WEEKEND UPDATE (013011)

Great weekend at Crossroads!  Here's just a few of the many things I noticed on Sunday:

• I love CROSSROADS AFGHANISTAN.  I love how our folks cheer for those defending the cause of freedom on foreign soil!  I also remember that we have family, friends and brothers and sisters in Christ from Fort Rucker that are still serving in Iraq!
• Favorite quote from Pastor Matt's blog: "Christ is the most important thing in Afghanistan, too!" 
• Biggest crowd in seven weeks.  Woot!
• Children's Center renovation looking GREAT!
• Loved the "W" video on small groups.  "Don't misunderestimate their importance", haha!
• Had a few distracting sound crackles. pops, and hoots early on in the message.  I'm so grateful for our awesome tech crew who got on it and made it go away!
• What a win looks like at Crossroads: Influencing people for Christ (bring on the juice boxes and Little Debbies!)
• We not just performing tasks in church.  When we serve, we serve so that we might win the right to influence others for Christ.
• We're not here to judge people.  We're not here to condemn people.  We're here to love and to serve people!
• Influencing people for Christ isn't just something worth dying for...it's something worth living for!
• A church that's going to influence people for Christ is a church that embraces God's message of GRACE through Christ.
• To influence people for Christ, we're going to have to fight our natural tendency to put people into categories, and instead develop relationships.
• Think RELATIONSHIP, not category.
• Acceptance paves the way for influence (but looks like approval from the outside).  Let's do it anyway, that we might influence people for Christ all the more!
• God WINS, we WIN, everybody but the devil WINS, when we influence others for Christ!

Thoroughly enjoyed this month of prayer, hearing from God, discovery and preparation as we go full force into 2011!  Can't wait to get back to two services each Sunday morning at 9AM and 10:30AM!  Can't wait to kick off our new series God, Love & Sex.  Remember to take your invite cards and invite BIG this week.  Everybody knows someone who is struggling in a marriage or a relationship, everybody knows someone who is single.  For the next four weeks we're going to provide REAL answers for REAL relationships from the Song of Solomon.  Remember...it's not tough to invite someone.  Just say, "Come and see for yourself".

Have a GREAT week!