Oops. I Did It Again!

Now I find out WordPress won’t support twitter updates, or trackbacks to my sitemeter.  It look s like I may have jumped the gun on this.  For the time being (until I leap without looking again) let’s keep the old blog on blogspot.

Once again, look for my blog at:

www.geneoden.blogspot.com

so sorry.

MOVING DAY

This Blog is like your living room the day you move in, full of boxes and junk and stuff, no curtains up yet, and everything in disarray.  Give me about a week, and it’ll look great.  Thanks!

The Tribe Speaks (and needs professional help)

Yesterday I tweeted a challenge for all comers to tweet back what they would put on a church billboard, if they weren’t afraid of offending anyone.  Got some great responses, some delightfully tacky responses (mostly from close friends – does that say something about me or them…or both of us?), and some fairly pedestrian responses.  One thing is certain.  All of you have at least one screw loose…if not more.  

Holding nothing back from you, I present you the entire list of suggestions.  To keep from embarrassing anyone, I have not included the source.  If we pick one for use on the digital billboard (which is highly questionable unless I get about 50 more to choose from), we’ll give the winner a $50 Barnes and Noble gift card.  So keep’em coming right here, and feel free to comment on what you like (and especially what you don’t like an why).  I’ll tell you later what I like and what I don’t like and why.  You go first.  Okay…brace yourself:

1. There are some questions that can’t be answered by Google.
2. Don’t be so open-minded, your brains will fall out.
3. Who’s your Daddy?
4. Crossroads…where ANY nut fits.
5. The best excuse to miss work.
6. Come to Crossroads…Hollie is there.
7. Crossroads, where even the pastor admits to flaws.
8. God is mad at ya’ll and you’re going to hell for this madness.
9. Free Baptism!  Lifetime Warranty!
10. At Crossroads we don’t do church, we share life.
11. We love gays.
12. Crossroads…a place for sinners.
13. Donuts, Donuts, Donuts, God!
14. Holy donuts, this church rocks!
15. We make getting the hell out of Enterprise easy.
16. If you go to Crossroads, you will live forever.
17. Sluts wanted.
18. Our church isn’t FULL of hypocrites (still plenty of seats available).
19. At the corner of church and life.
20. We put the ‘ho’ back in holy.
21. Come and see…
22. We LOVE messed up people.
23. Making Christ approachable since 2008.
24. Hot coffee, holy donuts.
25. We don’t try to BORE the hell out of you.
26. Our donuts are holier.
27. There is a God…and SHE’s cool.
28. Crossroads football, more fun than the BCS.
29. Free babysitting.
30. Crossroads, where you go when you have some ‘splainin’ to do.
31. We enjoy getting the hell out of your life.

Wow.  Um…your comments are appreciated.  You guys are awesome!  As for me, all I can say is, “Oh God, what have I done!”  

Have a GREAT Friday, and LET ME HEAR FROM YOU!!

No More Secrets

If you want different results than you’ve had before – really, in any area of life – it’s pretty plain that you have to do different things than you’ve done before.  Same things, same results. Rocket science, right?

Quietly, we started doing church differently than it was traditionally done in this town. And we’ve had very positive results.  Quietly we have begun to coalesce into a community (tribe) of people connected by a common purpose.  Quietly we have begun to learn how to connect with one another, and we have begun to use new and innovative ways to communicate within our tribe.  Quietly we have reached those outside of our community with a positive and inspiring message.  Quietly we have experienced – and have witnessed others experience – life change.  Quietly.  

Enough quiet.  It’s time to crank the volume up.  Time to let the secret out.  We’re taking a big step to do just that at the end of this week.  Look for it.

 

02-03-08

Exactly one year ago this very hour we had our first official Sunday service/launch team meeting at our house in Gateway. 30 people sat patiently while Leslie and I gave a tag-team talk about all the fantastical stuff we believed could be accomplished if a bunch of people came together and practiced loving God by loving other people.

Though it’s not really Crossroads “first anniversary” (that date will be celebrated August 10th, the day we officially “launched” at the College Cinema), it’s still a remarkably memorable day.  So…here’s some remarks:

Crossroads would not exist without the people that showed up that day and on the Sunday’s that followed.  Most of you still show up every Sunday and make Crossroads work.  Our time at “The House” was a time, not so much of planning and strategizing, but of group dreaming in the presence of God.  Those meetings were sweet and fresh and alive with possibility.  And we couldn’t do what we do now, if we hadn’t done what we did then.

Thank you to everyone who came that first sunny day in February, as we awkwardly sat on stools wearing blue jeans (a first for me on Sunday), and explained (for far too long a time) what our purpose and all 21 of our core values were.  Hopefully, we’ve been able over the past year to narrow them somewhat.  Perhaps they’ll finally be reduced (not by elimination, but by being brought to a boil and simmered over an open flame) to something like: Love God, Love Others, Serve the World – everything else is negotiable.

I’ll never forget how terrified and exhilarated we were on that day.  Many worked all day and stayed up all night until the wee hours to make sure we were ready. Zero sleep – far too nervously excited for sleep.  And before we knew it, the donuts were on the folding table in the kitchen and cars were rolling down the driveway. (BTW, it is really weird having church in your house.  It’s a lot like having a block party in your underwear drawer.)    

