About

 

Bridge To Life Ministries

focuses on the needs of marriage

and relational issues for the purpose

of reconciling men and women

to God and each other.

 

In the past when couples were lonely and hurting in their marriage, they kept silent or eventually gave up on their marriage. There were few places to go that would embrace their needs in love and with encouragement to facilitate healing. Seeds of Bridge To Life Ministries were planted in 1981 when Don and Becky Smith (co-founders of Bridge To Life) were approached by a couple in the throes of divorce. The couple had exchanged vows with the hope and dreams of every young couple, to “live happily ever after.” Yet with years of unresolved wounds that led to increasing hurts in their marriage, they found themselves unhappy and hopeless in their marriage. Although the couple’s marriage proceeded to a legal termination, Don and Becky continued to work with each of the partners. Their untiring efforts continued for months and led to a deep compassion and understanding of the couple’s hurts and root problems.

God worked deeply in the couple’s lives to build what had never been experienced…a commitment to love and be loved, even in difficult moments. Eventually the couple remarried and unified their three children to restore a loving home. This experience of seeing God’s restorative power in this first couple’s marriage and many that followed, prompted Don and Becky Smith to establish Bridge To Life Ministries in 1983.

Since it’s inception, Bridge To Life has offered counseling, encouragement and mentoring for couples and marriage seminars and retreats Bridge To Life has become a ministry that exists for the purpose of bringing people to the person of Jesus Christ through the felt needs of marriage relationships. The ministry’s main focus is on marriages and has three fundamental components: The Heart & Soul of a Real Marriage, course work addressing specific marital needs, a full-time Biblically based, Christian marriage counseling practice in Muskegon and Grace Groups designed to help spouses work through specific wounds that affect their marriage.

Over the years Bridge To Life has identified underlying root issues that destroy intimacy in a marriage, which has resulted in writing the 12-week marriage restoration program, The Heart & Soul of a Real Marriage, (formally, R&R Rebuild & Restore Your Marriage) which is the ministry’s flagship course. Bridge To Life offers The Heart & Soul of a Real Marriage in Western Michigan and also helps train churches to minister to marriages using the Heart & Soul program across the United States and also internationally.

 

We believe in one God, Creator and Lord of the Universe, the co-eternal Trinity; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We believe that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, lived a sinless life, died a substitutionary atoning death on the cross, rose bodily from the dead and ascended to heaven where, as truly God and truly man, He is the mediator between God and man.

We believe that the Bible is God’s authoritative and inspired Word. It is without error in all its teachings, including creation, history, its own origins, and salvation. Christians must submit to its divine authority, both individually and corporately, in all matters of belief and conduct, which is demonstrated by true righteous living. True Christians desire to submit to the Bible and obey God.

We believe that all people are lost sinners and cannot enter the Kingdom of God except through the new birth. Justification is by grace through faith in Christ alone. Good works have no place in justification. We are fully dependant on God for both justification and sanctification. All believers, once saved, are kept by God’s power and are thus secure in Christ forever.

We believe in one holy, universal, and apostolic Church. Its calling is to worship and witness concerning its Head, Jesus Christ, preaching the Gospel among all nations and demonstrating its commitment by compassionate service to the needs of human beings and by promoting righteousness and justice. Its central calling is to become a spiritual community where people profoundly connect with God and each other.

We believe in the necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit for the individual’s new birth and growth to maturity, and for the Church’s constant renewal in truth, wisdom, faith, holiness, love, power, and mission. The resources of the New Covenant provide salvation and empower personal growth.

We believe that Jesus Christ will personally and visibly return in glory to raise the dead and bring salvation and judgment to completion. God will fully manifest His kingdom when He establishes a new heaven and new earth, in which He will be glorified forever, and exclude all evil, suffering, and death.

 

Bridge To Life’s commitment and passion is to strengthen and restore marriages and seeks to accomplish this by training lay couples in local churches and equipping them for effective marriage ministry. We are also committed to offering the local church resources that are biblical, practical and that will meet the needs of the heart in order to bring healing to marriages. Bridge To Life believes that the purpose of marriage is to reflect the oneness of God. Therefore we are committed on not giving up on a marriage relationship. We work hard to make sure that divorce is seen as a last resort and that every conceivable option is used to reconcile a relationship.