An Interview with Jerry: 50 Years with The Navigators
In early 2009, Jerry Bridges sat down with staff writer Becky Grosenbach to talk about his 50-year history with The Navigators for an article for the Navigator publication One-to-One. Here’s the interview in its entirety, with some additional biographical information added in italic.
How did you come to know the Lord?I grew up in a Christian home and one night I acknowledged to God that I really wasn’t a Christian and I asked Christ to be my Savior, sitting home alone. It was just before my second year of college.
The very next week I was sitting in my dorm room doing an assignment and I reached for my textbook when I saw the little Bible that my parents had given to me in high school. I thought, now that you really are a Christian, you should start reading the Bible. I started that night and I’ve been reading it ever since.
Jerry was born December 4, 1929, in Tyler, Texas. He studied engineering at the University of Oklahoma on a Navy ROTC scholarship. After graduation, he served as an officer in the U.S. Navy during the Korean conflict (1951-53).
How did you become acquainted with The Navigators?
After college I went on active duty in the Navy and one day a fellow officer said, “I’m going to a Navigator Bible study. Would you like to go with me?” After that first Bible study I was hooked. Even growing up in church I’d had nothing like that.
While my ship was stationed in Japan there were several Navigators there and I became well acquainted with them. After just six months in Japan I failed a physical exam because of hearing loss in my right ear. I received a medical discharge after I’d only been in the Navy just over two years.
Was that disappointing, to be discharged so early in your Navy career?
Not really. I thought maybe God wanted me to go with The Navigators. One of the Navigator staff in Japan asked me, “Have you thought of throwing your lot in with us?” The very next day I failed my physical exam so I thought God might be directing me toward The Navs.
What did you do when you returned to the States?
I went to southern California to work with Convair, an airplane manufacturing company. I was assigned the task of writing technical papers for shop and flight line personnel. I had to write very simply.
That was great training for what you would do later in life.
Yes, God in His sovereignty put me there to teach me how to write simply and clearly.
How did you come to join Navigator staff?
I was living in the home of Navigator Glen Solum. In the early days of The Navigators, staff often had people living with them. In 1955 he invited me to go with him to a staff conference at Glen Eyrie in Colorado Springs [The Navigators’ headquarters].
While there I interviewed with Dawson Trotman [The Navigators’ founder] and he said he wanted me to come work in the office.
What kind of work did you do?
I was in charge of the correspondence department. We did everything from answering letters to handling receipts for donor income. We were responsible for mailing the NavLog, the newsletter we sent to our supporters. And we did it all with typewriters, mimeographs, and metal embossed plates for an Address-o-graph.
When I came to Colorado Springs, I didn’t intend to work in the office very long. Everybody who came to Glen Eyrie thought they would be sent out again. I used to call Glen Eyrie the neck of the hourglass. People came from all over to this place and then went out again. I expected to go out.
Then, when Dawson Trotman died in June 1956, Jim Downing became like a chief operations officer. Because we had both been in the Navy, he wanted me to be his assistant. I did whatever he wanted me to do.
I was a little disappointed that I didn’t go overseas as a missionary, but in hindsight it was best for me. It used my giftings.
Did you enjoy administrative work?
There was a lot of challenge. I did have a real sense of accomplishment. But I would have to say that for the first few years I felt quite insecure in The Navigators. I wasn’t a campus rep, doing what everyone else was doing. But every time I thought about it the Lord would do something to confirm that this is what I should be doing. So after about ten years I told the Lord, “I’m going to do this for the rest of my life. If you want me out of The Navigators you’ll have to let me know.”
Jerry did get to go overseas when he served three years in Europe as administrative assistant to the Europe Director in the early 1960s. From 1965-1969 he was office manager for The Navigators’ headquarters office. From 1969 to 1979 he was the Secretary-Treasurer of the organization, and from 1979 to 1994 he served as Vice President for Corporate Affairs.
What were some of your most significant contributions during those years?
With the help of our attorneys and some key advisors I was able to achieve some significant things for The Navigators. There are four things that I feel good about.
First was setting up the retirement program in 1972. Some people didn’t understand the importance of this. They’d say, “Oh, Navigators never retire.” But now they’re grateful.
Second was serving as an ECFA [Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability] founding board member. In the mid-seventies there had been some financial scandals among nonprofits so several organizations got together and formed ECFA. I was not what I’d call a founding father, but I was one of the original board members.
The third thing was setting up the Stewardship Insurance Company. I helped set up an insurance company with other nonprofits in the area. That has saved The Navigators more than 1 million dollars through the years.
The fourth thing was bringing The Navigators into compliance with various legal requirements.
This kind of work didn’t get a lot of publicity, but it was very satisfying.
And now you are on staff with Collegiate. What do you do as part of that ministry?
My role with Collegiate is staff development. I distinguish between that and staff training. Training is teaching people how to do the ministry. Staff development is developing the people.
I often spend a weekend on a college campus. I’ll speak to students, student leaders, staff. For students, I usually speak on topics the campus director senses would be especially helpful to students where they are now.
