Isaiah offers immense comfort for his hearers—all wrongs will eventually be set right because of the One to come. But how could this be? As Isaiah speaks these words, Israel is destined for exile and their city will be destroyed because of their own unfaithfulness. Why would God promise such sinful people such a bright future? This week, we will study Isaiah’s prophecy and how it can give hope to all of us, especially if we feel like we don’t deserve it.

Ever since the earliest days of Christianity, the church has sent missionaries. They weren’t content waiting for people to come and see, they wanted to go and tell. Our church is no different. This week, we will affirm God’s call on Steve and Shannon’s life to work alongside Restoration Ministries in Brazil, and see how our efforts align with those of the earliest churches.

When the people of Israel and Judah found themselves in deep darkness, Isaiah's prophecy pointed to a time that would bring peace and righteousness, and a future hope. As we look at this familiar Christmas prophecy this week, we'll see that Isaiah's message of hope stretches far beyond Christ's arrival at Christmas. And in a world longing for peace and justice, God’s answer is not always what we would expect.

This is the time of year when we begin to experience the first few joys of the Christmas season. It won’t be long until our stores and radios will be filled with the decorations and sounds that remind us of Christ’s birth. In these weeks leading up to Christmas, we will study passages written long before Jesus came to earth that detailed exactly who to expect, why He must come, and what He would do when He arrived.

Often, it helps to begin a project with the end in mind—a vision for what it will be like when everything is completed. Along the way, there will be challenges and setbacks that would make it easy to turn around and give up. But by keeping the end of the story in view, we’re motivated to keep going. This week, we’ll study the end of the story of Nehemiah’s building project, and how it can help us with ours—at Bridges and for whatever we are building in our lives.

Following where we believe God has led into our NEXT85 years will require something of us. Throughout Scripture, when God’s people began a project, they each brought what they could in order to help the effort. We will be no different. The dream for our future campus won’t happen without all of us participating. This week, we’ll look at what will be required of us, and the blessing for following.

Every Sunday, we literally sit in the dreams, sacrifices, and plans of people who came before us. We have a place to gather because they built it. But that raises the question: what is our responsibility to those who come after us? If we hope that Bridges remains a fixture in our community, what must we build to ensure that it happens? This week, we will dream about the future of our campus and how we can impact generations to come.

85 years ago, a small group of ordinary men and women gathered with a simple vision: to plant a gospel-centered church here in Los Altos. They couldn’t see the future, but they knew one thing: God had called them to know and study His Word, to love their neighbors, and to plant seeds of the gospel of Jesus that would outlive them. And we at Bridges Community Church today are living proof of their faithfulness.

The question before us now in 2025 is this: what about the next 85 years? What kind of legacy will we leave behind for future generations?

Every person, family, team, or organization is heading somewhere. They might have chosen their direction on purpose, or they might simply flow along with the current around them. We plan to be the former rather than the latter. But where are we headed? As we turn the page from the last 85 years of our church into the next, we remain true to our original mission, and this week, we will take a deeper look into our ongoing vision to display that people matter, truth matters, and the Gospel is our only hope in everything that we do.

We've seen throughout this series that various kinds of prayer align with the types of conversations we have with those closest to us, and thankfulness is no exception. If we don't express thanks in our relationships, we can forget having much connection in them. This week, we'll study a Psalm of thanksgiving showing us why God deserves our deepest gratitude.