Harvest Bible church adopts new name, teaching pastor

To revitalize its congregation, Harvest Bible Church, located at 12120 Chase Road, is making several changes.

Chief among those changes is a new name. Founded eight years ago as Harvest Bible Church, the church was affiliated with Harvest Bible fellowship. 

The place of worship will now be known as Lifebridge Church, a rebranding made possible with the aid of a church member named Kennan Burch. Church leadership requested his help in the transition, knowing Burch has worked with more than 75 organizations as a brand catalyst.

Church leadership chose the new name four months ago after a brainstorming session that had leaders watch a video by EnChroma. EnChroma is a company that creates correction glasses for color-blind people.  

The video depicted reactions once people placed the glasses on for the first time, and the church leadership viewed it as an analogy of their mission to help those who are spiritually color blind.

“We want to be the example of what’s it like to bring your friend across the bridge to Jesus so they can see for the first time from a spiritual standpoint,” Burch said. “Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life.’ So Jesus is the life, and what we’ve decided we want to be is a bridge to that life.”

Another aspect to their transformation is the addition of a new interim teaching pastor, Matt Heard. Heard has been involved with pastoral ministry for three decades, is the president of The Gathering USA, a ministry headquartered in Orlando, and is a teaching pastor at Northland church. 

The plan is to have Heard tentatively serve as a teaching pastor from September to December. He preached at Lifebridge for the first time Aug. 14.

“I’m looking forward to coming alongside such a great group of people as they venture into this exhilarating new chapter and helping them discover the continuing story of Lifebridge Church,” Heard said.

Heard was pleased to hear of the church’s new name because he believes it reflects his view on what churches should aspire to be: vibrant and genuine. 

“When I heard they had decided their new name is ‘Lifebridge Church,’ I smiled, because that name addresses a core hope I have for the role churches could have in their cities and communities,” Heard said. “Sadly, too few people in our culture — within or outside the church — would refer to church as ‘life-giving.’ That’s tragic because Jesus could not have been more clear when He conveyed He has come that they may have life and have it to the (fullest).”

Burch said church leadership chose to invite Heard to be an interim teaching pastor because of his passion for teaching about life and his vision to bring communities to Jesus. Burch also said Heard’s service agreement is tentative, so they could decide to keep him longer.

“He’s the kind of guy that teaches about life, I mean, abundant life,” Burch said. “And so we’re so excited to have him because he sees color (in a spiritual sense).”

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Contact Gabby Baquero at [email protected].