weekend report

Our son Eric married Alyssa this weekend which took us away from Crossroads for the weekend.  (You can see Michelle's first amazing picture from the wedding at www.michellearmstrongphotography.com)

When a leader is away, the highest hope is that the ministry is healthy enough not to depend on them in order to carry on.  I have NEVER been more proud of our team's then I was this weekend in my absence!!

We are fully dedicated to developing the next generation for our Lord and for our ministry.  This weekend we had THREE worship teams leading simultaneously!  What a testimony to God's almighty hand on our ministry and the leaders that I am surrounded by!

And the thing I am MOST excited about is that they are teams lead by peers not staff in the various areas of our ministry, a 4th and 5th grade band, the youth band and the main adult worship area - this breathes of spiritual health and blessing from our God!!  15 years in the making!

Please look at these beautiful leaders and be as blessed as I am !!

To see what other ministries used in their worship services this weekend go to www.theworshipcommunity.com!

my son gets married

My son gets married this weekend.

He has been out of the house for quite some time now so at least we don't have to get used to a silent house.  It is already silent most of the time.

There are good aspects of silence, it means that there is peace not disagreement, you can learn better in silence, read and listen better in silence and rest of course.  So it's not his marriage that causes silence in our home we choose silence.

What our son's marriage does create is a new era of family.  A beautiful daughter-in-law, Alyssa joins us.

Alyssa is kind, considerate, cares deeply for others, works hard, is very intelligent, loves the Lord and is beautiful in every way!  I can only imagine how gorgeous a bride she will be!  Our son is blessed and so are we!

This marriage will make Eric so happy, so satisfied and so complete that I want it for him almost as much as he does!

Today as I physically begin to prepare for it, I am praising Yahweh for His goodness to our family.  As we make ourselves ready I am worshipping my Savior, my God, for His blessings.  For they come not as a result of anything we have done, but from the richness of His never ending love.  A love that shows us how to live, how to love and leads us toward eternity with hearts overflowing with gratitude to Him.

My son gets married this weekend ....and we are ready to celebrate this magnificent union.

Matthew 19.5
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’.

what i learned today

If a day passes that I don't learn something - then shame on me!

1. Today I learned how to cook sliced butternut squash directly on the grill.
2. I learned (again) the overwhelming burden of creating Christmas at Crossroads needs to be handed to the Lord in prayer instead of trying so hard in my own power!
3. I learned how much I love organizing events - even small ones like our son's rehearsal dinner.
4. I learned that even when things look clean from a distance they can be dirty up close.  I got down on the floor to put some things away and noticed the bottom half of my fridge was disgusting...now it's clean!
5. I learned when a recipe says 'butter should be soft" it definitely does not mean melted!
6. I learned I love my parents more every day and cherished the moments tonight as my amazing husband and I sat across the table from them and talked and ate together.

My favorite learn today was number 4, because it reminded me of my life.

From a distance it can look so good and clean - but the close up God sees is sadly lacking.  I care about that, and want to clean it up.  The other thing I need to learn and remember is the clean up never ends.  It requires daily focus on the details of my day - awareness of God's will and a willingness to step into that instead of my own agenda is the daily requirement.

What I learned today is learning never stops, or at least shouldn't!

weekend report

Pastor Tim was back in the pulpit completing over a year in I Corinthians!  We celebrated the fact that our congregation has individually adopted 48 Cambodian orphans with Asia's Hope!  Pastor Tim and team just returned from dedicating the 2 new orphanages last week!  So much to praise the Lord for!!

Our team was amazing as usual and we DID worship!!

With the serious, there of course is always a little fun mixed in at Crossroads...Our geico commercials continued with a really bad rap!  A very undignified - yet willing Wendell Anderson became our most recent staff member to take one for the team!  And yes...his flip flops DO light up!

