In a few days, Faithbridge Community Church turns 20 years old.
In some ways the time has flown by.
In others, it seems like 50 years.
We planted on Independence Day weekend in July of 2005. Our first event was a kids camp at Meyers Ridge Community Center, and our first Sunday service was inside the building there on July 5.
Those kids who turned out for the camp are all into their 20s and 30s now. Except the ones who didn’t live long enough.
Our first service had my dear friend Ingrid Wandel there. She lived to see 19 of those years. She brought Rochelle Young, whose wedding we celebrated this month.
Damar Hamlin and his cousin Tony were around for that first camp, mostly on the periphery, throwing a football on Gray Street and coming over for a Freezie Pop or a drink as the day’s heat insisted.
My friend Jenifer Jones was there with some of her sons. They moved over to Turtle Creek a few years later.
David and Annie Christopher were there, too, having moved from San Diego to help plant the church. Their daughter Adah, the first of their four kids, was there, but in Annie’s belly. They live in Griffin, Ga., now, and I miss them dearly.
We’ve had 20 years of victories, some setbacks and cried ample tears as we buried way too many young people along the way.
But that’s ministry.
Urban ministry can humble you quickly and age you prematurely.
It also can teach you things you never imagined you’d need to know and it can invite you into folks’ most emotional, enriching and sometimes horrifying moments.
You only get invited in when they feel they can finally trust you.
That took a long while for a chubby white guy living in the old McKees Rocks Terrace.
My kids grew to be adults here, doing ministry.
Teressa and I have been blessed to be here and have cherished every baptism, wedding and even every small victory in ways amplified by the challenges here in this setting, and we’re still in it to win it, still married and still amazed that God chooses to use us.
We delayed our 20th anniversary celebration — an 11 a.m. worship service and picnic at our worship center — by a week because our dear friends at First Baptist Church next door are wrapping up 115 years (now there’s a goal!) of serving our community on July 6 and we didn’t feel it appropriate to be throwing a party next door for that.
So on Sunday, July 13, you are invited to come to celebrate with us … and we hope you will!
Here’s to many more years of reaching the community with the hope of Christ!
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