Monday, May 5, 2008

GO LARGE!

What a huge start to our new series for May, ROAD TRIP!  We had the largest number of adults in our service since Easter.  It was a great way to kick off a new series, and it was great to see so many people in the lobby and in the sanctuary!

As I edited the audio podcast for uploading to our website, I was really touched by how people are beginning to connect at Crossroads.  Relationships are developing between people that didn't even know each other just a few weeks ago.  People are also connecting with God.  We have had many people rededicate their lives to Christ in the weeks since we began services at the Annex.  That's what it's all about guys, connecting people to God and to each other!

I am encouraged this morning as I reflect on how quickly things have progressed for Crossroads in the 90 days since our first service at the House.  Today, just three months after we started, we see a scale model at the Annex, of what ministry will look like at Crossroads in the months and years to come.

Bill Hybels, Senior Pastor of Willow Creek - a church that numbers some 20,000 members today - related a story of a meeting he had 30 years ago with Robert Schuller.  Willow was considering the purchase of some land, and they were nervous about how much money it would cost - and whether their goals were too lofty considering the present size of their church. Schuller said to Hybels, "If you give God a thimble, He may fill it.  If you give God a glass, He may fill it.  If you give Him a five-gallon bucket, He may fill it.  I think you need to give Him a 55-gallon drum and see what He does".

God filled it.  And when they gave him an even larger container, he filled that, too.  God filled our House.  He has filled the Annex.  We gotta give him a bigger container.  That's what the College Cinema is for us now.

But there's another container that He wants to fill.  You and me.  How much of your capacity will you make available to God?  A thimbleful?  A glassful?  A bucketful?  Or a barrel-full!  God wants to pour into us wisdom, ability, and vision for His Kingdom.  And we'll be able to contain it, in direct proportion to how much of our capacity we make available to him.

I want to encourage you this week to BIGGEE-SIZE your capacity for God's influence in your life.  Go LARGE!         

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