WEEKEND UPDATE (FIRE PIT EDITION)

Wow.  Don't even know where to start.  What an indescribable weekend at Crossroads. Now it's my job to try and describe pieces of it.  Here's some pieces that stood out to me:

• I thought worship was excellent.  Nic and the band sounded great (great job tech crew), the song selection was great, the energy was high, the musicianship was excellent, and God was praised in the house!  Great stuff!
• We had an awesome crowd yesterday for both services!  Really impressed by people that get out of bed early to come to serve and worship.  You inspire and encourage me!
• The Lobby Team ROCKS!  You guys did a fantastic job yesterday.
• LOVE our new Children's Center!  Yeah, the building is really cool, but the coolest part is seeing all the people who serve there!  Thank you for loving and serving Crossroads Kids!  When you do what you do, you not only bring life to the Gospel through the love you have for the children you serve, but you also make it possible for their parents to experience the service and not worry about the children.  As a dad of four (who used to be little kids) that's priceless!
• Oh...and then there's this small item: 150 or so people came forward Sunday and said, "I'm not going to carry the weight of the sin that drags me down ANY LONGER.  It's over!"  It was a HUGE moment in both services.  I was completely overwhelmed at the response of the entire congregation!  You guys ROCK, and I LOVE seeing how YOU love and honor God!  What a thrill!!
• And if that wasn't enough...24 people became members Sunday afternoon at ROADIES 101!  That was so AWESOME!
• Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make Sunday such a special and significant day in the lives of so many people.  

There's some things God wants US to do.  But even though we have to take that first step, God is always there, giving us the desire and the power to do what pleases Him (Phillipians 2:12-13).  I am praying for all of you who took that step to clear the "deadwood" out of your own life, and toss it in the fire.  I trust you are praying for me as well.

Next week...communion.  See you Sunday.  Have a GREAT week!

    

WEEKEND UPDATE (032011)

Spring has sprung!  Yea!! I love this weather!!!  Absolutely gorgeous day on Sunday at Crossroads, and even though many were off taking advantage of it, we had a HUGE crowd and two wonderful services!  Here's just a few of the many things that stood out to me:

• Love the new Children's Center!  Our children's ministry team added an additional check-in station to clear up hallway congestion and it worked great.
• Once the video system is installed by Easter Sunday, the Lobby in Children's Center will be an IDEAL place for parents to sit with wiggly or crying babies who are not in the nursery.  You'll be able to hear AND watch the whole service from a comfortable couch!
• TONS of first-time attenders on Sunday!  
• We continued our series about John 15 and what it means to remain in Jesus and be fruitful.  
• We talked about pruning.  Ouch!  Pruning can be painful.
• In horticulture (and, apparently in our lives as well) pruning most often occurs when growth has stopped.
• We had some laughs as we talked about our Westernized approach to Lent, and how Lent can become more about temporary behavior modification then actual life-change.
• Regardless of whether our lives are in the "sweet spot" or we're just bumping along, stuff like major disappointments, financial meltdowns, relationship problems/failures, rebellious children, stubborn parents, failed businesses or the death of a loved one can make us want to RUN and not REMAIN.
• God uses Problems, Pressures and even People to prune us.
• Throughout the Bible, people God LOVED were pruned and disciplined.
• One of the biggest mistakes we can make as Christians is to equate PRUNING with PUNISHMENT.  It isn't.
• God's not mad at you.  He loves you and sees POTENTIAL in you beyond what you see in you.
• God knows (better than we do) in order for us to reach that potential, there are some things we have to learn.
• We're okay with the idea of God pruning away the sinful, superficial or superfluous JUNK from our lives, but none of us want to take a hit to the things WE think are good.
• Sometimes the "good stuff" that we are holding onto with a death grip are the very things standing in the way of us reaching our potential.  We're often afraid to "give up the good stuff", not recognizing that sometimes God wants us to let go of it so He can put something in our hands, or use us in some way, that will make us more productive for HIS purpose.
• When we become fruitful, we become useful.
• Just like it is for a little kid that doesn't want to get a haircut and squirms and struggles and complains, how much God's pruning hurts in our lives has everything to do with whether we hold still.

Don't RUN.  Instead...REMAIN.  Love you.  See you Sunday, and come expecting something GOOD from God!  Have a GREAT week!

