In 2002, my brother Mark and I worked with others to plant Westbridge Community Church in a small farming area in western New Jersey. We had no idea what God wanted to accomplish in this endeavor; we just knew he wanted us to start it. People came, they found God, and then they got involved.
We figured whoever God sent us, that was who he wanted us to work with. Three weeks into Westbridge, I told Mark, “We need a lead guitarist. Think you can give up playing rhythm and learn lead?”
“I’ll give it a try,” said Mark, who loves his guitars. Within months of starting lessons, Mark was a staple every Saturday night. Kids ran to him to sit on his lap and the friendless found their best friend in my guitar-playing brother.
When the high school drama teacher showed up and announced she was in, we figured God wanted drama. When musicians showed up, we increased our band’s size. As tech people showed up, our tech got increased and upgraded. God’s hand was quite evident.
Attendance was almost 200 and everyone was discovering and using their spiritual gifts when we got the horrible news that Mark had leukemia. It didn’t just hit Mark; it hit all of us.
Mark is the kindest, most unassuming guy there is. He loves people, he adores children, and they love him.
We buckled under the diagnosis.
Within days Mark started treatment. The doctors said he would get very sick. That turned out to be a gross understatement. Mark looked on the verge of death. I took my turn waiting on Mark through the night. When he woke up shivering, he would ask about Westbridge and have me describe the service in detail to him. I would describe it as if it was the greatest event that had ever taken place and that he was responsible for getting it going.
Our tech guys were hard at work devising a way to bring Westbridge to Mark in the hospital. A video camera was purchased and wireless capabilities expanded. Our tech guys were relentless to get this to Mark. Oh, lest I forget, Westbridge runs totally on a volunteer staff, with an operating budget of $85,000 a year.
By the second Saturday our tech guys pulled it off. A laptop was taken to the hospital and placed in front of Mark. At 7 p.m. the service was video broadcast to him live over our website. It was glitchy, but it worked.
Mark could barely make himself smile, but the tears in his eyes said it all. I ended every service with “Good night, Mark,” and the broadcast faded to black for the week. Our tech team was amazing.
The week of that first broadcast, we received email from folks around the country who had watched our service.
Wait a minute, we thought, maybe God is telling us something new. Each week things got better with the video transmission, and more important, Mark was progressing through his treatment.
Our primary attention was what on what we were doing in our rented worship space. The video transmission was a very small part of our Saturday night event. If people clicked onto our website Saturdays at 7 p.m., they would see it live; after that they could only get the audio replay.
But something was happening with this live broadcast. Men I worked with at the firehouse would watch, people told their friends, strangers stumbled upon our site and watched.
That’s when Steve Bartulovich, our webmaster, started plans for “Westbridge On Demand.” What if we could offer our entire Saturday service to people, anytime and anywhere they wanted it? “On Demand.”
Well, April 11, 2009, one year from Mark’s diagnosis, Westbridge went “On Demand” with our Easter service. Oh, and Mark is prominently seen playing his guitar throughout the evening. His leukemia is gone!
I sit back amazed at what God has done with a dreadful diagnosis. In fact we just received word that our service is being watched in Iraq, on demand.
Pretty amazing what God can do with a church that has no building to call home, and no paid staff.
That’s our God, and he’s on demand too.
—Drew Clinebell pastors Westbridge Community Church in Belvidere, New Jersey.
Copyright © 2009 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
