“Consider”

Some events don’t fit into the neat categories of a church. Consider 2008 is one of those. Just over a year ago we greived with the Evanger family at the memorial service for Kimberly (Evanger) Raney who grew up at Crossroads. At that service, one word … “CONSIDER” … became significant and energizing to the family and their friends. Kim’s brother David shared his moving and comforting experience following her death and that message has now birthed this benefit event. You can read a bit more from David on my personal blog, or here.

 

Elder Meetings: Distinctive Rules for Discussion

Talking to some members, it appears that there is some interest in finding out a bit more about the work of the Elders. So let this be the first of some random snapshots of elder council background.

About ten years ago the elders adopted three simple “rules” that might, at first, seem to be a bit simplistic. Simple or not they have had significant impact on our decision making. Any participant can appeal to these rules any time in a meeting.

• The “5 minute rule“. No new idea may be “shot down” until it has had at least 5 minutes to live. This helps to stimulate positive, creative discussion. “Let it live” is often heard when a new idea seems to be taking immediate criticism. I can’t say that the majority of ideas make it to minute six, but at least they have a chance to be heard.
• The “they rule“. Names or specifics are to be used when communicating information from others. “They say,” “Lot’s of people say,” “everyone says” etc, are not acceptable. Sometimes “everyone” is in actuality a very small group. It is not uncommon for staff or elders to ask something like, “who specifically has made those statements?” 
• “Talking after the fact” is non-productive and should only be done if new facts come to light.In other words, once a decision is made we consider it made. There is nothing productive in continuing to go back and rehash issues and decisions without good reason.

They say that these rules have had great impact on the effectiveness of many discussions over the past years.

Serve

“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies-in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Peter 4:10-11, ESV)

The fourth of the five words related to our strategic plan at CBC is Serve. We seek to have every member serve one another in ways appropriate to their own spiritual maturity. In fact, we desire that Crossroads would be known as a “church with 800 ministers” as we live out Ephesians 4:12 where leaders strive “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,” (ESV). Each member should be serving each other and carrying out the ministry of the church, which is the natural outworking the pastors’ work of equipping. “Minister” is just another name for a servant, not merely a title for someone compensated by the church (more on that later). In other words every believer in the church is needed to carry out the work of salvation, discipleship, and formation.

We minister to one another through the use of our spiritual gifts (see Romans 12:3-8 & 1 Corinthians 12 for lists) summed up in 1 Peter 4:10-11 as either speaking or serving. The end result of such serving is that God is glorified as the members fulfill their God-given responsibility and move others to deeper relationship with Christ.

As with other concepts, there is far more to serving than we can write here. At CBC there are numerous opportunities to use our gifts from simply caring for one another to teaching in various contexts.

Whom are you influencing towards Christ-likeness inside and outside the church through your service?

 

 

Adding an Associate Pastor

Most are aware that the Staff and Elders have been working through a renewed vision and strategy for ministry at Crossroads. A significant element of our emerging plan is the commitment to more effectively see to the “shepherding” of our flock - encouraging all towards connecting, equipping, serving and  mission. Adult ministries - especially our Sunday Fellowships and Home Groups - will be a very important part of this growing strategy. That’s why we have been seeking to add an additional pastor to our staff overseeing Adult Ministries. You can check previous posts for more information.

After considering more than fifty resumes and applications we are finally to the point of presenting a candidate to the Council of Elders, and the membership. Hiring a new Associate Pastor is a bit more complicated than hiring other types of positions at Crossroads (like Directors or Ministers). According to our by-laws the membership must approve and “call” an associate pastor. Lord willing, we will be meeting with our candidate over the weekend of May 31 and calling for a member vote two weeks later. We’ll have more details on the church webpage soon.

Equip

“Equipping” has always been a key element of Crossroads’ ministries. In fact, it is in the biblical job description for pastors given in Ephesians 4:11-14. Pastors are called to

 “…equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” (ESV)

Multiple very long posts could be written about equipping and training, but simply stated, we develop ministries and programs at Crossroads with the desire that men, women, children, and students be maturing in three areas, which taken together reflect “sound doctrine” at work in their lives:

• Character - life and values marked by proven qualities of biblical maturity.
• Content - understanding the Bible and doctrine in ever-deepening fullness.
• Competence - skill in biblical living, service, and mission.

We desire to equip every believer so that they are growing in biblical, godly maturity. Each one should be skillfull in living - able to serve Christ in their families, their church, their communities. We do it through preaching, teaching, mentoring, discipleship, and sometimes, just creatively hanging out with one another.

We seek to equip every member seeking the greatest spiritual maturity for each by teaching sound doctrine and provoking obedience.

n  How are you continuing to be equipped for ministry and spiritually formed in your faith?

An Experiment …

We often try “experiments” at Crossroads. Some of them go well. Others, not so much. But that’s why we experiment - to discover new, effective means of carrying out our ministry programs and engaging potential new opportunities. As we experiment we find that some things just don’t come together the way we thought they would, or that there are some unique challenges, or that some things work even better than we thought.

