Four years ago today major renovation of what has become our Worship Center began. It didn’t take long for the demolition crew to cut through the roof. We’ve been in the Eastgate facility a while now, and I am still amazed at the grace and kindness of God in providing what we have. For those new to the story, these pictures of a hole in the roof represent something of a miracle. Due to building permit issues we thought that we’d be worshipping in a room with a low ceiling and lots of support columns for 5 years before we could build something more extensive. Discouraging, but doable … we were motivated. Then we discovered we had some seismic retrofitting to do … quite discouraging and expensive. Then God provided our team with an insight allowed us to address most of the seismic issues by raising the roof! (It was a bit more complicated but that was the end result). We had to spend a bit more, but it was much (much!) less than we would have spent to complete the original plan and we had great worship space from the start.

Each week as I enter the Worship Center I am reminded of how God can turn disappointing circumstances into wonderful gifts.

This morning in Worship Pastor Jerry Mitchell briefly mentioned a future goal of Crossroads … ten new church development initiatives by the year 2020 - that is “10 x 20″. You will hear more about this in the Fall, but we are creating a flexible plan to accomplish this large and challenging goal through local and foreign projects. While these may be new churches, church leadership training centers, support for a new church leader, or something slightly different, the one thing that they will have in common is that they will effectively and strategically expand the ministry of local churches.

10 x 20 is the outworking of our commitment to mission (one of our five key words). And mission is really the overflow of our worship affecting our personal relationships, local ministry partnerships, and our global endeavors. In other words, as a worshiping community we expect that we’ll be bringing the good news in a variety of ways to the world that begins at our doorstep. We trust that 10 x 20 will be a result of the effective outworking of connecting, equipping, and serving within our fellowship.

This week we welcomed Tom Bell as our newest pastoral staff member. Pray for Tom, Carole and their two boys as they adapt to their new home, ministry, church and relationships.

We also formally say good-bye to Matt Chapman on Sunday morning. A different kind of good-bye as Matt and Amy are heading out to New Orleans as CBC supported missionaries after 7 years of faithful ministry to our youth.  

Hudson Vanker (Youth Minister Donny Vanker’s youngest boy) undergoes a kidney transplant on July 18. The Vanker family is in for some crazy days and nights as Hudson recovers from this incredible surgery - probably in ways that few of us can begin to imagine. Hudson’s life is an amazing story that we all pray will become even more amazing. And let’s not forget Scott Gorill (the donor) who will have some significant recovery time as well. [Added 7/18] Updates will be posted on the Vankers new blog.

Owen Hollingsworth continues to recover from his brain surgery. He enjoys cards, letters and emails though he can’t easily reply right now.

Owen Hollingsworth has pastored our Senior Adults (aka “the Advance Class”) for the past 16 years. He has been something of a “hero” to those of us who serve on staff. After retiring as Senior Pastor of our sister church in Poulsbo, Owen chose to stay involved in ministry joyfully serving as a shepherd ”part-time” at Crossroads. (Those who know Owen understand the quotes around part-time). Pastor Jerry says that having Owen on our team is one of the greatest gifts Crossroads has ever been given. He has been one of those that I hold in high esteem as a mentor.

Regretfully, due to significant health challenges, Pastor Owen has resigned from his position. As one would expect Owen had already identified qualified teachers for the advance class for just this moment, and he’s had the privilege of working with a great group of leaders who faithfully care for the members of the Advance group. Owen certainly desires to be back at worship services, and hopefully he will be able to teach periodically in the Advance class as his strength returns.

At an appropriate time in the near future we will have opportunity as a congregation to express our appreciation to Owen. In the meantime, you can drop him a personal note at ohollingsworth@cbccross.org.

In my Executive Pastor role I answer questions each week ranging from biblical interpretation, theological nuances, and Christian practice to the more mundane organizational administrative (administrivia?) questions. Here’s a sampling of the latter:

• How many can be seated in the Worship Center? Currently there are 900 chairs set up.
• What is the square footage of the facility? 99,900 square feet. Trivia note: walking from the front reception desk to the back doors covers one-twelth of a mile.
• How many computers are in the facility? Including servers (and excluding laptops), at least 60. That includes the computers that run the heating/cooling system, key card system, email, and webserver.
• How many paid staff? 52 full and part-time pastors, ministers, directors, interns and various support staff. Most are listed here and here.
• Are we still looking for additional ministry staff? Yes. We are in an active search process for a Worship leader, a Junior High Director, and a College Director. Related question: Does CBC have an “open positions” list? Yes, on our website.
• How many volunteers are involved in church ministries? Just about everyone else? At least that is a goal! 
• Is it true that Crossroads uses a cell-phone jammer? No. Some carriers just don’t get great reception in parts of our building.

