Hey everybody, John Mark Comer here. This is not a teaching. This is a very

special announcement for all of you who follow along with the Bridgetown Church

podcast but are not actually part of our church. You live in another part of the

city or just go to another church or you live on the other side of the world.

Originally when we started our podcast it was just for our church for people

that were out of town on vacation or homesick but over the years our

listenership has grown by a large number and we have podcasters from all over

the English speaking world. I was in dialogue with somebody this morning from

New Zealand who her and all of her friends listened to the podcast and

somebody over email yesterday in Germany and we're just it's such a joy and

delight to us and we take it really seriously to serve not only our church but

kind of the church at large in that way for all of you that listen along to our

teaching and our teaching team. It's so much fun and we just want to tell you

about something afoot back home at Bridgetown Church here in Portland, Oregon.

So our city and the odds are high that your city is similar when you travel

into the urban core where I'm at right now all through the urban core of the

city are these old historic church buildings that many of which date back to

before Oregon Statehood the building that I'm sitting in the basement of right

now first Baptist church dates back to I think 1896 it's just this beautiful

landmark and more right in the middle of the city but tragically over the

years these churches have fallen into disuse and disrepair in particular the

historic churches in our city and these buildings were designed to preach the

...