WEEKEND UPDATE (031311)

Daylight Savings Time kicked my butt.  Not Sunday, but this morning.  Boy it was dark at 0530!  So dark in fact, I crawled back in my cave for another hour.  This weekend, we had a lot of people out on Sunday and the auditorium during the first service (which would have felt like 0800 to everybody's bones) looked like a ghost town.  But things heated up as the morning went along and we actually had a huge crowd in the second service.  I know it was tough just getting up Sunday.  Hats off to everyone who got it done!  Here's just a few things from the morning at Crossroads:

• I loved worship Sunday morning.  I stood in the third row during first service worship and had an AWESOME time!  I love to sing and praise God.  For the first three years of pastoring Crossroads, I''ve stood in the back and worshipped on Sunday morning.  Guess what?  It sounds WAY better down in front.  I think I'll be there a lot more in the future.  Love to connect with God in that way!
• Same as last week, totally digging the ENERGY in our new Children's Center.  Kid's Crossing is absolutely BUZZING!  Awesome to be around all the kids and parents and everyone who serves in children's ministry at Crossroads!
• We kicked off 'DEADWOOD' Sunday morning, a brand new original series for Crosroads.  It's a study of John 15, and a pretty challenging message for Christ-followers!
• I was sick all week leading up to Sunday.  It took all the energy I had (and quite a bit that I didn't have that I'm sure came directly from the Holy Spirit) just to make it through both services.  I do my best to put everything into the work when I am sharing a message, in preparation and delivery, but Sunday's message was particularly...well, challenging.  That's the only way I can put it.  Jesus challenges a lot of our assumptions as His followers in John 15.  It wasn't a message about puppies and kittens, know what I mean?  
• As someone with the gaping character flaw of wanting (needing?) people to like him, messages like that a hard for me to share.  But I'm comitted to doing it anyway, even when it's hard.  Besides, I didn't write John 15.
• Jesus says, "Remain in me".  All of us (totally including me) are naturally pre-disposed...to not to.
• Remaining in Jesus means making Him "first" in our lives.  That's hard for us to do because we like to make US "first".
• Jesus makes it clear that God wants us to be fruitful.  Knowing Jesus doesn't making us fruitful.  It only makes us a branch.  While being a branch is necessary, being a branch that bears fruit is essential.
• Because the whole point of fruit is to make more fruit...followers are fruitful.

Next week we're going to unpack the whole idea of God "pruning" us to make us even more fruitful.  We're going to talk about how difficult it is at times, how unfair it seems, and we're going to get a long-view of what "being fruitful" means in pratical terms.  This week, join me as I pray asking God to reveal the things in my life that are real fruit, and the things in my life that are fake or artificial fruit.  I think that as we do that, God will show us the things that make us useful to Him and to others, and the things that keep us from accomplishing God's plan and purpose for our lives.

Have a FRUITFUL week!

   

    

WEEKEND UPDATE (030611)

Great weekend at Crossroads as we finished up our series God, Love & Sex!  Here's a few of the MANY things that stood out to me (very random and in no particular order):

• Momentum continues to build as we had our biggest crowd so far in 2011!
• GREAT JOB by everyone who made the Kid's Crossing launch a HUGE success!  Thank you Nic, Janna, Chris, Jessie, Will, Natalie, Rachel, Jeff, Mike Nelson and Keith Wirsing and Terry Brooks and Ali and Watson Glass and everyone I am forgetting to mention.  
• Thank you to everyone who gave so generously to make the new building possible!
• I hope I don't have to go to LOWES this week!
• I LOVE the energy in our new building!  Home to our offices, Kid's Crossing and Crossroads Teens, our building gives us a permanent platform to do the things Jesus said to do and be a vital, contributing part of our community!
• God, Love & Sex was a HUGE series for Crossroads.  We learned things we didn't know, we got practical application for our marriages and our lives, and I cannot count the number of husbands, wives and single young adults who told me personally how the series was life changing for them.
• I love small groups!  Just sayin'.
• I thought worship was great Sunday.  Really connected!
• Great to see old Roadies Jesse and Serena Tait on Sunday with Ollie!  Woot!
• I was worn out after two services Sunday morning and went home, sat down, and didn't move for several hours.  I can only imagine how our staff felt after pouring so much energy into their work over the past month!
• So MANY new faces at Crossroads over the past five weeks!  I LOVE first-time attenders!  I love it even more when they stick!
• Speaking Sunday about the traditions of an Old Testament Jewish wedding and how it mirrors what God did for us was MIND BLOWING!  I could see the connections being made as I looked at your faces on Sunday morning.  Was that not the coolest thing ever?  Do you now know, better than you ever knew before, why the holy covenant of marriage between and man and a woman is the perfect picture of the relationship between Christ and the church?  Wow!
• Some of the scriptures shared on Sunday, in the context of the message we were sharing, absolutely gave me the chills, but more than that, they overwhelmed me with gratitude.  Statements like: "Only my Father knows", and "I must go and prepare a place for you", will never mean the same thing to me.  I'm walking away from this series with a much deeper appreciation for them.  I hope you are as well.

That's about it for me this morning.  Next week, we're kicking of a BRAND NEW ORIGINAL SERIES called "DEADWOOD".  It's a Western-themed study of John 15.  We're going to share a moment during this series that will absolutely CHANGE YOUR LIFE in a totally positive way.  Trust me, you do not want to miss this!

Have a GREAT week!