One example will be our Wednesday Family Service experiment this week (May 14, 2008, for those who read this blog archive two years from now). We have been discussing ways and means of enhancing the “family” things that make up the church … testimonies, kids singing, baptisms, parent dedications and more. So often these special events get rushed or just left out in our regular worship times. For example, we have 20 baptisms this week … and we can only adequately handle two or three in our worship times.

We’ve been tossing this around as a staff for many months and decided to see what might happen if we created an alternate time for some of our practices on Wednesday evening when so many are already in the building. Of course we didn’t realize we’d have so many to baptize, but we can try to get a feel for how this might work, we won’t have to delay membership for some folks (baptism is a requirement), and we might find a new venue for teaching our children about the worship and work of the church.

Experiments also allows us to see the value in change now and then - especially when we see renewed value in what we are doing. Somewhat ironically, a number of years ago (while still on NE 8th St.) we added baptisms to our morning worship services rather than doing a special service on a Sunday evening. Adding a real baptistry to our platform and retiring the leaky horsetrough was a nice touch too. We had several members concerned we would “devalue” baptism as the testimonies had to be a bit shorter and they were no longer the main focus that they had been. I think most found that it was a good choice. In fact, it’s something we’ll continue while trying to find ways to further enhance the ministry. The great thing is that we have so many to baptize this month!

If you’re around, join us at 7:00 PM. Come early for our inexpensive Wednesday dinner in the cafeteria.

Connect

Jerry Mitchell writes that it is his intent that at CBC “we will connect every member in vital community as we assemble together in large and small group settings”. 

At the most basic that means:  

• We want everyone to be connected to Christ. People need salvation!
• We want people to be connected to Crossroads Bible Church. Membership is important to us.
• We want every member to be connected to one another to such a degree that they can meaningfully practice the “one anothers” of the New Testament.

 Connection is also foundational to equipping, serving, and our mission. We have several ministries that facilitate connecting at Crossroads, and we are committed to developing effective and meaningful places to connect.

n  Where are you connecting with other believers in vital relationship?

 

Jerry on Our Vision

Pastor Jerry Mitchell has a brief, basic, overview of our vision and strategy which he’s posted on our church home page:

We believe that the church is the pillar and ground of truth for this age. It exists for the glory of God to fulfill Jesus Christ’s great commission to make disciples throughout the world. The Elders and Pastors of Crossroads Bible Church have adopted “Building a Community to Change the World,” as our simple vision statement to capture our distinctive strategy to achieve our part in the great commission.

We will focus our energy in four areas of the Christian life to achieve mature discipleship in the lives of believers who fellowship with Crossroads Bible Church. We will Connect every member in vital community as we assemble together in large and small group settings. We will Equip every member through the preaching and teaching of sound doctrine which leads to an ever-maturing obedience. We will train every member to Serve one another in ways appropriate to their own spiritual maturity. Finally, we expect every member to engage in some way in the Mission of the gospel both locally and globally.

These concepts are vital to our strategy and philosophy of ministry which I’ve begun (slowly) unpacking on this blog. One of our highest priorities for the next few years is to revitalize ministry programs so that every member of CBC will be encouraged, and have opportunity for, connecting, equipping, serving, and doing the mission as an outworking of our worship.

I’m excited about what is coming together. It means a bit more re-structuring for our staff (we’ve already done some to accomodate growth), adding some additional staff, and a lot of communication to come.

 

Worship at CBC - A Few Thoughts

Worship is a significant priority for believers. In fact, it is the ultimate priority. It is one of our five key values, and the consideration of this concept alone could (and has) resulted in lengthy books and blog posts. Knowing that most online readers will choke after much more than a screen or two of text, I’d like to briefly highlight some thoughts about “worship” in the context of Crossroads’ ministry. Over the life of this blog, we’ll attempt to periodically expand on these.

We seek to regularly focus the entire church on God his works by considering who God is and what He has done. We come together as a broad community to engage together in bringing God glory in praise, prayer, communion, baptism and expository preaching of the Scriptures. We submit ourselves to God and honor Him by our presence. To that end we have made several commitments that may be distinct from some other churches.

We hold that, rather than targeting a certain demographic in worship, we should understand worship as the broadest common point of equipping, connection, service and mission for the entire church - young or old. To that end we embrace and encourage a blended style of music that might be meaningful across generations, and we hold that the Word of God preached will work in the hearts of all through the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit. We also hold that it is vital that we all endeavor to be worshipping together regularly as an entire community.

• We desire that all believers from Junior High age up, regularly attend and participate worship services. We encourage parents to model and encourage this commitment with their adolescents. (of course, some parents choose to train their younger children in the practice and presence of worship as well). We do have youth ministries, fellowship groups, home groups, men’s groups, women’s groups and other ministries that are more accessible for different demographics.
• We hold that the careful, verse-by-verse exposition of Scripture is the best approach to preaching to unwrap the whole counsel of God for the entire family of God.
• We also believe that the worship services of the church are primarily for believers who should, out of the overflow of that worship, live as redemptive agents in the world. We also believe that unapologetic worship and teaching of the Scriptures will impact those who do not yet believe.