Yesterday I was able to perform one of my favorite things that ministry allows me to do– infant baptism. Some people were surprised that Crossbridge baptizes babies so, I decided to write a post to explain why we sprinkle babies.

1. We are Presbyterian. Part of what it means to be Presbyterian or Reformed is to be covenantal. Cove…what? Reformed Christians read the Bible with the understanding that God relates to individuals through a people he has set aside. The terms of this relationship that God establishes with his people are called covenants. Through the 6 main covenants depicted in the Bible (Adam/works, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, New) God vows to protect, to nurture and to never abandon his covenant people.

2. We believe that baptism (as circumcision in the Old Testament) functions as a sign and seal of this covenant. The seal aspect points to the fact that through baptisms people are brought into life in the covenant community in a visible way. In Matt 28:12 when Jesus commands his disciples to make disciples and baptize, he intended that those who became believers in his Gospel would have to be immediately inserted into the covenant community for nurture, service and growth. The sign aspect reveals that there is a greater reality which baptism points to. This greater reality is, God’s outpouring of special blessings to his covenant people (we technically say that baptism is a “means of grace”).

3. We believe that adults are brought into the community through baptism after they profess faith in Jesus. Infants on the other hand, that are born in the covenant community (children of members) are naturally brought in through their parents. To deny them the seal that recognizes their participation in the community is to A) narrow the composition of Jesus’ church (covenant community) to people that have the ability to discern B) to be inconsistent with what actually takes place practically.

4. We believe that baptism does not confer salvation. Reformed Christians differ from Catholics that believe that regeneration is initiated in baptism and from Baptist or Anabaptist Christians that believe that baptism is merely a symbol of one’s profession of faith. For us, baptism is a sacrament. Sacramentum is a Latin translation of the Greek word Musterion from where we get the word ‘mystery’. We believe that in baptism as in communion, God graciously distributes blessings to those who participate by faith. In the case of infants being baptized, their parents’ faith. Parents trust Jesus in baptism that Jesus will mysteriously begin to work in their child’s life and that one day Jesus will draw their child to himself and, that their child will one day publicly profess their personal faith in Jesus.

5. A covenant involves responsibility for those who participate in it. As wedding vows bind those who marry, baptism binds the church (the covenant community) and the parents to Jesus’ covenant. For both, it means bringing the child in the ways of the Lord, providing the child a culture of Grace and, godly examples to follow. Lack of faith in participation implies in judgment.

I know that there is room for a lot more to be said in this post and I’m sorry if I disappointed but, let me remind you that this is a blog not a theological journal. I attempted to be practical and less technical so, if you wish to study this topic in more depth let me know and I’ll send you a couple of theological papers. I also recommend this video by Dr.Richard Pratt one of my professors in seminary.

Click here to view the embedded video.

1. Theological Reason – Cities have a special place in God’s heart. The history of the Bible starts with God creating a beautiful world and asking Adam and Eve to populate it. Moreover, God gives them instructions to use of technologies so that a God-honoring civilization would come into fruition. From the Genesis narrative we see that Adam failed therefore, God the Father sends God the Son to pick things up where Adam left off. Jesus is successful in his mission and the Bible ends with exactly what God intended since the beginning — a God-honoring city. For this reason, the concentration of the apostolic work in the New Testament is done in cities and for cities. The simple reason is that if cities are changed, whole regions will be changed. Miami is a world class city therefore, an important place to be.

2. Missiological Reason – “Miami is a church grave yard” was what a local pastor said to me during my first days in the city (I guess he wanted to encourage me… don’t know). You know what? He’s right. When I moved to Miami (just two years ago) the city was known as the second most unchurched city in the country. Apparently (from what I hear) it has recently become number 1. 40 years ago the city lost its spiritual north (or should I say east) as Latinos moved in in droves and the Anglo filled churches failed not contextualize the gospel to the changing culture. If fact, many Anglos took the opportunity to move out in disgust of the new enviroment. The result is what we see. The catholic archdiocese alone closed 10 churches last year. The properties are now up for sale. Our presbytery has closed more churches in the last ten years than it has planted new churches and I assume it hasn’t been much different with the other denominations. Miami is a virgin mission field much like Europe or even the Amazon. I live in a true post-christian city that is in desperate need of many new Gospel DNA churches and para-churches.

