what I learned today

Right now I'm 'soul feeding' - in my favorite place on my deck it literally feels like my soul is drinking in the stillness of only hearing birds and natural things.  Nothing humanly added in these few moments before my day is filled with beautiful noisy grandkids!

I'm reading several leadership books right now, but I'm resonating most with the book "Strengthening the Soul of Leadership".  I can hardly read a page without highlighting everything it's describing.

The author asks this, "What would it look like for me to lead more consistently with my soul - the place of my own encounter with God - rather than leading primarily from my head, my unbridled activism, or my performance-oriented drivenness?"

Now that's a question to wrestle with!

We ALL have influence!

So many times people think you have to be in some kind of top position to be considered a leader, but that is such a lie!   Mom's and dad's have the greatest opportunity to shape and influence precious human being's spiritual understanding and confidence more than any CEO or top leader will ever have!  People working in any kind of service oriented job dealing with the public have a much higher opportunity to encourage people and make a huge difference in their day, they have way more encounters with the people than I'll ever have!

It's time for all of us to really focus on leading well wherever we find ourselves at this point in our lives.  A time for all of us to take responsibility for leading the people that God brings across our daily paths instead of waiting for the 'big opportunities' that may never come because God knows where He needs His children to work and serve the most!

As I lay my soul bare before the Lord asking Him to make me the kind of leader He needs me to be, I ask you to consider taking advantage of one leadership opportunity we're bringing again to Crossroads in August.  The Global Leadership Summit Simulcast.

Three years ago we decided that if we could bring this event to Mansfield it would allow our staff to all attend a conference together, local businesses to bring entire teams together and for tired mom's and dad's to come for a time of spiritual encouragement as well as professional challenges.

We all have influence!

It's so affordable compared to going away for a conference that it removes any excuse for not attending.  Please consider taking a step toward engaging your own soul, learning new leadership ideas and joining us for a time of worship at the Global Leadership Summit - August 10 & 11 at Crossroads!

Let's change our community by changing ourselves first!

Just click here to get your tickets now GLS tickets. and enter the Crossroads code PHS17TEAM to get our amazing price of just $89 for two days!  Will you join us?!

weekend report

We had a really great weekend at Crossroads!

Pastor Dave continued the Doubting Doubt series which has just been excellent!  We worshipped and then celebrated Mother's Day by taking lots of pictures in our lobby!

Here's just a few pictures of all that went on!

Everyone had a lot of fun taking family pics - thanks Children's ministry
for the great idea!

It was a great weekend shared with family!

Our setlist:

Mother's Day video

Announcements

Blessed Be the Lord

This I Believe

It Is Well

O Come To The Altar

Bumper Video

Message:  Doubting Doubts Pt. 4 - How Could God allow Suffering

Exit song:  O Come To The Altar

To watch our services go to www.crossroadswired.com

To see what other ministries used in their services go to the Worship Community

Doubting Doubts - Crossroads

I FINALLY had a day at home to crawl around on hands and knees and scrub and clean all those hidden nooks and crannies - trimmed a few weeds and now am preparing to head to church.

While cleaning I re-listened to the past 3 weekends of the Doubting Doubts series.

It's been great so far.   The idea that it's not a sin to doubt has resinated with everyone I've talked to.

My church experience growing up was loving but made us feel guilty about everything we did wrong, even guilty about doubting anything that was being said.  I'm so thankful for freedom from that guilt now and look forward to learning more this weekend!

Don't let the Mother's Day celebrations keep you away, bring everyone with you and we'll see you at Crossroads!

what I learned today

I think I may be learning more in this season in my life than I have since I first entered the work force!

Maybe it's because I'm listening!

The book I'm reading right now is about God's Grace.  The chapter I'm in discusses God's anger and his total intolerance of anything evil.  Even when His children are involved in wrong things.

"God gets angry because every form of disobedience always results in self-destruction, and what kind of father sits by and watched his children hurt themselves?"

Romans 1:28 "And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to 'a debased mind to do' what ought not to be done."

This is one of the most convicting passages in scripture when it goes on to list all the unrighteous things God hated that they were participating in.  He lists murder in the same sentence as envy and gossip and slander...convicting.

I've never heard it explained in this way, but it's convicting to think about this - to consider every form of disobedience or sin you can think of leads toward self-destruction.

If I could think and consider before speaking, believing that every word from my mouth, every sinful thought or sinful action will lead me toward self-destruction, you would think it would cause a huge change.

I'm on my knees tonight praising God for His grace!

What I learned today was that God's grace is endless and His anger originates in His love for us!

weekend report

I was so thankful for this past week and weekend!  We had a blast together as a staff, away for a couple of days talking strategically as well as worshipping and goofing around!

And then we got to be part of the weekend as we worshipped together and soaked up the next teaching in the Doubting Doubts series.  It's so good - I was re-listening to the past 3 messages today while I tried to get caught up at home.  I was thankful our messages can be accessed at any time through our website or APP and on the Christian radio.

Here are a couple of the shots I took of our ministry this weekend!

Our communion team is such a blessing!

Add caption

Nothing is better than working with the
man you've loved for the past 40+ years!

We ended the weekend with our security drills - our security team
is the best!!

Our setlist:

Pre-service:   Nothing Can Separate us/You're Here
Video Announcements:
Praise:  Call Upon the Lord
Say The Word
Man of Sorrows
Communion: Man of Sorrows Instrumental
No Longer Slaves
Doubting Doubts Bumper video
Message:  Can There Really Only be One True Religion?  And is Jesus God?
Exit Song:  No Longer Slaves

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

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

Have a blessed week!

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.

far away

You would think when returning from an amazing missions trip like I just finished in Cambodia that I'd be all fired up for Jesus and writing like a maniac about His goodness..

But I must confess, I haven't been able to recognize His goodness very easily due to focussing on things outside my control that cause me to worry instead of trust.  The far away means I've stepped away or chosen to focus on what is not within my power to change.  When we feel God is far away it's us that creates that distance.  And instead of seeing the amazing ways He's providing...

I looked again at MY loss.  Which in no way compares to others around me.

I miss people that are gone due to sin.

Several people asked me how I was doing this week and my response was, "I'm not sure".  That was the truth - the fatigue I felt from travel combined with the sadness made me not want to do anything  beyond completing what needed to be done and sleeping.  And not sleeping well.

But the past couple of days I've again walked back into God's closeness and mercy and grace and He's re-opened my eyes to what the fire is already producing.  The good so far outweighs the bad.

It may not look like I want it to look but as He promises it's even better, even deeper, even more real then the made up reality we sometimes live in.  The things we settle for here have to grieve Him so deeply.  The ways we choose to live, things we find our happiness in, all so temporary and gone like vapor - His grace is eternal and surrounds me!

I cannot wait to sit and worship and take a step back into being surrounded by my brothers and sisters in Christ this weekend.

I've been listening to Kari Jobe's newest album today "The Garden"...it's so uplifting and encouraging - right now as I write I'm listening the song "I will sing" - you really need to listen to it.

I Will Sing

Here are some of the lyrics:

Lord, You seem so far away
A million miles or more, it feels today
And though I haven't lost my faith
I must confess right now
That it's hard for me to pray

But I don't know what to say
And I don't know where to start
But as You give the grace
With all that's in my heart

I will sing, yes, I will praise, even in my darkest hour
Through the sorrow and the pain
I will sing, I will praise, lift my hands to honor You
Because Your word is true, I will sing

It's been a really good day, and I can say the next time someone asks 'how are you' that I can say "I Am Fine!" 

(in Him)!