When Emma was small, Crossgate was in its beginning stage. The church had not “organized” and was not in its own building.  The normal place for children was in the service and, well, sometimes out of the service if they got too verbose!  Young children cannot be little adults no matter how cute they look in their fine Sunday clothes!  If you might be concerned that the whole world must be watching or thinking about the behaviour of your children during Sunday service, we are not!  

In my day, I was approached by loving “older” members with many an encouraging word.  Now it is my turn and I feel privileged to offer the encouragement!  Your children are learning that it is important to come to God’s house and to listen.  At their young age, this is an important lesson even if they cannot listen.:) They are watching the actions of adults, teenagers, and older children as we sing to the Lord with great volume and sit quietly as a pastor leads us in prayer to our Heavenly Father.  All these experiences get embedded in a child.  I have a fond memory during the hymn singing at my home church of looking around at the throngs of people all offering their sacrifice of praise to their God…..I knew God was in that place.  I have reflected on that moment and now, of course, realize that it was a great gift to be given at a young age.  God is real, tangible and loving.  So, we are glad to have your young ones in the service!

All of us know how Covid-19 has impacted our whole way of life.  I still find it strange that when I go to a store, I see people with face masks on.  I certainly understand why, but it’s still a weird feeling to see this in the U.S.  And then we see how this virus has impacted our economy, affecting virtually every segment of the American workforce.  And as a result, a lot of people are really struggling to meet financial obligations.  But looking beyond these things, we can talk about the physical and emotional impact of this virus on a whole host of folks. Whether you catch the virus or not, it’s obvious that this virus has altered our way of living.

But how has Covid affected you spiritually?   There’s no doubt that this virus has affected the local church.  Churches have not been able to meet together for worship as in the past, and most of the church programs have been put on hold for fear that we might inadvertently spread the virus.  But what about your personal walk with the Lord?  Has your walk with Christ become rather sickly and anemic in the midst of this pandemic?  Is your spiritual life so dependent upon outside Bible studies and other programs that when those are not available, you just sort of hobble along spiritually and become more and more complacent and apathetic?   Are you consistently spending time in God’s Word and prayer, or have these things been sort of pushed aside for the time being?  And what about church worship on Sunday?  Are you staying home for worship because it takes less effort on your part or because you have a genuine concern about your health?  Now don’t misunderstand me here.  We know that there are people in our church who need to stay home and join us livestream, but sometimes I wonder if there are some who are going to the stores and work during the week, but using Covid as an excuse for not coming to church.  Maybe not.  But my point is simply this – it’s easy in times like these, to just sort of throw spiritual discipline out the window and become somewhat flabby spiritually.  (like the Covid /quarantine weight gain!  Have you experienced this?)  We can either focus on doing what feels good at the moment, or we can see this as a great opportunity to nourish our souls and become strong in the faith.    

Listen, these are tough days that we are living in.  They’re not fun and I know that we all can’t wait until we can resume some semblance of normality.   We’re tired of this “social distance” stuff!  We’re tired of feeling blah!  We long for things to get back to normal.  But until then, we have to ask – “How does God want to use this pandemic to feed my soul and to mature me in my faith?”

Brothers and Sisters in Christ – I want to encourage you in these strange times to seek after the Lord with your whole heart.  Get to know Him better through His Word and Prayer.  Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.  Don’t allow the sin of apathy and complacency to infect your soul so that you simply coast along.  Rather use this time to deepen your walk with Christ so that you might grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Why do students come to Crossgate? Well, with many of them, they were invited by a friend or were told to by their parents, but after attending for some time, they recognized that something is different about this youth group. There is fellowship, not just hanging out. There are brothers and sisters, not just friends. There is genuine care for one another, and a recognition that what everyone truly needs is the power of God for salvation, the gospel of Jesus Christ. When one student was asked about what distinguished Crossgate’s Youth Ministry from other youth ministries, he responded:

“As a youth, I feel more respected at Crossgate than other youth groups. This is because the messages aren’t geared around entertainment, but correct teaching on the Gospel. Crossgate is a fun youth group, but they acknowledge the fact that the youth have the capacity to WANT to learn about God, instead of merely being entertained.”

