All the videos are free and online at bridgecourse.org. Each guest should receive a Bible, Bridge manual and a How Good Are You booklet. You can find these resources at the Bridge Store for either purchase or download. We’ve found it’s best for guests to have a physical manual, Bible and How Good Are You? booklet for easy access and readability.

Promoting your course is very important. You can promote the course by doing church announcements or emails to the church leading up to the start of the course. We’ve found that showing the “Welcome to the Bridge Course” video during an announcement slot at church on Sunday morning is very effective. (You can find it on the home page at bridgecourse.org). You can also use one or two of the testimonies at bridgecourse.org/stories. This is also very effective and motivates the church to invite others.

We’ve also found that digital marketing has been exceptionally effective at targeting people in our local area who might have questions about life and are open to attending Bridge. Many of these folks would not be comfortable visiting a church service but are happy to access information about their questions online. We use a ministry called Digital Outreach. You can get more information at digitaloutreach.com.

You can also supply your church with invitations to the Bridge Course so they can hand them out to neighbors, co-workers, classmates, family members and friends. You can purchase Bridge invitations and other promotional material at our online store at bridgecourse.org/store.

We offer child care for most of the Bridge Courses, called Bridge Kids. It’s best to have child care in a separate space, not in the same room as Bridge. and have quality people serve in this capacity.

We’ve seen God use our Bridge Kids ministry to draw parents back to the course week after week. There does not need to be a fully structured time, but some prepared activities or crafts are helpful. Additionally, it is imperative that you abide by all applicable state, province, or federal child protection guidelines and laws. Child safety is paramount and not optional.

Because Bridge is designed for non-Christians, we don’t want too many Christians in the group. Each group has 2 leaders and 2 assistant leaders already. And our goal in the discussion is to draw out the guests and not the Christians. Christians sharing or quoting the Bible can effectively shut down non-Christians who can feel intimidated or unfamiliar with the concepts of the bible. When a church member brings a guest or a Christian shows up, we give them a Please Pray card that asks them to hold back their participation during the discussion so that the guests can answer the question. You can find that card at bridgecourse.org/resources. We’ve found that some guests really need their Christian friend to stay with them in the group but others only need that friend to sit with them for a week or two. If that’s the case, the Christian friend might be able to come with their guest for a few weeks and then serve in other ways like with hospitality or child care.

You can run the Bridge anywhere you can get online. We’ve had people run the Bridge Course in homes, college dorms, senior care facilities, retirement communities, prisons, recovery houses, high schools, workplaces, coffee houses, border patrol facilities, and church buildings. The course can be used in most any setting. We have a woman in our church who was a caretaker for a 94 year old man. She asked this man if he would like to do Bridge. He said yes, so after her shift was over they would watch the video and discuss the questions. God opened his heart to the gospel and saved him several months before he went home to be with the Lord.

Don’t be quick to give life advice. The goal of this course is not counseling or even to help them live a moral life. We also can’t expect or require our guests to live like Christians when they are not Christians. Our focus is on the gospel and getting them to interact with the truths of the gospel. When God saves them, it will fundamentally change how they orient and live their lives.

You don’t have to, but we’ve found that eating together really helps to forge friendships and create bonds. If you can’t afford to do a meal you could consider doing dessert and coffee. In the winter we normally run a Saturday morning course where we provide a continental breakfast. We’ve run courses in Retirement Communities where only a light lunch is provided. In the workplace you could just have people bring their lunch. And if it’s during the morning or afternoon you could just do coffee or snacks.

For larger courses, it’s helpful to provide a full dinner. We like to offer our best meals in the first few weeks as a way to encourage guests to stay with the course. You can ask volunteers to help make food or work with local restaurants to obtain free or discounted food. You can also ask guests to contribute some money to help offset the expense. We use low circular tables as coffee tables for each group and provide trays for our guests. This allows for flexibility to expand groups beyond what would fit at a table.

