Bergen Bridge to Brechin – March, 2012

The days keep flying by and stay filled with people and events. It is quickly moving into the spring season so we are enjoying them being filled with a mixture of sunshine and rain, sometimes at the same time.

This Sunshine and Rain mixture is a lot like our lives at times. We are now mostly well and if we weren’t it feels well compared to how sick we have been in the past year. Thank you for your prayers in that area of our lives. But the rain part of that is that our Judi is still sick with the ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis), or as you might know it better as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. There is no known cure at this point in time. As a 15 year old, it is hard for her and us as parents to see such a lovely lassie with little to no energy to enjoy the usual things of life. So pray with us for her.

We had a couple members of our church die and we are still getting over the loss. But the sunshine is that God has sent us some new families that we pray will become a part of our family here. We had many move away in the past year but the Lord has blessed and we are while not up in attendance still at the same average. Sun and showers.

This March marks our 10th anniversary of us living in Scotland and our church will celebrate its 10th in September. We had great plans to have this church up and running with someone training to take our places, but God has not provided that ‘someone’ and it is still our ‘baby’ in so many ways. We are excited at all that God is doing and the doors He has opened to us in this city is beyond our belief. At present, I do a ‘Thought for the Week’ that gets posted in the local newspaper and goes out to 4,000 homes each week. Ruth and I do Bible classes in both primaries and the High School. We have teen activities as well. I am the chaplain for the local football team and attend the games interacting with players, coaches, staff and City fans. Once again in January assemblies at the High School I had the opportunity to speak to over 700 pupils and staff.

A story, if you will, that shows what we are up against in ministry here: I was at the high school and the ‘program’ that gives us access is called Scripture Union. The Scripture Union of Scotland pretty much allows us to teach whatever we want as long as it is non-sectarian and Bible based. So, we call it our SU Club for short. Well, attendance is a struggle as this is our first real push with it and so trying to recruit some new youth to this. I was on my ‘Donder day’ and asked a group of about 12 kids if they knew what SU meant. Basically I got silence and then a basic ‘Nae Clue’ response. To which I asked the follow-up of well what about the term Scripture Union? And again overwhelming silence that finally was broken by one lone voice saying “is it maybe about the Bible”? When I affirmed that, one lad spoke up with “WELL I HATE BIBLE BASHERS…” and proceeded to give us all an ear full of how bad ‘Bible bashers’ are were and always will be… so the new follow-up question was ‘So, how do you define “Bible Basher”?’ And the lad proceeded to say “someone who believes in God!” Which then led me to state: “OH so you hate me eh?!?!?” And the fumbling hemming and hawing to get out of that was quite interesting as he assured me that he didn’t and that I was a good guy and … well you get the idea. I assured him that despite his protestations that by his definition I was most assuredly a BIBLE BASHER. So we discussed what and how that really worked and out of the 12 kids only one hazarded that perhaps they were not a total atheist and that perhaps God might exist out there somewhere.

Well when you consider that these were 13-15 year old kids and them trying to assure me that I was a good guy. They had not really thought through what a Bible basher was and were merely parroting what they have heard somewhere. The saddest part is their complete lack of knowledge of what the Bible does and doesn’t say and their presumption that there is no god let alone the need of a Saviour… our work is not done by a long shot and not just with the kids but the parents who they have learned this ignorance from.These things are all beyond what we ever dreamed we would be doing when we were called to start a church here in Brechin, but we understand that God has called us to all of Brechin and we haven’t put a dent in it yet. The paper just this week said that our area has plans for 1,000 new homes over the next ten years. This is beyond the 300 that have already been started. We need help!!! We are the most vocal gospel witness for miles. Brechin Baptist is the only church in the area that is having Sunday school on a weekly basis (right now our Sunday school averages 12 children each week) and the only church that does anything with teens. I talked with other ministers in Brechin and adding the numbers we have a population of about 20K in our influence area and less than 300 are in church services of any type on a Sunday.

Once again, we need help! With all this ministry going on, we have churches in the states that are dropping our support mainly due to the US economy. We need more monthly support to do the things that need to be done. There is still building remodelling that we need funds to complete so that it is a better tool to minister into our community. We need your prayers for people to see the need to know Christ personally. We could send you a list of people that are so close, but just haven’t come to see the need for themselves – yet. There are believers who are being discipled and are growing and leadership that is growing into that as well. But it is not easy. People are growing but struggles as well. The sunshine and showers challenge again. Prayers are needed for our personal health and strength and ENERGY. We need workers!! People who love the Lord with all their heart and have a desire to serve Him.

Please continue to be in prayer for our ministry and for our family,
Your Bridge to Brechin, Jon Bergen and The Bergen Family