Jim McCracken, who is the overseer of TrueBridge, has dedicated his life to see churches restored to their "roots" in the New Testament. E.H. Broadbent, the author of The Pilgrim Church, researched and found that throughout history there have been churches that have "endeavored in their meetings, order, and testimony to make the Scriptures their guide and to act upon them as the Word of God, counting them as sufficient for all their needs in all their circumstances."

The goal of TrueBridge is to see these "Pilgrim" churches multiply and thrive. Jim sees himself as a pastor to pastors. His giftings are in wisdom and leadership. He also feels part of his mandate from God is to help pastors get their churches through tight places, not unlike the specialized canal captains who help huge freighter ships bring their cargoes through the narrow straits of the Panama Canal. He wants to see healthy congregations understand their giftings and serve in the ministry as described in Ephesians 4:11-16.

TRUEBRIDGE VISION 
Presented in January 2003 as a 5-year plan

Looking forward into each New Year, we ask God for specific goals that are in keeping with our vision.  Built upon the general vision of New Testament church, is the specific vision of who we are as a local church in a given community.  Additionally, it is important to have goals every year to apply that specific vision.  Accomplishing these goals, which is the application of vision in a practical way, moves each church toward fulfilling its destiny.  TrueBridge Fellowship exists to help each church identify its specific vision and then live in it by accomplishing God-given goals each year.

In keeping with our understanding of a New Testament church, we believe each locality eventually becomes a hub or sending center.  Several years ago we recognized five hubs based on the timing given in prophetic words to these churches and their leaders.  Coming of age as sending centers, these hubs are planting new churches and ministries both at home and abroad, and training 5-fold team ministries.  These hub churches are not an exclusive group in TrueBridge.  Rather, it is our goal that all TrueBridge churches become hubs for training, sending, and planting new works.

I believe 2003 will be a year to accelerate training.  Every local church should benefit from the gifts God has given, which we call the 5-fold ministries, to train and equip the people.  This would include the 5-fold ministries within TrueBridge and those from the greater body of Christ such as Interlink and others.  Additionally, we need to accelerate the training of such ministries within the churches.  This is not new thinking for us as TrueBridge churches, however, I have a clear word that we must accelerate.  At the same time I received this word, I had a deep sense within me that we are operating at about 1/3 of our potential – 33%! 

Part of this acceleration can be realized through greater communication, organization, and relationship building.  Interlink is a good example of this in the bigger picture and holds great promise for specific help in the coming years.  More on Interlink later.          

Closer to home, I believe God wants us to benefit more from each other within the TrueBridge family of churches.  I propose we use our meetings, retreats, and conferences to continue relationship building plus accelerate training in 2003.  The following is a brief plan that will help accomplish this.

   In each local church the 5-fold ministry expresses itself on several levels.

1)     Gifted ministries from outside the church come in to teach, equip, inspire, and train the people.

2)     People are trained and 5-fold ministries are raised up in the church.

3)     The church develops a mindset for each ministry.

 Example: If prophets come in from the outside, we want them to prophesy over the people, identify gifts, and generally inspire the congregation.  Over the years we have all come to realize that there is more to the prophetic ministry.  We want them to equip prophetic people in our church and train them to do the ministry.  Additionally, we should believe God to put within the church a prophetic mindset = churches which speak for God in the community.

 Therefore it looks like this:

 PROPHET MINISTRY

1)     Prophets from the outside come in to do a prophetic gathering and preach prophetically.

2)     Prophets help train people (especially prophetic) in the church.

3)     The church takes on the thinking of one called to speak with God’s voice to the community. 

APOSTLE MINISTRY

1)     Apostles come in to help us build, set things in order, and speak to the big picture apostolically.

2)     Apostles help train people (especially apostolic) in the church.

3)     The church is trained to think as one sent out into the community, region, and world.

 TEACHER MINISTRY

1)     Teachers minister timeless, foundational truth, which not only feeds but also creates stability in the church.

2)     Teachers train the people.

3)     The church sees itself as a lighthouse of truth in a world of darkness.

 PASTOR MINISTRY

1)     Pastors shepherd in the truest sense = leading the local church and directing the eldership team which cares for the everyday needs of the people.  Also, as the liaison between the local church and trans-local ministries, the pastor “sets the table” for the other 5-fold ministries, inviting them in at key times and arranging the schedule for optimum effectiveness.

2)     Pastors train the people.

3)     The church sees itself answering the call of Jesus in the community to those who are as sheep without a shepherd.

 EVANGELIST MINISTRY

1)     Evangelists come in to preach the gospel perhaps with special meetings, to see people saved, healed, and set on the path of a disciple.

2)     Evangelists train the people (especially evangelists).

3)     The church takes on an evangelistic mindset.

 I have purposely left the evangelist until last because it is the one we need to emphasize first.  We need a much greater emphasis on equipping our people to reach the lost.  There are many aspects of evangelism that can be “ramped up” in our local churches.

 Specifically I would like us to use our first gathering to do an idea exchange and vision casting.  It would be a time for each church to share its most effective ideas and endeavors in evangelism and include the names of people who would be willing to help in the other churches.  It’s also very important to remind ourselves who the evangelists are, and how they can help us.

Then we develop a game plan with our elders and congregations.  Out of this will come each church’s strategy and goals for this year in reaching the lost.

 The other meetings we have will be given to develop similar goals and strategy for each ministry.  Many aspects of these ministries are already in place and just need to be accelerated.   Some areas are weaker than others and it differs from church to church.  I believe we will see great results for the kingdom if we pull together in this way as TrueBridge Fellowship.