We drank coffee and ate donuts, and we shook hands and shared hugs.  Jeff and Rusty played, and we sang together, and Nat did communication cards, and Will ran cues and Max did sound, and we prayed together, and we read from God’s Word, and it all seems like a dream - like it was a thousand years ago, or like it was this morning.  

In keeping with the spirit of what we talked about in that first meeting (how those who came after us were the truly important ones – how we’re here to reach and teach the un-reached and un-taught – how if you’re already a Christian and you don’t like to work, you probably won’t like Crossroads very much – etc.) let’s keep our focus on how we can Go and Love and Serve THIS day, and not make too much of THAT one.  Anniversaries are cool, but really current testimonies (like, who did I share Christ with this morning?) are way cooler.  So pause and reflect, but move quickly forward, giving glory to God not only in the remembrance of what he did then – February 3rd, 2008, one year ago today – but in the importance of what He is doing now.

 

MONDAY MIND DUMP

Sunday was such a great day for Crossroads in so many ways I don’t even know where to start, so I’ll try chronological order.  No…that’ll never work.  Okay, here’s a few take-aways:

1. After spending an inordinate amount of time preparing Sunday’s message, I woke up Saturday morning completely stuck.  But God knew exactly what would happen Sunday morning.  Though I’m getting better at relaxing and trusting, it was still a rather tense day.  Thank God for his Word and the power of the Holy Spirit (see post below ‘Up Late’).
2. What a GREAT CROWD on Sunday morning.  Many, many regulars out and we still had one of our best crowds ever.
3. God did something HUGE Sunday (see previous post), giving was off the chain, right on time, and exactly the amount we needed!
4. Many people rededicated their lives to Christ on Sunday!
5. Great to have the Comm Card lady back in action.
6. Many, many people under the weather on Sunday still WORKED THEIR BUTTS OFF!  What an inspiration. Thank you all for blowing off your very real physical challenges to make Crossroads work this weekend.
7. Saw old friend and his family Sunday that I only dreamed I would see at Crossroads.  Guess what?  They had a FANTASTIC time!
8. Mad props for Filling Station. MANY GREAT COMMENTS from moms and dads about the quality of children’s ministry at Crossroads!
9. Set-up team in sanctuary ROCKS!  Everything looked great.  Cool new series signs were a highlight in the big room.
10. Crack tech staff did a great job yesterday.  Sound was great, cues were right on time, no buzz, no fuss, no muss, and we had a feed from the board through the whole building.  Yeah!
11. Worship band cooked it down.  LOVED the open song!
12. Top to bottom, front to back, yesterday was probably about the best day all around we’ve ever had at Crossroads from the standpoint of doing ministry the way God put it on our hearts, and communicating practical application from God’s Word to help people LIVE better.
13. People STAYED in the lobby after the service.  That’s a big win.  When people aren’t flying out the door as soon as the bell rings, and we keep the donuts out and the coffee on, we get more time to connect.  I love the lobby at Crossroads. (But I do wish it was twice as big as it is.  Someday…soon).
14. Great lunch with a handful of Roadies at the Hut.
15. GREAT BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION FOR JOHN!
16. And, uh…oh yeah, the Superbowl was a pretty good game.  The commercials weren’t nearly as good as they usually are, but it was GREAT to be home on Superbowl Sunday Night, and not at an obligatory church service with a handful of people that a) don’t care anything about what hundreds of millions of other people do, or b) didn’t want to be at church either.  (insert chorus to Aretha Franklin song ‘Think’ here, “Freedom…woh-oh freedom…”) 

Peace.

       

Big News

Okay, no more tease.  I’m going to share something important with you.  Now, having said that, this may not be big news to anyone but me and Leslie, but I can assure you it’s big news to us, and I believe it will have a far-reaching impact on the continued growth of Crossroads.

Now, having said all that, let me say that last week Leslie and I felt very strongly – and felt a great deal of peace – about putting some real teeth into the way we advertise.  So we began looking at some rather large options.  When the pricing came back, we were not surprised, but we knew it was more than the church could afford right now.  So Leslie called them back and said, “Look, here’s what we can afford, what can you do?”  Well, what they did was meet our price.  Not only that, but they offered a package which included an additional option that we did not consider before because we were sure it would be too expensive.

So we entered this weekend, knowing exactly what we wanted to do as a big piece of our advertising presence in the community (not ALL of it, but a big piece); we felt certain that we were hitting the bulls-eye on God’s timing for it; and we knew we did NOT have the money in our possession to cover the initial cost of setting the whole thing up.  Today, this very morning, while the normal weekly  offering we feel we are somewhat able to project was very strong,  there was something else in it.  In this morning’s offering was a large check – one which we did not expect, because it was outside the projected level of our normal offering – that was MORE THAN ENOUGH to cover ALL of the initial costs to get this advertising push rolling!

Having said all that, let me just keep from going completely public with the exact nature of what we’re going to do until we actually do it.  However, understanding you may be getting tired of all this crap, give me a call and I’ll talk to you about it if you want to know.  I just really don’t want it on the blog right now.

Here’s the thing I think is the important take-away:  WHEN GOD GIVES THE VISION, HE MAKES THE PROVISION. Guys, what God did this morning BLEW MY MIND.  I should know better, right?  I’ve seen Him do things like this a hundred times before.  We were dreaming out loud, and while we were dreaming out loud, God had ALREADY PROVIDED everything we would need to make those dreams a reality.

Now THAT, is big news!