The Night of Worship

I LOVE helping to design Easter and Christmas, those include story writers, videographers, talented musicians and band leaders - but working on the Night of Worship feels more like an orchestration of God's people instead of the elements.

The concept is pretty straight forward.  Identify a few creative key elements, suggest a song or two  that need to be included in order for a creative element to work, determine the length of the service, write or locate any spoken word pieces, artists or dancers and ask our Pastor for key scriptures...

But what I love about it most is watching barriers between ministries breakdown, people stepping out of their little box and away from theological difference to visually and physically create the definition of COMMUNITY.

I mentioned to someone recently, I believe God intends to use any negative experience in our lives to either prepare us for something in the future, or allow us to use that to drive change where we see it needs to happen.  That is what the Night of Worship has personally become to me.

I grew up in a protective, loving, small church but the older I got the more I realized we were extremely inward focused, unwilling to join forces in the community with other churches and highly critical of any theological idea that didn't line up exactly with ours.  I am so grateful for their current leadership which has totally changed all of that.  Although I am unwilling to waiver on what I've studied and believe God teaches in His Word about the absolutes of Christianity and am myself determined not to accept every theological idea that comes along even if that is an unpopular stand to take, I think there can be events like the Night of Worship where we get to experience just a tiny, tiny glimpse of what heaven will be like when we can put all that fussing aside about differing opinions, because we'll be on our faces before our creator, completely sorry we wasted one minute worrying about what others were doing wrong.

As we create the Night of Worship, I get to reach out to other pastors, musicians, artists and congregations inviting them into the process...creating together something that will remain in our communities hearts for eternity!

Our first meetings with worship leaders was when we pitched the concept for this year and began to select music together.

We then pre-recorded the main worship leaders to use as our promo - this was an amazing experience!

Next we took amazing Eric and Eric, our video/audio guys downtown to record our pastor's spoken word video - I stood and cried during a lot of this process.   First of all I know how crazy pastors' schedules are, so it always humbles me when we can get them all at the same time to create together! And secondly - the visual of unity it creates for a community is powerful!

Pastors Spoken word video

Powerful unity!

One of the other things we agreed on was to use this gathering as a chance to surround a cause in our community.  We decided that cause would be to help Richland Pregnancy Services purchase their new Ultrasound machine!

I organized an interview with Scott Saunders at WVMC for the Director of RPS and Pastor Dave to begin to let people know ahead of time that we would be taking an offering.

Pastor Dave Vance and Pam Crank

And it made us so thankful when the offering that night was nearly $20,000.00!  This night now was both a celebration of spiritual life-change as we worshipped together, as well as helping to save the physical lives of babies!  To God be the glory!!

Next was the artist pieces of the performance to organize!  When we began to discuss the 'live performance' painting we wanted as part of the Night of Worship I asked Shawn Smith how large he wanted it, he said, "10X10".  Neither of us realized just how huge that would be, but it turned out to be the exact size needed to really have impact in the service!  (My hubby and I had to turn it corner to corner, to get it out the churches' garage doors!)

We sent Shawn (the artist) this picture of the finished canvas
to give him the perspective of size - a little larger than we thought!

The day came to transport it to the Renaissance and man was that something!

We stuck parking attendants flags on either side and followed
with flashers going.

Notice the beautiful blue sky!  We were pulling out within 10 minutes after this pictures was taken but as we turned the corner a clamp on the canvas shot across the parking lot!  And after fixing that  and we attempted to pull out onto the street behind the church all the tape flew off that Shawn had previously painted over, so that had to all be redone.  After stopping and gathering up all the tape a single cloud followed us all the way to the theatre POURING on us!  The canvas was drenched when we got there so we fired up the fans.  I swore the enemy was trying to discourage us or prevent the painting from happening.  I knew then, this is going to be powerful!  And it was!

Shawn worshipped while he painted and it was so amazing!

This amazing painting is for sale at Crossroads until this
weekend.  All proceeds go toward the Richland Pregnancy
Center's Ultrasound machine.

Finally rehearsals began!

Vocal Rehearsals were first at Crossroads

Then came rehearsal the night before the concert...

Everyone worked so hard! 

All the work, all the papers, all the emails, all the calls and discussion was done
and final rehearsal was now!

Everyone had prepared well, so there was nothing left to do but to worship!

It was packed!

Our pastors read scripture

Pastor Dave and Pam Crank prepared us for the offering

Rachel did a beautiful job painting!

Truly a Night of Worship to remember!

I will count it a privilege forever to have been part of this evening!  I believe we presented our best to the Lord and worshiped as one!

unity - Community Night of Worship

Unity = the state of being united or joined as a whole.

This is what we experienced at Crossroads last night.

As pastors linked arms and prayed, as we learned about Light Our City, an opportunity to serve our community together, and as we lifted our voices in worship - we stood unified in Christ.

My devotions today said this, "Christianity is even stronger than a bloodline, it's a Christ-line we all share.  It is what makes the Church body a family."

Acts 2:44 "All the believers were together and held all things in common" 4:32 that they were of one heart and mind"...unity!

I was so thankful for the church leaders that sacrificed time this week to be part of the Community Night of Worship at Crossroads Tuesday night, what a demonstration of how walls can break down and we can stand as one!

Community pastors standing united

The crowd starting counting down the countdown - they were excited to worship!

So thankful for this young man that stepped in when someone had to cancel.
His spoken word was amazing!

I loed this shot of Darin our drummer, & Shawn our bass guy just having fun!

Our Crossroads praise team was such a great part of the night!

As I stood at the back and shot this picture I imaged being together with these brothers and sisters for all of eternity!

Our amazing GoMissions team - worked to explain our Crossroads' Light Our
City grocery shop event and sold shirts!

