Bridge Building in the Valley
By Susan Thorson
Pastor Ernest Fitzhugh is a bridge builder. Fitz (he said everyone calls him that) started his church 10 years ago. He then relaunched as Redemption Life Center in 2013 to communicate what the church seeks to be: a bridge to all people regardless of their past difficulties, current disposition or cultural background. Fitz sees where people are and works to provide and make accessible the tools and resources they need so they can thrive.
He sees a similar passion reflected in the Surge Network. He says, “[Surge has] done a lot of great things with great ministries in the Valley, really bringing leaders together, pouring into them, making sure that they have the tools they need to be effective in ministry.”
Fitz has shared a long-term friendship with Aaron Dailey, a pastor at Redemption Alhambra on Surge’s leadership team. But it was only within the last year or two that he and Aaron started discussing how they could collaborate in supporting ministry leaders in the Valley. As they shared ideas and experiences, they zeroed in on resourcing bivocational pastors in inner city contexts. Fitz says in his church context it's not as common as it once was for pastors to be in full-time ministry. Today many pastors have a job that pays their bills in addition to their job of leading their church. He says, “I want to help serve those leaders and help them build and be supported in that area of balancing work-life ministry.”
This subject is real to Fitz because he too is a bivocational pastor. He says, “It comes with its own challenges, its own difficulties, its own physical exhaustion. Identifying those areas of burnout is very necessary for anybody in leadership, especially those who are trying to work to provide for a family and even support their ministry.”
As Fitz and Aaron talked about the hardships bivocational pastors navigate, they kept coming back to one particular topic: rest. Fitz said, “It's like working two full-time jobs and still trying to find time to rest. When do we find time for our family? When do we find time for our children?”
So they launched a once-a-month program to provide not just a place to talk about the challenges but a space where these leaders can detox, connect with other leaders who experience the same journey and find some rest. Fitz says, “We’ve created training platforms that they can use to train their ministry teams in certain areas so they don't have to spend all this time writing their own material. We just give it to them and say, ‘We just want to help you rest a little bit more.’”
Through this once-a-month gathering, bivocational ministers from across the Valley are receiving practical help, resources and the encouragement of just knowing that they’re not alone in their struggles. Above all else, Fitz wants these leaders to walk away with hope. He says, “I want them to know that God is surrounding them with people who understand, people who support, people who have different types of resources.”
Fitz recently attended a City to City North America event in Miami where he had the opportunity to hear from ministry leaders from New York City, Chicago and Miami. As he listened to them talk about their challenges, victories and losses, an idea for a new training program came together. He explains, “I'm a church planter, so I want to help others plant. I want to help them be trained. So we put together a group of people who are looking to plant a church in the next couple of years, and we're going to start training them now, giving them mentors. And that all really became a reality just because of how I was inspired in that meeting in Miami.”
Through these collaborative spaces, Fitz says he’s been exposed to a wide array of resources, people, concepts and ideas. He’s been asking himself: “How can I get what I experienced in Miami to the people who come from the same context that I do?” He goes on to explain: “As I continue to have these experiences where I realize you really can trust people from a different context and I can share that experience with somebody else, then we can collaborate and build a bridge. And I feel like that's what God's called me to do: be a bridge builder.”
Sometimes the bridge Fitz builds provides a specific training program or a new understanding of unfamiliar terminology. And sometimes it provides a fresh application of the gospel, and this brings the discussion back to rest. Fitz explains, “That approach to the gospel [the focus on rest] allows you the opportunity to get re-acquainted with the Father. It gives you a chance to just let God be God, let your Father be your Father and then rest. That's what I hope we can bring to other people because that's what they need. We're more effective in the gospel, we're more effective in ministry when we're rested.”