Do you get a sense of what students are dealing with these days?
I don’t have a lot of time to build relationships with students to the point where they’d open up to me and share but I do talk to the staff and they tell me what the students are dealing with.
One thing students seem interested in is discovering their calling in life. Everybody should have the conviction that they’re doing what they’re doing because that’s what God wants them to do. Dentists, pharmacists, Navigator staff—everyone should have a sense of calling. God is the God of our everyday lives as well as the God eternity.
Have you always had a sense of God’s calling?
I sensed God calling me into ministry while I was still a Navy officer. Then I believe God called me in 1955, at that Glen Eyrie conference. I didn’t really want to go on staff, but God convicted me and I prayed, “Whatever you want.” The next day I met with Dawson Trotman and my work with The Navigators began.
In addition to his ministry with The Navigators, Jerry also speaks at numerous seminars, conferences, and retreats, including conferences specifically designed for pastors, missionaries, and other full-time Christian workers. His speaking ministry has taken him to Great Britain, The Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Italy, South Africa, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.
How did you begin writing books?
The Navigators started NavPress in 1975. They only had one book published, and they had Bible studies, but they wanted to get more books. So they were hungry. They went to the Navigator tape archives and selected some topics and reproduced them in booklet form that would fit in your pocket. I have no idea how they selected the topics, what their criteria was. But then Leroy Eims, who started the Collegiate ministry, read a booklet based on one of my tapes called Willpower, and said, “You ought to try your hand at writing.”
I had been teaching on holiness at conferences. So I went to the editor and told him my ideas for what would become The Pursuit of Holiness. He asked me to write a couple sample chapters. He liked them, and I wrote the rest of the book. I expected that would be the only book I’d ever write. Even after the book did well, I still had no idea that I was going to write more.
Then a couple years later I was reading in Ephesians 4 about putting off the old self and putting on the new self. I thought maybe I could do a follow up book on Christlike character. So again I talked to the editors and that became The Practice of Godliness. And that one has sold about half a million copies. The first two have done the best.
After about four books, I thought “Well, maybe God has gifted me in this way.”
Jerry has written 14 books. Trusting God flies off the shelves at the Glen Eyrie bookstore. His latest devotional Holiness Day By Day won the ECPA (Evangelical Christian Publishers Association) 2009 Christian Book Award in the inspiration and gift category.
Tell me about one of your more recent books, Respectable Sins.
Over the last 15 years the culture has become more and more permissive—abortion, homosexuality, couples living together. I noticed Christians were talking a lot about what was going on outside the church, but not as much about what was happening inside the church. They tolerated what I call the respectable sins: pride, jealousy . . . The book has been doing well.
What books do you still hope to write?
I’d like to write something about the beatitudes, but focus on humility. My working title is The Beatitudes: Humility in Action. I did a brief study on the beatitudes in 2007 for a magazine article and I enjoyed working on that. It struck me that every one of the qualities that God blesses expresses humility. I’ve been interested in humility for a long time. It’s the second most talked about characteristic in the New Testament after love, but we don’t like to speak on it. People don’t want to present themselves as experts in humility. It’s an oxymoron.
You can check out Jerry’s books at www.NavPress.com
How has The Navigators changed in the last 50 years?
When I came on staff almost all the leaders had come out of the military and we had pretty much a military culture. We were pretty hard core. We were duty driven. The WWII generation. We believed in hard work. We were motivated by saying “this is what you ought to do.” That’s okay, but it doesn’t serve you over the long haul. And so 30 years ago there was the beginning of a change to emphasize transforming grace, a grace-motivated discipleship.
What role has Scripture memory played in your life?
Words cannot describe the value of Scripture memory. My introduction to the Navigator Scripture memory program came in college, in the summer of 1950, before I’d attended a Navigator Bible study. I went to a church meeting and they had two rows reserved for men in uniform. But there was only one other man in uniform at the meeting. He asked me, “Have you ever tried Scripture memory?” He introduced me to the Topical Memory System.
What are some of your favorite verses?
I’ve come to a new understanding of the Gospel. It is something we need to think about every day. So I tend to spend a lot of time thinking about verses that remind me of the Gospel. Some of the Gospel verses like Psalm 103:12—“as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” Or Isaiah 1:18—" ‘Come now, let us reason together,’ " says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.’ ” These are verses I memorized as a young man.
I also love Hebrews 13:5 that says “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you,” and Ecclesiastes 7:13: “Consider what God has done: Who can straighten what he has made crooked?” Those verses taught me to accept circumstances that I would have liked to change. To trust the sovereignty of God.
Jerry’s first wife, Eleanor, died in 1988 from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, just three weeks after their 25th wedding anniversary. He married Jane in 1989, someone Jerry and his two children had known for years. Jerry and Jane live in Colorado Springs. In addition to their two adult children the Bridges have six grandchildren.
I don’t work at Scripture memory like I used to, but I realized I could have a thousand verses memorized, but I really only use a couple hundred of them. My all time favorite verse is 2 Corinthians 5:21: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
