Two years ago, we made a bold decision together. We committed to something bigger than ourselves, trusting that God would meet us in our faithfulness — and He has, in ways that have exceeded anything we could have imagined.
From the very beginning, Burn the Ships was never just about a financial goal. It was about discipleship — growing as followers of Jesus and making more disciples. We dreamed of every person at LifeBridge having a life-changing encounter with God as it relates to their generosity, because we follow a God who is extravagantly generous.
I am excited to tell you: that dream is becoming a reality.
As we look back over the last two years of the initiative, we celebrate that 411 people decided to take their next step and get baptized; 782 Bibles were given away in the last 12 months; 33% more kids and 44% more adults attended our Sunday services last year, and our Student Ministry grew by 78% across 2025 alone! This is incredible, and we have so much to thank God for!
Thank you for your ongoing support and incredible generosity during an amazing two years of Burn the Ships! If you missed our celebration Sunday service with all the latest news on the initiative, you can watch it here.
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 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 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, ending on 5.31.2026. In the 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?