Our setlist

Opening Song: Glory To God - Fee
Praise: My Savior Lives - Newlife
Worship: Holy - Matt Redman
Worship: More Than Amazing - Brewster
Praise: Glorified - Newlife
Geico Commercial/Announcements:  Wendell Anderson Director of Spiritual Maturity (ironic) & Jamie Koenig - Middle School guy
Message:  I Corinthians 16 - Tim Armstrong, Senior Pastor
Exit Song:  Gory To God - Fee

To watch our services live on Saturday or Sunday - or to watch our archived services go to www.crossroadswired.com

To see what other ministries used in their worship services go to www.theworshipcommunity.com

everything comes at once

Yesterday after work I ran a couple of errands related to our son's upcoming wedding.

The first couple stops went well, but the third one...not so much.

I had to pick up paper for the wedding programs that will be printed on Monday.  So I attempted to do that without having Eric and Alyssa with me to approve it.


 And everything happened at once...

I have prescription sunglasses so I sometimes don't realize I still have them on when I go into stores.  After walking across the parking lot and into the store, finally finding the correct aisle and the card-stock, I realized I still had them on when I couldn't distinguish what color the paper was.  I was too mad at my oversight to go back out.  So I held the paper 2" from my face with glasses removed and tried to decide what was what.  My husband called to see where I was.  With husband on phone, I finally received assistance from a gigantic clerk-boy,  at the same time my purse randomly decided to fall apart hitting the floor sending the contents flying everywhere.  While I scrambled to grab lipgloss', gum and mints the clerk looked at me as if to beg dismissal and so I waved him away.  Recovering from the spill the phone back to my ear to continue talking to my husband who by now had hung up,  two texts came in one after the other.

One of the texts was from my son approving the kind of paper they wanted for their wedding program the answer coming after taking pictures on my camera and sending them for a decision, sadly I still had one more question "ivory or white".  I prepared that last question and hit send and the text would not go...with broken purse under arm, and glasses in hand I walked back to the front of the store by the windows trying to force the text.  Pacing back and forth looking for a 'zone' that would send it I nearly tripped over a ridiculously placed low display.  Finally 'sent' came up.  Back I went to the paper area of the store.

Next the girl who is doing the printing responded to my previous text which required me to lay everything back down yet again.

Then my son's text came "ivory please" and "thank you so much".  I took some solace in his appreciation.

Choice made I had one more moment of angst as I thought they only had one package of the kind of paper we chose, but back behind the shelf I spied one more.  SERIOUSLY, looking back on the situation I think I ran full blast to the checkout guy - who started pointing to every object on the entire display/cash register counter asking me if I needed any of them.   This was a moment of Christian decision, do I simply respond "no thank you" or rip his little head off...sorry.   I chose to retain my Christian-ese.

All this to say, I'm reconsidering technology and wondering if I should always just leave my phone, iPad and computer in the car while I shop...or eat...or go home...or everything.  It is sometimes just too much when everything comes at once!.

the project

My daughter is working on a project that she will use as part of her thesis for her masters degree.  A large part of the project will be completed in Cambodia next summer.

The project must be designed to be of benefit to the beautiful people of that county and of course will involve music and recording.

She must however make absolutely sure that it addresses a need that they have, causes improvement for them and is something that they desire.  It won't be about her forcing them to participate in American plans.

Even the end result of things as fleeting as thesis' are known by the Lord.

It's difficult to wait for the end result, all that is in our power is to begin.  And when I think about it, that's all God ever asks of us, just begin - take the next step ...amazing.

immunity

As I flipped through the channels quickly tonight I happened to see on the Biggest Loser - a flag with the word immunity on it being raised by the winning team.  It's a familiar word and yet I had never looked up the definition before, so I did.

Immunity Protection or exemption from something, esp. an obligation or penalty:


The definition was powerful!  One of the best descriptions of what Christ did for me that I have every seen.

I have immunity from what I deserve.

No one, or nothing could grant me forever forgiveness except the Lord of Lord's, King of King's and He cared enough about me to grant me immunity at an unbelievable cost to Him. Completely amazing!