What questions do you have? Put one in a comment or drop me an email (tjack@cbccross.org).

Crossroads comes to the Lord’s Table (”Communion”) regularly on the first weekend of each month. That is also the time when we take up our only collection as a church - for our Benevolence Fund as a tangible response in remembrance of God’s great grace and mercy. The Benevolence Fund is used to minister to those in legitimate financial need both inside and outside our congregation. The fund is primarily managed by the pastors and elders guided by some simple policies developed over the years. 

Without being too specific your gifts have helped to provide food and clothing to numerous families and individuals. We’ve been able to provide needed supplies to some unwed mothers who chose life for their babies rather than abortion. We are able to assist members and attenders with expenses for needed medical or counseling in some cases where insurance is lacking. You have allowed us to aid widows, and even a few orphans. We have single parents with financial challenges. We have even been able to meet significant significant needs on the mission field and we have been able to partner with local churches and ministries in bringing help to areas hit by natural disasters (think New Orleans and Katrina).

We have begun to work through a partnership of local churches and ministries to assess and meet needs of the greater community, primarily through a local office of Love INC which helps assess individual needs and bring church resources to the situation in the name of Christ.

Currently there the benevolence fund has a very healthy balance. Of course the Lord may be preparing us for the challenges that appear to be coming to our economy.

FYI: Some other thoughts on giving to Crossroads are here.

I picked this quote up from another executive pastor blog: “You will never be on the same page unless you have an actual page.” That is something that Jerry and our ministry staff are intentionally working towards … getting our ministry philosophy, strategy and commitments in an agreed upon document that becomes the page we all want to be on. It would certainly be much easier and faster if we were starting from scratch but then where would the challenge be?  

Look for Pastor Jerry to share some of our “page” over the next few weeks.

We are having our first heat-wave of the Summer here in the Northwest. Well over 90 degrees today! I found myself being thankful for the fact that we have air conditioning in our building - something we didn’t have in our old facility on NE 8th Street. (”it never gets that warm in Seattle”).  A Sunday like today would have been miserable for our bodies (though always sweet for the soul). So let’s be thankful for the small blessing that enhanced our worship this morning. Now if we could just turn the utility bill into something small…

Recently our children gave to a special missions project. They were challenged to give only their own money … no parental help expected. Pennies, nickels, quarters, and a suprising number of dollars made their way from allowances, special jobs, birthday gifts, and the like over the course of the month. $706 came in by the appointed Sunday, which means 88 children in Rawanda will be going to camp this summer to hear about Jesus.

At just about every worship service at Crossroads we will call attention to a very simple piece of cardstock … the multi-purpose Crossroads communication card, commonly known as the “Yellow Card” … which is inside the weekly copy of Crossroads Today. We ask everyone in attendance to complete a card weekly (actually, you only need to fill in your name if nothing has changed). And we promise, your information is collected for our use only.

Why is this card so helpful to us? Let me count some of the ways:

1. It lets our ministry teams know you were here! And that is important to us on so many levels. With over 2000 people attending CBC we just are not always able to notice who might be sitting in worship. And worship is important to us.
2. It helps us capture address changes and other information. And we seem to have lots of address and information changes!
3. It is a means of requesting information about CBC membership, baptism or various ministry programs.
4. It is a means of communicating to the staff team. We may be in the e-age and we certainly get our share of comments and questions via email but there are a surprising number of people who still like to communicate using a writing implement. And we read every card, passing them on to the most appropriate ministry team.
5. We also encourage you to jot down anything you would like our ministry teams to be praying about. Every request received is actually prayed for by a prayer team each Sunday morning before the services are over! We also distribute the prayer requests to the staff and elders every week.

So … help us serve you … don’t be afraid … complete the yellow card every week.