WEEKEND UPDATE (BOOOOSH! EDITION)

Incredible weekend at Crossroads.  Not sure where to start.  How 'bout some random thoughts?

1. Finished our series ALL IN.  I feel as though we have experienced a turning point over the last three weeks.  We taught about giving and generosity in a way I've never even HEARD about, let alone shared about.  Together we are breaking ground.
2. People rededicated their lives to Christ this morning.
3. People made decisions to go public with their faith through baptism.
4. Pastor Ben Rice rocked our NEXT STEPS class at the Annex.
5. Um...okay...it was just a different kind of service this morning.  No three-ring circus.  No belly-laughs.  No videos to break up the message into bite-sized pieces.  Just us and God.  A message uniquely crafted by the Holy Spirit to show all of us - a church that has declared our intent to practice compassion and LIVE generously - exactly how we're supposed to begin doing it.
6. I was more nervous this morning than any other time I've ever delivered a message.
7. I desperately want to honor God with everything we do at Crossroads.
8. Apparently...so do the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of you.
9. I was BLOWN AWAY by the response to this series, and particularly, our response as a church family to this morning's message.
10. Giving has exceeded ANY two previous weeks EVER at Crossroads.  And it came at a time that the message we shared was NOT what churches always SEEM to share about money, about giving, about generosity.
11. I can't explain it.  I don't know how to share it with other pastors or church planters.  Heck, I don't even understand it myself.  But God is DOING SOMETHING ON PURPOSE in our community, and He is doing it IN us and TO us and THROUGH us, and our only responsibility in all of it is to show up, suit up, and say, "Okay, Lord...I'll do it.  Whatever it is."
12. The "whatever it is part" gained tremendous clarity this morning as we crossed a new generosity threshold by instituting a monthly benevolence offering to be received for widows and the fatherless.  It could not come at a more important time.
13. Though I was very specific about our practice of NEVER preaching or teaching about finances, or giving, or generosity and then springing an offering on everyone - and though our first monthly benevolence offering will not be received until the last Sunday of this month - a family quite new to Crossroads pressed a check into Leslie's hand after the service, made out to Crossroads, for the purpose of seeding our benevolence fund.  The check was for $1000.
14. I feel very small in the presence of a very BIG God.

Guys, this morning, worship was wonderful, the lobby was fabulous, our tech team was first-rate, the Filling Station, Highway 68, the Children's Annex were all rocking.  Staffed by faithful, loving, caring people, every element of a Sunday at Crossroads was executed with passion and excellence.  And then I got up on the platform and bumbled and stumbled my way through a message that somehow demonstrated that God has made all of us responsible for what happens to widows, the fatherless, the homeless, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the hurting, the sick, and the imprisoned.  God has made us painfully aware that we are called to more than merely entertain, we are called to minister the Love of Christ to our community.

In the weeks and months and years to come, let it be said of Crossroads that we are DOING the work, not just talking about it.  In the weeks and months and years to come, as God is seeking those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth, let Him find us DOING the kind of worship He talked about in Isaiah 58, in Matthew 25, in James 1.

I am humbled to serve as your pastor, and to serve God and the those He loves, with you.