WHAT BRIDGES ARE WE BUILDING?

HOW IS THE BODY OF CHRIST COMING TOGETHER?

SHAREFEST

One incredible way for the body of Christ- and the whole community- to come together again this year was Sharefest.  The outpouring of money, energy, talent, and people to rehab two Rockford schools was amazing.  Our hats are off to Creig Day and his whole Sharefest Rockford team.  It was a privilege to work alongside other citizens for our common good.  Wonderfully organized and very effective.  Don't miss out next year!

CCD  

The next event of note for this gathering of Christian Community Development practitioners and friends is a lunch and presentation on July 8, at noon at Katie's Cup by Noel Castellanos, the President of the national Christian Community Development Association.  His presentation is sure to educate and inspire.

The annual CCDA conference is this September in Chicago and we would encourage all who care for the city to consider attending all or part of it.

RP4E  

Rockford Partners for Excellence continue to meet every Tuesday at West Middle School to be a catalyst for effective and positive change there.  We were thrilled to have West chosen as a Sharefest site, and hope to be able to encourage some of those participants to volunteer to continue to help the school.  Mentoring, tutoring, encouraging, partnering, supplying resources- these and other tasks are the way we are hoping to serve.

Rockford Leadership Roundtable

 At our May quarterly meeting, we had several ideas put forth:  gathering the leaders of local prayer efforts together to build unity and common purpose; likewise, bring together those focussed on service; re-establish a steering committee for the round table; consider how we can best present the gospel to the whole city for life transformation.  We meet again in September, and will work on these initiatives until then.

YMCA

The Christian Emphasis group meets monthly now.  There is a weekly time of prayer to pray over the requests we recieve in the prayer box.  The spiritual side of the Y is now covered in our quarterly activity catelog, and an effort is underway to be sure that the spiritual is also addressed in the Y's web site.  Ministry opportunities abound.

Young Missional Leaders Group

This group continues to gather to share ideas, to teach each other what we are learning about being missional, for fellowship and support.   

Mentoring

The mentoring relationships continue, even though many or all of those are involved with the Young Missional Leaders group (above). That group was not formed to take the place of one-on-one mentoring. In deed, a group could not do what individual meetings can. One complements the other.

A word on finances

Much of our financial reserve has been used up, but we are still in the black as we head into the summer, for which we are grateful.  We continue to trust God to lead us to those who share the vision for a united Church and a transformed community.

Help needed

To help us keep our expenses even lower, we could use volunteer help (calling, data entry, web site managing, etc.) If you can help, call 815-637-1754, or email us at bridmin@aol.com and let us know!

Prayer events

Here are several prayer activities we find ourselves engaged in as a mission:

- On site prayer is a way of praying for key community locations on a regular basis by a small group of people who have a particular burden for that place. It could be a school, a seat of government, a hospital. We are looking for those who can be part of a team, or even head one up, at one of these important sites. What if you or your congregation adopted such a site that is near to your location? What if you adopted for prayer the alderman that serves your location?

- Prayer walking, biking or driving the community. We continue to encourage those who would to weekly pray for the neighborhood they live in and or work in, the office where they work, the school they attend, etc., until every bit of our community is covered in prayer in an on-going basis.

- House of Prayer- we are seeking to establish a neutral site for ongoing prayer by any who will

- Concerts of prayer- these happen three times a year, augmented by gatherings known as Greater Rockford in Prayer and Praise in the other months of the year.

For information on any of these, call our office or email us.

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IDEAS?

Maybe you have an idea for a ministry to meet a real need. Want to share it? Chances are, there are others to whom God has given the same vision. We would love to try and help you flesh out your vision, and put you in touch with these others that share it. Let us know.

MINISTRY SUMMARY

Some of our supporters want a brief summary of what we are doing in hard copy. Should you be interested, just let us know. We try to fly under the radar, but we are happy to let people know what we are up to.