Showing posts with label Crossroads. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crossroads. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 4, 2019

spreading seed

I'm in my happy place today, spending time in God's Word on my sunny deck.

Watching birds eat from our feeders, dogs play and just exhaling.  It's a very good place.

The devotional I was reading today reminded me that each of us is gifted exactly as God intended so that we can be used by Him for the purpose of spreading His message.

I Corinthians 3:8-10 says, "He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. 10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled[a] master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.

It reminded me that although the Lord is the divine Sower, He places seeds in MY hands!  I don't have to have it all figured out, just be ready to take advantage of opportunities he lays right in front of me every day to sow into someone's life!

I loved this line from the study, " When I'm exhaling and not hyperventilating He uses me to spread seeds."  We are not usable when we're running non-stop and not listening to that quiet voice that allows us to recognize opportunities to spread the seed so the Holy Spirit can do God's work in someone's life.

I had a conversation with someone at Crossroads this weekend who said "as I get older I just look at my life and wonder, what have I done with my life?"  This is the tug at our heart to find our life's work and worth in Jesus alone.  Simply living an 'available' life with a heart surrendered to Him - with time to listen is all He requires.

It's no accident where God has placed you, there are seed to be sown that only your can spread!!


Friday, April 6, 2018

weekend report

We gave out 65 New Believer packets on Easter weekend!

We witnessed 65 people making a decision to follow Jesus.

I really don't need to go into any more Easter detail than that do I?

It makes all the work worthwhile!

I want to thank the Crossroads amazing Artists, Worship Team, guys that helped assemble and hang all the crazy ideas we had, Debbie sitting for hours attaching every letter to that nearly invisible fish line, brilliant tech team, office team that prints everything and helps with everything, the cooking team that served everyone dinner on Saturday night, the creative arts team that designs everything, our brilliant writer, amazing voice on our fantastic original video, and our pastor who  proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus, loud and clear!

Here is what became reality from a few ideas kept in a folder for the past couple years!

letters cut from styrofoam

The Final Word bookmarker


Letters being glued together


The huge book in our lobby
Cascading letters from the book

The final book in our lobby


Large book on stage














Pastor Dave did a tremendous job

Joci and Eric on the final song

Very strong worship!  So good!
I hope you were blessed by the Easter weekend services, and I hope you'll join us as we begin our
I'M IN series this coming weekend!   It's going to be great!

To watch our services on-line go to crossroadswired.com


Sunday, February 11, 2018

watching from afar

I watched the Crossroads services this morning.  It made me realize again how much I love being there!

I marveled as I watched all the amazing praise team members, the beautiful voices and the hearts for the Lord that I personally know.  So many hours go into preparing well each week.  As I watched I thanked the Lord for our ministry and that I get to be part of it.

But one of the things I'll never take for granted is all the behind the scenes work that it also takes to create even one service.  It takes so many hours of preparation and creative work.

The beautiful set design by Arnie was breath taking!  I wasn't there, but assume our audio guy Eric probably helped hang everything and do the work it took to get it ready for the weekend with Arnie.



It's easy to just spend money to buy things for set design - instead we take pride in creatively solving problems and making new things out of old and beauty out of repurposed things others would consider useless.  It's a challenge we love to solve!  Go tech and creative teams!

Next I watched as the graphics that Eric our Arts Director created to support Pastor Dave's new teaching series came across the scene.  Beautiful and thought provoking were the words that came to mind.



Just as I'm proud of all the amazing up-front teams, I'm also very thankful and proud of the behind-the-scene hidden teams!!

Our creative process proves again how God has gifted each person with unique talents that when used in unity bring beautiful glory to God the creator!


Tuesday, October 24, 2017

weekend report and stuff

I decided to include all the pictures that described most of the highlights of my week.

They ranged from musical worship moments, teaching reminders of why the Reformation matters, students dedicated to putting in the rehearsal time required to be an important part of our ministry,  new beginnings downtown - an excitement to see what God has planned, to private family times of celebration and just taking in the 'good times' of family being gathered to love.  I know I am blessed, I don't know why so much - but, I'm beyond thankful for all of these little important things and give all the credit to a God who loves me despite myself!

A time of worship during our Reformation weekend
A visual opportunity of response for our congregation - the doors were covered
by the end of the weekend.  Powerful!

I know I talk about it endlessly, but the students worshipping is a great encouragement to me - I love stopping back and
spending a little time with them too!   This coming weekend at Crossroads will be the first time our students have lead
without any adult leaders on stage!  They work super hard to prepare - I hope you'll be there it's going to be super powerful!



I timed it just right this past week and caught Father and Son
Ritchey installing our beautiful City Center sign for all to see.
A declaration that Crossroads cares about our community and
wants to serve it any way we can!

