The Bridge Community Church
Friday, March 20, 2020
New Links for Online Worship and Giving
Hey guys, Pastor Kevin here again.
I wanted to update you on some links that we’ve added to our website. If you go to our webpage and look to the left side, we have a vertical bar of quick links. We’ve added tabs that will quickly take you to different locations: “Online Worship” will take you to our YouTube page (the direct address is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvmK11dscTL0UGfA2LRTFSA; “Online Giving” will take you to a place where you can give online; “Facebook Videos” will take you to the video portion of our Facebook page; and “Announcement” will take you to our announcement page. In the lower set of quick links, there is also a link to our Facebook page.
Our online giving is through a company called Tithe.Ly. Our direct giving link is https://tithe.ly/give?c=1306048. There are some small fees associated with using Tithe.Ly (they are a business). For transactions from your bank account, the fee is 1% plus 30 cents. For transactions from a credit or debit card, the fee is 2.9% plus 30 cents. If you check “cover fees,” the fees will be added to the amount that you give. If you don’t check “cover fees,” the fees will come out of what you give before they are deposited into The Bridge’s account. Tithe.Ly also has an option to setup recurring giving, if you would find it convenient to automate your tithing. As always, you can also simply send your tithes to our mailing address (The Bridge Community Church, P.O. Box 1204, Clover, SC 29710) and there will be no fees.
Our plan is to broadcast our service live at our normal worship time (Sunday at 10:45am) on both our YouTube and Facebook pages. We have some concerns about the upload speeds of Lakepointe’s network, so if we are unable to broadcast to both YouTube and Facebook, we will broadcast on YouTube and post a link to that broadcast on our Facebook page.
If you have friends or family who do not have a church, or who attend a church that cannot broadcast their service, please invite them to worship with us during this time.
I look forward to worship with you this Sunday. This will be a good illustration of the truth that the church is not a building, but rather a gathered people (even if we must temporally gather only online).
I love and appreciate you all.
In Christ,
Kevin Witt, Pastor
The Bridge Community Church
Thursday, March 19, 2020
Moving Worship Services Online
You may watch a video version of this announcement on Facebook or on YouTube.
Hey guys, this is Pastor Kevin. As I told you a couple of days ago, the other elders and I have been talking and praying about the current coronavirus situation and how we should proceed with our worship services.
Given the advice of the federal and local governments, and public health agencies, we’ve decided that the wisest course of action is for us to move our worship services to an online only for the next two weeks. After that period of time, we will revisit this issue and continue to do so from week to week until the public health threat has been stabilized. Once again, this isn’t a decision that we make lightly. I am the first person to emphasize the importance of Christians regularly and faithfully gathering together for public worship. However, given the seriousness of the rapid spread of the coronavirus and the threat that it poses, we feel that prudence demands that we head the advice of medical experts and take these precautions.
Even though there will be a short period in which we are unable to gather publicly as a church, the importance of our gather together in the ways that we are able remains essential. Christ calls His people not just to worship, but to worship with one another. We want to remain faithful to this call to the best of our ability in the context of this crisis.
Our present plan is for me and the praise team to gather at Lakepointe at our normal time of worship on each Sunday. We will broadcast our service on Facebook Live at its normal time (10:45 each Sunday morning) and we ask that you gather with your family to watch and worship online with us. I realize that not everyone has access to Facebook, and we are currently working to also broadcast our service live on YouTube. It is my hope that we will have this capability before this Sunday. The service will remain available on our Facebook and YouTube pages and we will also make the service available for download in audio and video format, either later in the day on Sunday or by Monday. Once again, it is our hope that you will be able to gather and watch live with your family, but if circumstances make that impossible, I encourage you to watch the service later in the day on Sunday.
We are also working on implementing the capability for our members to give their tithe online, through our website. It is my hope that this feature will be live by tomorrow. Once it is live, I will post another video on our Facebook page demonstrating how to give online, along with instructions for finding our worship service online. Also, you can always mail your tithe to our mailing address, which is The Bridge Community Church, P.O. Box 1204, Clover, SC 29710.
This is a unique situation that no one in our generation has ever experienced and I don’t imagine that this crisis will be resolved in the next 14 days. Community is essential, especially within the Body of Christ, and we are already beginning to think through ways for us to connect with one another. That may be in the form of new small groups of less than 10 people who gather during the week, it may be in the form of new small groups that gather together online through a video meeting platform, it may be something else. I’ll be seeking your input and keeping you informed as we think through these issues and opportunities.
Finally, as we face this unique situation, remember that we are called to be a beacon of light to a world that is lost in darkness. As followers of Christ, we don’t face crisis in the same way that the world does and we have been given the opportunity to live that out. Look for opportunities to show love and generosity and to develop community, because Christ has generously loved you and invited you into the community that He died to create.
I love and appreciate you all.
In Christ,
Kevin Witt, Pastor
The Bridge Community Church