By Susan Kane, Church Multiplication

The following is an interview with Cindy Mugford, a member of the pastoral team at The Bridge Church, in Laveen, Arizona. The Bridge was launched on March 30, 2007.

Can you describe the circumstances that led to the launch of The Bridge?

In December 2006, Jeff and I left Portland, Oregon, where we had been for less than two years and came back to the Phoenix area to plant. We love the desert, the Southwest, and Arizona. We had some friends who agreed to help us start the church, and one family even moved out here just to support us. We had our first gathering on December 23, 2006, and cast a vision for the type of church we wanted to plant. We went to work on marketing and finding out what Laveen had to offer. We had planned to meet in the Trailside Point School, a new school that was being built in the area that was due to open in January, 2007. Within a month we found out that the opening had to be postponed until March, so we went looking for a starter place until our school was ready. We ended up meeting in the outdoor courtyard of Bougainvillea Golf Club for four weeks, and then we moved into the school on April 22, 2007. We’ve been riding the church planting wave ever since.