Singing may not work with small courses or in certain locations, but as the course grows and you expand to two groups or more, it’s helpful to sing a couple of songs before the talk. We use one acoustic guitarist and simple worship songs. We don’t want a full band. We sing two songs each week and use 7 of the same simple songs again and again, rotated throughout the weeks. We do not call it ‘worship’, but ‘singing’. We don’t ask people to stand or to sing if they’re not comfortable. But we want them to see us singing to Christ and to hear biblically based song lyrics. We encourage our leaders not to be as expressive as they might on a Sunday morning because we don’t want to intimidate or confuse our guest. The goal is to introduce the idea of singing to our guests. Only after the retreat do we ask people to stand during the singing.

If you’re doing Bridge for more than one group, you will want to have a coordinator or administrator who is not leading a group. The coordinator will want to recruit volunteers for a support team that can help with set-up, food, clean up, on site management, child care and tear down.

It’s important that the support team be joyful and kind in their service always keeping the guests in mind. Guests will experience a taste of Christian community through the love and joy of the support team. The best support people are flexible, humble servants who take initiative, love God and one another.

When doing Bridge for more than one group it’s best to divide by age. It’s also helpful to have leaders and assistant leaders that fit that age range. So if group 1 is 18-35 and group 2 is 36 and up, use leaders and assistant leaders that fit that age range. As the course grows consider using guests that have recently come through the course and surrendered their lives to Christ as assistant leaders. They are great at inviting new folks and connecting with those new to Bridge.

For the first couple of weeks we pass around a sheet of paper to collect names and other info. Leaders should put their info on it as well so the guests feel more comfortable sharing their info. The information sheets are used also to create name tags. Starting the second week, we have name tags for everyone. We normally use stickers for them which are inexpensive and easy to use.

• During week three we announce the dates of the retreat to just get the guests familiar with the idea of participating in a retreat.
• During week four we show a promotional video of the retreat along with announcing the dates of the retreat.
• We also have sign-up sheets on the table so that guests can sign up. We do this from week 4 through the retreat (usually week 7).
• During week five we have someone who has previously gone on the retreat give a testimony.
• During week six we give another retreat testimony.
• During week seven we inform guests that it’s not too late to participate in the retreat even if they can only make some of it.
• If this is your first time doing a retreat you can find these videos and testimonies at bridgecourse.org/resources.
• We let the guests know that they can watch the retreat videos online to catch up on anything they may have missed.

On Friday night, we meet at a central place (usually where you meet for Bridge) and car pool if people are comfortable. Going together helps ensure that people don’t get lost or distracted on the way to the retreat. It also helps build friendships in the group. Each group stops for a quick meal on the way to the retreat.

When there are multiple groups you can do the seating in rows rather than circles if the meeting room is smaller. Welcome everyone, let them know what the schedule will be, when to be back in the meeting room for the morning meeting, and make any housekeeping announcements necessary about your location. If you have more than one group, it’s helpful to have name tags with the schedule printed on one side and their name on the other.

Before each session, tell a Bridge joke. Then have everyone stand and sing a song.

Make sure there is a large enough screen to project the talks on. As soon as the talk is done, break down into discussion groups for no more than 30 minutes. It might be helpful to put groups in different rooms for the discussion if they are having trouble hearing one another.

On Friday night we like to have snacks for people to enjoy after the session. If there are activities at your location, make use of them. We sometimes provide a family friendly movie, a bonfire with smores and play basketball or board games.

During the retreat, you’ll want to offer childcare, just as you do for the weekly Bridge meetings. Again, make sure it is a safe environment. Childcare should only be offered for the meeting and discussion times, and not for meal times, or free times.

As your course grows, it can be really helpful to have a landing page on your web site with all of the information specific to your course like time and location. These landing pages give guests a place to register.

Digital Outreach would be happy to help you set up these landing pages. 

As your course begins to grow, you can consider stocking some of the recommended books for people to buy or just to have.

You can find the books that we recommend in your leaders manuals or under bridgecourse.org/resources.

• You can email us at [email protected].