Monday, January 15, 2018

weekend report

Amidst frigid temperatures we gathered as the Church.

It was a beautiful weekend of communion, fellowship, worship and learning more about God's creation of His church and His intention for how we should do life together.

I always think of those I only see once a month or maybe every-other weekend at Crossroads and feel sad that they may never know how God's personal design of the church really works.

God's church is the place where the gifts and talents that the Father gave every single one of us were given to be used.  It's the place where lifting our voices together in worship is the closest thing we'll experience here on earth - just a glimpse, just a taste of what eternally worshipping God face to face will be.  It's the place where every problem you've ever faced can be used to encourage others, showing them that God is in charge, that problems and trials are the very thing that draw us closer to Jesus - trials in our lives are the place we're no longer in charge but really fall deeply into faith in Christ.  It's the place where even those without family can do life in community, discovering in groups and classes who their family in the Lord is.  Those who know Jesus, do not have to do life alone - we are eternal family, we are The Church!

It was a beautiful weekend and I was thankful to be part of it!









Our Setlist:
Announcements

The Lion and The Lamb
King of My Heart

Communion - Pastor Wendell lead us in preparing for Communion

Come To The Table
Christ is Enough

Message:  Is It Yours?  Yours, Mine, Ours - Lead Pastor Dr. Dave Vance

Exit song: Praise Goes On

Please join us next weekend as we enjoy part 2 of our Is It Yours? Series!  If you missed this week's service go to the link below to watch.

Have a blessed weekend!

crossroadwired.com

Sunday, January 7, 2018

a Crossroads Christmas

It's so difficult to believe how many Christmases we've created at Crossroads!  This year was particularly meaningful.

Just the way the live actors combined with the amazing music and pre-shot video to tell the amazing story of God sending us His son, it felt like the story came alive in front of us.  We considered how a human mother was chosen by the God of the Universe to give life to His son.  A mother who herself had spent her life waiting for the Savior of which she'd been told.

During the process of preparing the services, through the discussions we had with Pastor Dave and Jocelyn's beautiful writing, I felt like I understood just a little bit more of how shocking that would have been to receive the angels' news.

The way the Lord chooses to use His children to be part of His story is always amazing!

Here are some pictures of the process to create Christmas at Crossroads.



We had a blast creating the services!  Here
Pastor Dave was doing a crazy commentary keeping us laughing!

We practiced like crazy

We made trees

Ernesto was so good!


Our beautiful dancer

These were some of the paper rocks we made!

I can't even guess how many hours Jackie Crawfis spent
building our set - such an amazing job!

We had an extraordinary string section!

Each song was carefully chosen to help tell the beautiful story!

Abi played the part of Mary beautifully!

Our 3 shepherds - Kevin, Hayden and Eric


 I love Monty's stand-up bass

Our amazing quartet!


Sherri Stewart played beautifully for us in the lobby!

Eric's beautiful video work added so much to the production.


It was an unbelievable privilege to help tell the story and to know that a few people came to know the Lord through our work!

Thank you all for attending, we pray it made your Christmas a little more special!

Monday, January 1, 2018

a marvelous Christmas

We have had a wonderful Christmas, family, church, gifts to share and eating - oh, so much eating!

Take a look!


Eric and Alyssa

An unbelievably beautiful impromptu picture at church of beautiful Trinity! 

Jocelyn, Jared and Trinity

I love my momma and sister Cristy!
Family gift frenzy



All of us at Crossroads together for the Christmas services, below as well - so special!


One of my favorite Christmas pictures~  Just love them more than I can say~

We tuck our family Christmas in between church responsibilities and it always seems to fit, just right!  

These pictures sum up what's most important to us, our own children Eric and Jocelyn are blessings we still can't believe the Lord chose to give to us.  And then you add beautiful Alyssa our daughter-in-law, the woman that the God of the Universe created just for our son - they compliment each other perfectly!

Next you consider Jared, the most unexpected blessing this year.  The story of his discovery of Jocelyn and the way he speaks of God's calling toward fostering and possibly adopting children - the very thing that caused him to begin the conversation with our daughter.   It cannot be dismissed as chance! We're excited about what the future holds for them.

So thankful also to the Lord to still have our mom's with us this year - enjoying good health and many great times this year with them!

Then the adoption of precious Trinity - our newest granddaughter...thankfulness to the Lord for her never ceases to end as we enjoy getting to know her more and more - falling madly in love with her as her adoption into our family became final in 2017.

And Oliver and Margot...they are continued blessings on blessings.  From the minute they enter a room, open their mouth reach out a hand to touch you...you fall deeper and deeper in love with them too.  

As a new year begins I pledge to cherish each minute I get to have with each of our family, taking nothing for granted and praising Him!