.
As real-world people we often live on opposite sides of something that divides us. Politics, religion, social status or race can all create the divide between us.
From the poorest of poor to unbelievably rich, Jesus lived a life showing love to whoever was on the other side. His life bridged gaps that others avoided. Jesus lived in a culture that was categorically divided, much as ours is today.
Relationships within our church.
Small churches have one advantage over the larger, mega-churches; meaningful relationships with church members is easier and more intense. As the number of people in a church increases, it's quite ironic that we may casually form genuine relationships with a smaller number of people.
Pastor Rick Warren presents a thorough analysis of this problem. Some of his ideas might make you uneasy or overwhelmed, but they are well worth listening to with focused effort.
How about our neighbors?
Some short bridges are the most difficult ones to build. Deep canyons or rushing waters can make bridge building physically tough.
In our busy society the people often overlooked the most are our next door neighbors and others on our block. The most we might know is the fact there garage is almost as messy as ours and scream at their kids.
Jesus is rather blunt when He indicates what our relationship with neighbors should be like.
Build real bridges with co-workers.
Many of us spend more awake-time at our jobs than with our family. And often that time is spent only on our work responsibilities. The opportunity exists, however, to know those co-workers in a way that eventually create a relationship that will someday give us the opening to bring them the most important information they will ever receive.
The following video gives some practical actions that will enhance our chance to build relationships with co-workers that can grow into genuine friendships.
The Most Important Relationship!
It's easy to say the most important relationship we develop is that with God. Easy to say, but often we kind of get lazy in pursuing that relationship.
Dr. Charles Stanley confronts that relationship directly and succinctly in the short video below.
We build relationships for many reasons; fun, support, business and many other reasons. Each of those relationships has the potential to have a "hearer" for the Gospel. Each day we need to pray for the wisdom to recognize the moment... and pray for the courage to cross the bridges we have built.