3. Practical Reason -  Miami in my opinion is the most influential city in Latin-America as well as the future of the U.S. Last year The Census Bureau released a survey indicating that by the year 2050 the Anglo population will no longer be a majority group. In the same research we learn that the Latino population is the fastest growing ethnic trend in America which means that what you see now here in Miami you will begin to see across the country in other large urban concentrations. Miami is over 70% Latino and probably the only city where the movers and shakers (politicians, entrepreneurs, artists) are of Latin descent. In most the country Latins are mostly blue collar folks but, that won’t remain as it is for long.

I know of leaders that warned the church 3 to 4 decades ago of this present scenario. The church did not listen so… this is where we are found. I believe we have a great opportunity in our hands to impact a whole region as well as the future of America with the Gospel. If we let go maybe, we will see what we now see in Europe.

I was good for me to share with them because it reminds me of the reasons God brought me here.

When we set out to start the Brickell site a month and a half ago, I confess that the attitude was one of launching a campus that looked and moved exactly like our main Pinecrest location. A few weeks into the gig my wife and I looked at each other while driving our way up for the Sunday night gathering and, in an unspoken way agreed that we have seen this movie before. The movie title is “church planting strikes back”. If counted as a plant, this will be our fourth experience. Which means that by now we should have learned that church planting in order to be effective needs to be (3 things).

1. Missional. It has to operate out of need. You and your people have to know this and constantly be reminded that a church in that location is crucial for that area’s gospel transformation. You and your team have to be reminded during the hardships that a church will always will face. Without it (this sense of need to be missional) discouragement can easily creep in a destroy the vision. You and your people have to have a larger sense of purpose for being there other than just to grow your “enterprise”. So, mission comes first.

2. Incarnational. One of the “duh” moments for me lately has been the “- of course they are a different crowd!” A few weeks in I’ve noticed that the people that live in Brickell operate differently than our South Miami/ Pinecrest/ Kendall crowd and because this is true, they respond differently. I have been reminded that there’s always a need to adjust to the group your trying to reach. This is called contextualization and contextualization, always follow mission.

3. Personal/ Relational. Call it one these two. Yesterday I was reminded that my team and I have to spend more time in Brickell with the people of Brickell. It’s only through face to face time that your able to contextualize the ministry to the people you’re trying to reach. Through introductions and conversations you will see, taste and hear the sounds of their spiritual groanings and moanings. First, it’s necessary to assess  in order for you to address.

None of what I’m reminding you of in this post comes out of leadership books or church planting manuals alone. Look at the meta-narrative of Scripture and you will see God moving to our rescue in this exact fashion. In it, we see that the need of redemption propelled Jesus to identify with us sinners and to accommodate the language of salvation in a way that sinners would understand and respond.

I frankly think it’s a great question because it all goes back to our DNA as a church.

Here’s how we see this.

1. There’s a missional reason. If Crossbridge had a corporate approach to church (meaning, our main interest were to become a large mega-church), then we could not afford this new campus move. In fact, it would be stupid because it will take more money, more time and more volunteers to add a new campus  than to add a second service at our main Pinecrest campus. But, since this is not the case, I believe we’re on the right track.

From the beginning we have said that Crossbridge would be a missionally minded church. Our vision from the get go has been  to help Miami become a better city rather than become a great church (borrowed from our mother church here). As a church we have been active in promoting the arts (19|one), in partnering with serveral social justice 501c-3s and, have dreamed to take the Gospel to the unchurched areas of the city. And because this is true, we cannot afford not to add this new Brickell location. Brickell desperately needs the Gospel. Brickell is a vibrant area of Miami with a mix of businesses and residences with nearly 25000 people with only 2 protestant churches with less than 100 people combined in them. The Lord has placed this area of the city in my heart and I have committed myself in the past year to go to Brickell once a week and pray over it. Recently, we were presented with an opportunity that we could not turn down because we discerned it was coming from God.

2. There’s a practical reason. Another reason besides the missional one is that; to add a campus costs more than to add a service but it’s way cheaper  than planting a church from scratch.

We are aware that this will be a great challenge for us. We will be stretched in every direction. Frankly, we don’t even know where God wants to take us in the end, but we are trusting him in this first step hoping that the best days of Brickell, Crossbridge and,  his Kingdom in Miami are still to come.

Hope to see you there Sunday night. If not, pray hard for us.

