Bridge House News
Many of you would have heard Adrian share last Sunday about the Bridge and the current situation we are facing which if you missed it in summary is…
The Bridge is an outreach of Oasis Church to people living on the margins of society. We are currently focused on working with people struggling with addictions.
A large chunk of our funding for this work currently comes through the council from a government initiative called ‘Supporting People’.
Recently this funding has been taken away, both from us and many other organisations working with vulnerable people across the city.
This has little to do with the quality of support we offer, as our service was recently awarded an ‘excellent’ rating by the Supporting People team themselves.
We now have a gap in our annual budget of approximately £132,000 once this funding is officially removed. We therefore need to find some alternative means of filling this gap and funding what we do.
…in light of the situation we wanted to give an opportunity to respond and become involved.
What can we do?
We’d really like the wider church to pray with us. Most immediately, we do need to find replacement funding to continue running our valuable addictions-focused work, but that is not the full story. We also feel it is right to be looking to expand what we are doing to support other vulnerable people. We certainly do not think that we are already doing all that God has for us to do, or that our work has reached any sort of natural end…If anything, what we are doing now at The Bridge is the most effective and life-changing work we have ever done.
We’d love to talk to you more about the full details of everything we do at Bridge House, but for now here are some recent comments from our residents about the value they place on what we do here:
“Without this project I would definitely be homeless and living on the streets, or at least in prison. This project is run like a family…we all enjoy living here and owe a big support and thank you to the staff and supporters of this project.”
“I’d lost everything; a daughter, a family, a home, and a good job. I jumped from hostel to hostel and in-between lived on the streets. Just as I was ready to give up the last thing I had (which was my life) I found The Bridge, or it found me. Because of their constant support I have realised I can have a life in the future and hopefully live like a normal, free person.”
“I have been living at Bridge House for nine months and am both clean and sober. Without the support of the staff and the programme that is run here I honestly do not believe I would still be alive… I know of no other place like The Bridge Project in Birmingham.”
Right now it seems that we are at a crossroads in The Bridge’s journey. God has been calling us on into a deeper reliance on him – to learn how to hear, follow and depend upon him more in all he is guiding us into. We feel that our current funding situation is very much linked with this call. We are seeking God for what the next steps are for the Bridge and we would love the wider church to be very much involved in this, praying for the Bridge team, for those next steps and for God’s provision as we go forward.
We will keep you informed and connected.
But for now please stand with us as we seek God for what his will is for The Bridge, and for his provision (in every sense) for us to do the work he is calling us to do.