I can't explain what a perfect description this
visual is of our grand-baby Margot, a princess
dress with a Spiderman Football...all is well!

I don't think I ever see anything less than full-blown joy
when any of our grand-babies are with grandpa!
This was the perfect ending to our week - in Ashland celebrating
my mom's birthday!




Our Setlist:

Announcements - Jesse Rider

A Mighty Fortress
Glorious Day
This I Believe

Bumper Video
Message:  Why the Reformation was Necessary and Still Is - Doctor Dave Vance

Exit Song:  We Believe

To watch our services go to crossroadswired.com

Another blog you would really enjoy is my daughter Jocelyn's blog - you can read it here: 
  - Do

Thursday, August 3, 2017

weekend reports

My schedule has been crazy!   I haven't blogged for so long I was afraid the account was closed down!

Playing catch up by posting 3 weekends at once!

3 weekends ago it was a very special weekend as we prayed over a huge number of students as they prepared to leave on their missions trip to Louisville.  It was extremely moving as we saw the stage filled with students taking steps to draw closer to their Savior as they served.


Crossroads Student ministry preparing to leave for their mission trip to Louisville.
Pastor Dave prayed over our kids!



Pastor Dave continuing our Origins series  - so good!



Two weekends ago our Young Adult band lead us in worship.  I love all of our worship teams, but I find this team so encouraging as I see the generations below us rising up as they lift their lives,  their voices and their giftedness to the Lord!

Our Young Adults not only lead us in worship, but served in our tech areas as well - we started with prayer.








This last weekend the team lead us as we learned about the importance as Baptism!  We worshipped, learned from God's Word and people made decisions to take next steps in baptism!  Very exciting!




I just wanted to catch up a little on what's been going on at Crossroads, and this just scratches the surface!

To watch our services go to crossroadswired.com

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Easter this year

I want to begin by telling everyone thank you that had any part of preparing for Easter at Crossroads.

Those who developed and created the concept of 'the frame'; our amazing musicians and vocalists; talented technical teams hidden behind sound and lighting boards and in the video booth; the brave people that shared their story so others could 'hang up' their sin struggles; the friends that came and hung up 4,000 cards and laid down pens and 4,000 more cards under chairs; the delicious food lovingly prepared and donated so all the people serving 2 services on Saturday didn't have to worry about eating ahead of time; a creative Pastor interested in developing the message to support a different way of telling the precious Easter story; volunteers instructing attendees where to go and what to do inside the building and outside; volunteers cleaning between services trying to make everyone's experience excellent; and an amazing children's staff and volunteers giving up their seats to care for children and make sure they also had a excellent God-filled experience with us.

I wanted you all to know that all of your work was rewarded by multiple people who accepted Jesus and will spend eternity with you in heaven - so thank you for all the work that went into this past weekend by all of you!  Praise Him!!!

Staff taking time out from programming to add higher
legs to our runway!

Arnie and Ron getting the new screen in place.

Precious friends serving and making my life easier!

No one has an excuse not to serve, even a 1 year old
helped me carry our newly painted frames into Crossroads!
Long before our services come together - the design work happens!
We're always working on the 'next thing' in the middle of current projects.

Pastor Dave did an outstanding job explaining the real meaning of Easter and what it means to each of us!


I loved this song withe Biblical footage - way to go Kym!

Amazing praise team.

Tammy was such a brave girl to share her story - other people are already talking
to her about their own experiences with abuse!

My amazing new friends backstage with me, waiting to tell their stories.
These people are some of our Celebrate Recovery service leaders each Friday night such strong
people willing to face their struggles and put God first in their lives!

The drum feature was a hit!

Everyone's cards were private and completely unknown to us who wrote what
but as I removed the cards from one of the services, I remembered that
I saw a very small boy lifted up by his mom hang a card in this area of the room.
I assumed this was his card based on the spelling of 'anger'.  THIS was my
favorite card - precious!

Our Children's ministry is so amazing - and Jeanette Chase made these
among many other cute treats for our Children's workers!
Darren - our faithful drummer extraordinaire!

In the middle of any project we still try to make room for family time!

egg making at Grandmas



















Easter morning before attending church.

Neighborhood park!

Sunday afternoon Easter egg hunt at Grandma Gatton's

Something from the Children's Ministry that turns tongues blue!

Birthday celebration a must!

Mother and Daughter enjoying the party!
It's interesting how personally our families' frames have changed this year...no new pictures to frame of my dad goofing around with great-grandbabies and posing with us kids as well as other unexpected changes.

Time changes what's in the frames in our homes but even more important than any of that is what Pastor Dave challenged us with, what are we holding on to in our lives?  What's in the frame of our lives?  Is Christ the center of our personal portrait?  An on-going challenge for sure not just at Easter but an everyday challenge.