what Christmas meant

As we get rested up from Christmas, I've had some time to consider what Christmas meant this year...

The emotions ran high!

I went from doubting that it would ever come together - to the excitement or progress, and then felt loneliness under the weight of responsibility  - I went from exhaustion to the exhilaration of accomplishment and then fell into a deep contentment as we were surrounded by family!  I just love the challenge to create and relish the years I've been involved with many other team members working on the details.  The enjoyment of creating doesn't lessen the emotions we experience, but this year when we gave out over 60 new believer packets to people that raised their hands indicating a decision to follow Christ, any worry we had experienced was immediately forgotten and turned to praise!

In the midst of preparing Christmas there were intentional moments of reflection on the true meaning of a Savior born for me...a breath taking realization!

I love the season despite it's hectic requirements - and realize what a privilege it is to try each year to tell the story in a true, compelling way praying it makes the story of Jesus come alive to someone for the first time!

You can watch our service here Christmas at Crossroads

I took many pictures that I'd like to share - they tell the story of the journey called Christmas!

Crossroads Artist Group created light-bulb decorations
for the Crossroads tree at Kingwood

Grandmas helpers with the Crossroads' Christmas
tree!

When your talented daughter writes a book...what a blessing to read this Christmas!
Jocelyn Hunsader, author.

This precious little one was part of our Christmas video shoot!

My talented son Eric Biddle shot the Christmas videos

Our precious friend Kristin playing the part of the doctor in our video

It was a cold video shoot day

Such generous Crossroads' attendees braving the cold for our video shoot

Family all together at the carousel! 

Ernesto brought the house down with "Mary Did You Know"!
It was a definite highlight!

Loved working with these hilarious, talented gentlemen!!

A whole row of my Ashland cousins - so thankful for extended family I love!!

Blessed to have the amazing group The Trio playing in our lobby!

Beautiful flowers for the talented granddaughter dancer!

A star is born!

Good friends for Christmas lunch - Dana and Sue!

Cousins so happy to be back together!

Not sure who likes legos more?

Oliver and grandpa carrying Grandma Forbes' new tv down to her!

Family helping to take all the decorations down and clean for the Celebration services!

Loving being together again!

I encourage all of you with grandkids to let them serve with you and see you serve in the church,
if they grow up doing it they take such pride in serving others and spending time at church!!

This about wraps up my blessed Christmas.  I can't thank all of you who made Christmas at Crossroads a possibility, and all of my friends that prayed for me and encouraged me as we planned and executed the services with our amazing teams!!  Happy New Year!

Christmas prayers

I'd like to ask for Christmas Prayers for myself and our teams as we prepare for Christmas at Crossroads.  We are adding a 5th service this year and I'd love to fill every single service with your help!

Each year my job is to create a concept for Christmas and then invite one person at a time into the process.  This requires that my vision remains strong for the concept and ability to rally the troupes around it, after thinking about it for months.

As each person gets invited into the original process I always begin to doubt myself, so I know this is normal - but it takes God's strength to fully develop a program that delivers the message of Jesus in a creative way while remaining strong in content.

I also know that usually all I have to do after praying like crazy, is to listen again to the music we've chosen and to re-read the beautiful original words that our writer (Jocelyn) has written and I'm again lost in the wonder of what I get to be a part of.

Christmas at Crossroads is a huge opportunity to invite friends that are willing to come to holiday services that maybe are difficult to get to attend normally.  These need to be services that are full of people each of us have invited because we care about a lost community around us.

Please pray for our teams and pray asking the Lord for names of friends and co-workers that you know don't know the Lord - you'll be surprised how many say yes when they are asked by someone they know and do life with.  You have a month and a half to decide who you'll bring with you.  You may be the only person in their life that has the answer to what they've been searching for.

Christmas prayers are needed immediately please!

It's going to a time of some people discovering Jesus for the very first time...the reason we do any of this!