How The Bridge Logansport is Listening to and Loving their Marginalized Neighbors
By Aynsley Vermilya
When Pastor Zach Szmara arrived in Logansport, IN thirteen years ago to lead the congregation at The Bridge Community Church, he anticipated failure. In fact, he was tasked with pastoring there until the church would inevitably close. He didn’t walk in thinking it was a revitalization project and would have probably not agreed to the position if that’s what the district had requested.
Looking back, however, Zach found success in the freedom to not just implement what every other church is doing but lean into what he calls “Kingdom imagination” – attempting any of the crazy ministry ideas he had that “just might work,” even if there’s no guarantee of success.
Zach quickly noticed how unique the church’s neighborhood was. Diversity set his community apart, and Zach noticed the gap that was present between this place and other local churches. The Bridge decided to try to be a church that was truly available for everyone. With no other multiethnic church in town, there was an opportunity to unify the diverse community as one church. This would pave the way for neighbors to learn to love each other across differences.
In establishing himself at this church, Zach quickly learned how God is not content with proximity (being close to other people) – God deeply desires connection (going beyond closeness to actually depending on each other). As he was learning this, Zach found himself at a lunch where members of the church loved his family and welcomed them so naturally. Since then, Zach has sought to live out that very welcome and sense of home to others who come into their church community.
So often, churches seeking to be welcoming will only go so far. True welcome prioritizes the comfort and care of “the other,” and is willing to push one’s own comfort aside in order to actually meet others where they are. It’s easy to prioritize one’s own comfort, but for The Bridge, the priority shifted to being a place where truly anyone could come and be welcome. This required doing something different for the sake of “the other’s” comfort.
At the Bridge, discomfort has become a tool. For them, discomfort is a good thing if you really want to be a welcoming church. The nature of the Fall makes humans self-focused, yet when entering into a multicultural environment it’s often that what isn’t naturally comfortable for us might actually be comfortable and natural for someone else. At the Bridge, Zach will find himself enjoying a particular part of the service while someone from a different culture isn’t moved by it. In turn, Zach will think something else the church does is unsuccessful only to hear that a majority of their congregation loved it.
Another unique aspect of what The Bridge Church is doing in their community is centered around the table. People in this church have learned and put into practice the idea that followers of Jesus should eat together. They understand that breaking bread with their neighbors matters. In fact, most people who have joined the church entered the congregation over a shared meal.
Whether it’s within the walls of the church or around a table in someone’s home, a key lesson Zach and his team have learned is to resist pity when it comes to outreach. When people are on the margins, most people’s typical response is pity. Yet when a meal is shared, tones of mutuality and equity begin to even the playing field. Everyone is bringing something to the (literal and metaphorical) table; working together rather than one doing something for the other.
When it comes to loving our marginalized neighbors within our communities, we can’t require people to become more like us in order to become more like Jesus. This has been key for The Bridge’s outreach initiatives. Zach would encourage anyone to consider who in their lives feel safer at a distance, or uncomfortable to interact with, and seek to engage those very people. We all have different people who we deem outcasts, even subconsciously. Whether it’s unhoused and impoverished communities or immigrants who come from entirely different cultures, God calls his people to love others without the stipulation that they are the same as us. In fact, it is in the differences of God’s people that we better understand who God is.
For any church or community wanting to love their marginalized neighbors, it has to be one of their top three priorities. Otherwise it will quickly fall to the background because outreach that elevates togetherness is hard work. Yet every community has a majority and a minority, and when we choose to keep pursuing the people around us, that hard work will not only lead to caring for the other but will reveal to the world what it means to live and love as Jesus did.