Yesterday I got a call from my friend Chris. He said: “Listen man, I’m going to be in your area do you wanna grab some lunch over the little french bistro off of 136?” Every so often we get together to support what each other is doing, bounce ideas off of each other and, ventilate what we are currently wrestling with.

Well, yesterday’s topic ended up being “preaching”. For a while I have been trying to figure out the complicated art of preaching. I’ve read books, listened to great communicators and have plagiarized a hand full of them (If you’re reading don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about). All of it because I want to be effective in what I have been called to do week in week out. Preaching is highly dependent on language and culture and because language and culture are alive — constantly changing, preaching is constantly changing. Trust me it’s a huge challenge to keep yourself up at the top of your game.

The biggest challenges for me (which I’ve shared with Chris that afternoon) have been the following.

1 – Tension between effectiveness and pragmatism. We live in a extremely pragmatic culture that has equaled good with what’s working. Or better, what’s gathering people.  I’ve heard it say “sheep go to where there’s food” and that’s fine but, we also have to realize that sheep are stupid animals as well. Just because thousands are going to hear pastor X each week that doesn’t mean that pastor X is being effective in bringing Gospel-change to their lives. I have to tell myself many times: “Don’t go for what’s gathering instead, go for what’s changing”.

2- Tension between who I am and who I like to hear. We all have preachers we love to listen and wish we could sound like. I have two favorite preachers. One is Caio Fabio from Brazil and the other is Tim Keller. I remember that when Caio was around in the the mid-’90’s every other guy in seminary wanted to be like him. They even emulated his tone of voice and his “carioca” accent. Now a days what we have are a bunch of young guys wanting to sound like Keller. They structure their sermon like he does, use the same punch lines and even use the same NY Times illustrations while preaching in the mountains of North Carolina. I know I will always be influenced by who I study and listen but at some point, there ought to be a line that ought not to be crossed. The line that keeps me from being myself. Pulpits are not actor stages.

3- Tension between what I like to communicate and what needs to be communicated. I remember when I pastored my first church in the late 90’s. We had planted the church the inner-city of Recife and one day I invited one of my seminary buddies (the smartest guy in the class) to preach to my congregation. Let’s say he preached a very good sermon, for his ordination exam. In the slums of Recife the dude quoted whole paragraphs of Kierkegaard and Louis Berkhof. He liked those guys but frankly, the people in my church didn’t need them because they could care less about them. I often catch myself communicating things I’m in to at the moment not what people need.

4- Tension between the way I was taught to communicate and the way I need to communicate. I went to two reformed seminaries and at both places I learned the exact same to prepare and deliver a sermon. In one hand that’s good because it helps you to establish key parameters for building a sermon structure but one the other hand, it confines you to a box. Like I said, culture and language changes so structure needs to change. Innovation is the key to keep the word fresh. Think of Jesus and Paul for instance. They were so effective because they communicated not in the way they were trained to communicate but in a way that their audience would “get” the message of the Gospel.

These are the four that hit close to home for me. I’m sure there are others for you… feel free to comment.

Here’s a story I shared in church today. I shared this story today because this is thanksgiving week. This story was shared to me first by mom as an attempt to get me to return a favor, a service or, a compliment. Something that when I was a child, I was really bad at. I have to tell you, it worked. It worked more than the sharp pinches she gave in my kidney section or the severe reprimands on the spot.

The story goes as follows.

There was once a boy born of a single mom who happened to be a very poor woman. She loved her son, he was her world, so she fed and dressed him to the best of her ability by working real hard as a family maid. She had him in the best schools and sacrificed tremendously to educate him all the way up through Law School.

On his graduation day she ironed her ragged dress expecting to walk her son down the isle as his matron of honor. To her surprise, her son had invited his preppy girl-friend instead. So instead of causing a scene she found a seat in the middle of the auditorium to watch the ceremony. During the ceremony she laughed and cried as scenes from all the different phases of her son’s life ran through her head like a movie.

At the end of the ceremony the short old lady squeezed her way through the circle of people that were congratulating the man who had graduated at the top of his class. His friends were there, his professors were there, the owners 0f the law firm he interned at were there; smiling, hugging, posing for pictures and shaking his hand… and, there was this little old lady standing behind him pulling the back of his robe fighting for his attention. At one point someone in the circle pointed to the lady to which he looked and said: “- Hi Maria!” As he dismissed her, he looked back to the crowd and said “-She’s my maid”.