Over the last 3 years, it’s hard for me to put into words how faithful God has been to our church. He has used us to reach people who are far from Jesus in ways that I haven’t seen before. And He has grown people in powerful ways that are producing a great deal of spiritual fruit, but also momentum in our church. As God continues to bring opportunities for us to grow as a church, He also brings opportunities for us to grow as individuals. When God wants to do something through us, He always wants to do something in us first. This generosity initiative is that. It is an initiative to help us win Northern Colorado for Christ, and it is also an initiative to grow us as individual followers of Jesus.
We are at a turning point where we can’t look back. If we don’t step out in faith and generosity, who might not hear about Jesus? If we don’t step out in faith and generosity, whose family won’t be transformed? If we don’t step out in faith and generosity, whose eternity won’t be changed? If we don’t step out in faith and generosity, who will step up to win NOCO for Christ? If not us, then who? God has been leading our church forward for 133 years; we can’t go back now.
Matt Hessel
Lead Pastor
First and foremost, Burn the Ships is a discipleship initiative. It is for us to grow as disciples, and it is so we can make more disciples. Our primary goal is that as close to 100% of our people will have a life-changing encounter with God as it relates to their generosity. We want every person at LifeBridge to take their next step to grow in generosity. We follow a God who is extravagantly generous. We want to follow His lead as this is part of every individual’s personal discipleship.
This investment over the next 2 years represents supporting and strengthening our general budget – which is anything but “general”. It is our disciple-making ministries, NextGen ministries, care ministries, outreach partnerships, Level Up initiative, weekend experiences, and ministry operations.
If we want to win NOCO, then we need to fix and update one of our primary tools: our campus. Our goal is to renovate the entire campus to take care of deferred maintenance, reconfigure the interior of the building to maximize our space to accommodate growth and facilitate ministry, and update the aesthetic appeal of the campus.
We believe that it’s all ONE MISSION we’re on as a church — the mission to introduce people in Northern Colorado to Jesus, and lead them in their next step with Him. So we’ve decided that our collective giving over the next two years will all go into one fund for this next season of ministry expansion — to celebrate the totality of our generosity growth as disciples of Jesus.
The Burn the Ships initiative will last for two years. In those two years, every gift that is given to LifeBridge will be used both to continue our ongoing ministry work and to move our mission and vision forward.
We are asking that you pray and seek God’s leading on what He is asking of you. Prepare your heart to hear Him, and then listen to what He says.
Finally, prepare to be amazed. We serve an awesome God, and we anticipate He will move in huge ways as we seek an unprecedented impact from our collective Burn the Ships commitments – something only God can do.
Ready to be part of all that God’s doing in and through us at LifeBridge?