Stephen and Milo

Brandi and Jon

Crystal, Matt and Kristin

Jocelyn and Josiah

Milo, Dan and Adam

Everyone came prepared to worship together and to bring 'light' to our beloved community!

And we left saying, "It was good to be in the house of the Lord"!

reflections on preparing well

I watched a new team be born this year in preparation of our Christmas services.

Senior worship leaders mentoring younger worship leaders, faithful team members encouraging one another lending hours of their lives to prepare well, a technical team with a new leader solving problems and preparing earlier then ever before.  A new Pastor speaking to us even before he arrives using technology - also caring much about being part of this incredible opportunity to effect people for eternity.   Preparing well.

All God asks us for is our best.



And so tonight we all come together to offer as our Christmas gift to the Savior of the world, our preparation.

It is not just about what our team is ready to present...
-it's an entire ministry poised to welcome people as they arrive who may not have been in church for years, or ever...
-it's special treats for the children in attendance - carefully prepared by loving volunteers that value each child enough to interrupt their own busy Christmas preparations to give their offering of service to the Lord.
-It's volunteers cleaning so that our building God has given us is excellent before the Lord.
-It's men carefully placing each chair in the auditorium so that extras can be added
-it's each person taking hand-fulls of invite cards to invite their lost friends and neighbors
-and coffee hand-picked by the farmers we love in Guatemala all ground and ready to be served

This is His church preparing well

And tonight all of this preparation will become the service that begins the journey of the lost- toward a new born Savior.

leading worship

I oversee the area of worship and anything that falls under Creative Arts at Crossroads.

Tonight I got to watch something I never thought I'd get to see, my son leading worship with a team of students at Crossroads.  Our student ministry band leads this weekend and I cannot wait.

I've watched our son Eric move through school singing and playing instruments.  In sixth grade at Mansfield Christian was his first public performance with a band and the rest is history...

He's been in several bands and always involved in a youth group or college group leading and always faithfully following the Lord.  And now this weekend - I get to watch him lead us with the help of very talented students and one of our worship leaders, Milo.

My thankfulness continues from last night's blog and I dedicate myself anew to ministry as I praise Him for His sustaining grace and protection.  And I'm more hopeful then ever before that under the strong worship leadership of Dan and Milo and Steve and Arnie in the tech area - that we will get to invest in, and train up the next generation of leadership at Crossroads!  A blessing beyond description!

You will love the students this weekend - they're walking with the Lord when they could be involved in things of the world - and it is such a huge blessing to Crossroads!

last minute changes

How do you feel when you have planned and prepared and there are last minute changes? How do you react? Would you say that someones reaction to last minute changes reflects a persons level of spiritual maturity?

This week someone found a song that was the perfect ending to the teaching. This was two weeks after the team's music packets had gone out. A last minute change. But in typical fashion our worship leader, Dan Fleming prepared the music and he and Milo got it out to the band and vocalists.

As we ran through the pre-service sound check tonight we felt it just didn't have the 'feel' that we needed at the end of the message where we had planned to use it. We discussed this with our worship leaders telling them how much we appreciated their preparation, but it was different than we expected. What could we do to simplify it and make it a little more reflective instead of so dynamic and big? They said they'd take a shot at making it what we needed during the run through and if it still wasn't right, we'd save it for a different time. By the time they did the run through, Dan and Milo our two worship leaders had switched the singer, pulled some of the band out of the mix (remember the band prepared last minute this week to accommodate this song), they had the whole song quieter, simpler and exactly what Pastor Tim needed to support his teaching.

Our Magnification staff in the worship area as well as tech, simply work and serve out of obedience to their calling. They don't care what you throw at them if it enhances the message in any way. They are humble, talented, dedicated and live out their calling every time they prepare and lead a service.

The ending song was amazing and honestly could not have been a better support then it was. God is powerful enough to bless equally in meticulously planned detail or last minute changes.

weekend report

Well, I survived one of the craziest weekends in a long time!

I am so crazy patriotic that I was really excited about the opportunity to honor our Veterans. So, we began our service with LeeAnn Rimes version of "God Bless America" during which we ran a picture collage of our own Crossroads Veterans! People loved it.

Next Dan one of our worship leaders, transitioned us into worship. Can I just take the time to say how much I value both Dan and Milo, our two worship leaders. They are such a blessing to serve with. Dan and I have actually worked together at two churches. I was on the vocal team and played keyboards at a Lexington Church with Dan for about 3 years before Dan headed to Crossroads. I later joined him in 1996 and the rest if history!

Hannah, pictured on the left was the newest member on the praise team this weekend! Welcome Hannah nice job this weekend!


Jon Pierce, pictured on the left of Dan is our IT genius! I get to share him with IT to use his talents in the Tech Dept part of each week. This weekend Jon called all the cues and helped with all the Tech details, man, was he busy!!

As worship came to an end we transitioned into our thematic portion of the service with the drama "Problem of Perspective" featuring two of our newest actors, Stephanie and Jeff. The cast was rounded out with Doug playing the psychiatrist (Doug pictured with coffee). People laughed and laughed as they portrayed each spouses spin on the same conversation. It was fun to see how differently husband and wives perceive the same situation. Job well done!

Next, Pastor Tim delivered a home run message full of great illustrations and of course marriage jokes; He finished by teaching us guidelines for successful marriages from God's Word.

We had to add extra chairs and ended up with almost 2,500 people for the weekend! Wow, everyone's hard work really paid off! God was so good!! Our current weekend services will be up on the web by Monday evening at www.crossroadswired.com

To see what other ministries did in their services this weekend go to Sunday Setlists at Fred McKinnon.com