Getting to Know Your Elder Candidate Doug Bridges

​My name is Doug Bridges. I was born on June 27, 1966, in Mariposa California. I am the youngest of six children. My mother had five kids in eight years and then oops 10 years later Doug came along.

I was blessed to be born into a family with Christian parents and Christian brothers and sisters. My salvation experience is fairly fuzzy. I was saved at three years old while sitting on the couch with my mom reading a book about heaven. I was baptized a couple of years later. From my earliest memories, my mom would read the Bible to us every morning during breakfast. She did that until I went off to college at 21 years old. 

When I was about 5 she enrolled me in a club, called Bible Memory Association (sort of like Awana now, but less fun). I would earn prizes by memorizing Bible verses. I’m so glad now she pushed me to do that. Actually, I wouldn’t say she pushed me to do that, she just told me I was doing that, but now I am glad she did.

I went through a difficult time in the mid-70s when I was 7–9 years old. We had seen the movie in a church called “A thief in the night.” That movie nearly scared me to death. For the next couple years I think I asked Jesus into my heart every night. I was scared to death that the rapture would happen, and I would be left behind. I remember that if I was playing with my non-Christian friends, I didn’t want to get out my mom’s sight. If they were Christian friends, I felt more comfortable. Thinking about it now I don’t know if I thought I was going to grab onto a leg if they were snatched up to heaven, but for some reason that was a thing for me then. During that time, my mom would even play the piano for me from the living room in the evenings while I fell asleep. I guess I figured that as long as she was playing, I hadn’t been left behind.

I eventually found assurance of my salvation and was able to lead a normal life, but I was pretty messed up there for a couple years. 

In high school, I was really challenged by our youth group leader to make my parents faith my own faith. That was a time of really beginning to grow spiritually during those last couple years of high school.

My junior year of high school we visited Los Angeles Baptist Bible College, now known as the Masters University, a school that all of our kids would end up attending. For me, it seemed awful, and I swore I would never go to college, but God has a different plan. After working for a couple years out of high school, God, I think at the prompting of my mom’s prayers, sent me off to Multnomah Bible College in Portland, Oregon.

That was when Krishelle happened… I fell head over heels in love. We were married on January 20, 1989. We have four birthed kids, three married-in kids, and nine grandkids. God has given Krishelle and me a great love for the people here at this church and a desire to see them grow in their faith.

We started coming to this church in 1992. We helped start the Awana club here that same year and have worked in it ever since. When we first came to the church, we helped in the youth group and I taught the high school Sunday school class.

In the late 90s, I began teaching an adult Sunday school class and have done so ever since. I can truly say that is my favorite hour of the week. One of the things I love about teaching adult Sunday school is that without fail God challenges me and grows me as I prepare each week and teach each Sunday.

I recognize my need for God, in every detail of my life, more and more every day. He is the one who sustains me and gives me hope. There’s a new song out called “Thank God I do” that says, “I don’t know who I’d be If I didn’t know you, I’d probably fall off the edge.” That is exactly how I feel. 

Let me close by sharing a couple of verses with you.
In 2 Chronicles 16:9 it says, “The eyes of the Lord move to, and fro throughout the whole earth, that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.” I am not there, but that is my desire to have a heart that is completely His. 
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I’ll leave you with this verse. Really, I could say this is my prayer for all of us.
1 Corinthians 15:58 “Therefore my beloved brother, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.