At the heart of the Crossgate Women’s Ministry is the desire to help our ladies deepen their walk with the Lord through in-depth study of God’s Word, worshiping together in church, and building encouraging relationships with one another.

We recently created a new Crossgate Ladies Facebook Group to facilitate consistent communication among the women involved in our ministry.  So many things can be shared within this private members-only group, including prayer requests, questions that may challenge or encourage our spiritual journeys, the joys and sorrows that make up our lives, as well as invitations and news about ministry events, photos, and snippets of personal information that help us get to know one another better!

Some Crossgate Ladies’ posts:

“Let’s keep sharing about ourselves! That was fun last night to learn who was once a former Firefighter, who once was a fighter pilot, and the former mule rider!!! Let’s keep adding our stories!…”

“Thank you everyone who had a part in planning this event. I truly enjoyed every minute with none of the self-consciousness that usually accompanies ‘mixers’!”

“We are thrilled to be part of a Church where people are seeking to follow Jesus and share the gospel with the community and the world.”

Our Focus Groups are what we refer to as “the church in homes.”  This small group ministry provides a unique opportunity for everyone at Crossgate to not only meet new people, but to develop some close, personal friendships with others in the body.  These are special times of fellowship around the Word, sharing and praying for one another, and just enjoying each other over some refreshments.     

Look at what some people have said about this ministry and how God has used it in their lives:

“Being in the focus group has helped me overcome my fear of praying in front of a group of people.”  (Note: you don’t have to pray out loud to be in a group.)

“I haven’t been involved in a ministry like Focus Group before.  It’s awesome to get to know people on a more personal level than you could ever do by just attending church on Sunday.  They really become part of your extended family.  Plus I have been apprehensive talking about my faith and this has been a great way for me to get used to asking questions and talking about what God means to me.”

“When we moved to the area three years ago, we found community by becoming a part of Crossgate, and committing to our Focus Group where we have made great friends, learned deeper spiritual truths, and shared our joys and heartaches with those we have come to know and love.” 

“Since we are relatively new to  Crossgate, the Focus Group has offered us an opportunity to get to know in a special way a smaller group of people from the church family in a short period of time.  These folks have been our “go to” people in our church life.  We have grown to love our Focus Group buddies and our Wednesday night get-togethers and miss it when we are unable to attend.”

Well, if you have looked around on Sunday morning, you can see that God is bringing more and more new folks to Crossgate and of course, we are thrilled to have each one.  What a blessing it is for us to be able to provide spiritual nurture and encouragement to more and more people – and to be able to provide a real church “family” for people to be a part of.  But as a result of this growth, things are beginning to get a little bit snug in our Worship Service.  We’ve definitely reached the 80% capacity mark – the point where the experts say, you will begin to lose folks because it will be more and more difficult for them to find parking and seating.

Well, the Session has looked at the situation and determined that if we are to continue growing, we need to take some steps to address this “problem.”  There are really only a couple of viable alternatives:   go to a second service and split up the congregation (which I don’t think anyone wants to do)  or  go to Phase 2 in our building master plan which entails building an educational/office building and knocking out the walls of our existing sanctuary (which would seat around 400-450).

The Session believes the latter alternative is the better of the two, and so we have put together a Building Committee that will be working with Signature Architects and Trehel Corp. (the designer and builder of our current facility) in order to ascertain our immediate needs and what steps we need to be taking next.  Michael Thorsland will be chairing this committee and Mike Benning, Scott Coffman, Teresa Bruce and Debra Andrews will serve on the committee with him.  Let’s be praying for them as they work on this – that God would give them great wisdom and discernment, and that it would be very clear what God would have us do next.

It is possible that before we are able to build we will have to go to a second service – at least temporarily.  Once we begin having 200 people come consistently on Sunday morning, we will need to look at this.  But our desire is that we be able to stay together and continue worshiping as one body.  So even if we have to go to two services, our goal will be to get back together as soon as possible.