Eric Offstage

15 + 1 Things I Am Thankful To Christ For Right Now

1. Jesus’ death on the Cross! Christ took away our sins (I Cor 15:3) and our sicknesses (Isaiah 53:5) at the cross. I am so thankful for Christ’s forgiveness and healing! Right now all over The Crossing, Christ is delivering people from all kinds of sins and sicknesses. Go read the LIFE CHANGE BLOG if you want to be blown away by His grace and goodness!    

2. Learning to know Christ through suffering. I know it sounds crazy, but Paul said in Philippians 3:10-11 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Somehow I connect deeply with Christ when I suffer! He is closer to us in our pain than any other time, I think. This last year I have learned to praise God and thank God and be joyful for my suffering, trials, persecution and pain! It sounds weird, but I THANK JESUS EVERY DAY for MY CROSS that He entrusted ME to carry! I would never know Christ and be as close as I am to Him if it were not for suffering! God uses EVERYTHING for my good!

3. A new move of the Holy Spirit in our church.  Zechariah 4:6 says "...not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit," says the LORD Almighty. Our own cleverness (might) and our own strength (power) cannot change our circumstances or the world! We are not that strong or that powerful. BUT AWESOME things happen when we surrender to the power of the HOLY SPIRIT in our lives! I and our leadership and staff have embraced this truth. We don’t want to walk in the flesh but in the power of the Holy Spirit. The results of this are leaders walking in deeper faith and prayer than ever before, miracles that I don’t know how to explain, and very clear VISION for our future! 

4. Tangible God-Winks. (Our language for the favor of God on our lives.) We have so many of these. God’s mercies are NEW EVERY MORNING! Lamentations 3:22-23  Let me give you one recent example: Kelly told me one morning, "Eric, you just need a hug from God. I am going to pray today that God somehow hugs you, and you know it is Him!" I kind of rolled my eyes and was like, "Whatever, I have to get to work." But later on that day while I was working, some lady I don’t really know well and had not seen in probably 4 years walked in the door of our church, walked up to me and said, "God told me today to come here and tell you He loves you, and to give you a hug from Him." She hugged me, cried, and told me she was praying for me and then turned and ran out of the church! THAT BLEW MY MIND! GOD SENT A LADY WHO DOESN’T GO TO OUR CHURCH TO COME TO OUR CHURCH AND HUG ME! That was trippy! My God is so good.    

5. Good numbers: (Numbers are not everything, but every number does represent a life.) 

• Christmas Eve services were the largest non-advertised services in the history of our church.
• 300+ people who were far from God stood up in front of the church and publicly asked Christ to forgive their sins and lead their lives on Christmas weekend. 
• Brian Welch weekend (Jan. 7 & 8) resulted in ridiculous attendance at The Crossing and hundreds more people trusted Christ. (This is the first time in the history of our church we actually ran out of seats and had to turn people away.) 
• People sometimes criticize churches like ours and say, “They don’t do discipleship,” but we have 200+ adults in a college-level theology course right now studying Scripture intensively for 2 hours every Monday night at our Cellar Class. It is our largest class EVER!  BOO-YAH!    

6. SERIOUS LIFE-CHANGE! During the Rockstar series tons of people have given up drugs and alcohol. (One guy flushed $2,500 worth of drugs down the toilet and another got rid of 40 POUNDS of marijuana. YES, YOU READ THAT RIGHT! A BALE OF HAY's worth of marijuana!)

7. God’s pastoral call. God has moved in the hearts of several men and women in the past few weeks and called them to full time pastoral ministry (mostly to church planting). I love that!

8.Stove for our Haiti Orphanage.  The Crossing supports an orphanage in Haiti where 50 kids are being fed, clothed, sheltered and educated in Christ. We were able to buy The Crossing orphanage in Haiti a new stove and enough propane to keep it running for 2 years!   

9. 1^st Wednesday: We held our first ever Wednesday night of extended worship, prayer and communion on February 1. Apparently this struck a chord in people because the Elk River campus was packed out! During the evening people came forward for healing and prayer, asking God to do miracles in their lives and the lives of their friends. Several people broke down in the line and gave their lives to Christ on the spot and became Jesus-followers for the first time that night! 

10. Weekly Wednesday worship and prayer service. Starting April 11, The Crossing will be starting a weekly worship service for Christians only! The Wednesday after Easter will be the start of this service dedicated to extended worship, focused prayer (for ourselves, our friends and our city), and in-depth Bible teaching designed to help Christians KNOW THE BIBLE and live their faith!  

11. C3 Conference. Once again we are headed to Fellowship Church to hang out with Pastor Ed and Lisa Young, their amazing staff and other like-minded pastors around the country.  God always shows up in powerful ways at this conference and I am so thankful for all my C3 pastor friends across the country! To all of you: You inspire me, give me good wisdom, challenge me, push me to be like Jesus, and are a huge encouragement to Kelly and I and our entire staff! I pray for you all OFTEN! 

12. Collaboration Day. Pastor Mark Bjorlo (The Journey North) and I are inviting pastors and church leaders to come hang out with us at The Crossing for a day of collaboration. We don’t know everything or do everything right at The Crossing, so we want to hear what God is doing at other churches around our state and learn to do things better! Scripture says in Proverbs 15:22 Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed. I believe this, so we are spending a whole day in group discussions talking about how to honor Jesus more, do ministry better, and reach people far from Christ more effectively. I am super stoked to spend the day learning from other pastors in our state!  If you are interested in attending, please email our church office: office@crossing-church.com, and we will send you more information.    

13. THE J12 Conference The Crossing is holding a brand new conference for churches and ministries this year! On April 20^th (yes, 4/20) we are holding a conference dedicated to Jesus and the 12 steps (J12). Our goal for the day is to help churches and ministries learn how to create and run an effective recovery program to see people get free from what holds them back. Our churches and communities are full of sex addicts, alcoholics, drug addicts and co-dependents. Jesus loves them and wants to free them, but for the most part churches don’t know how to help actual broken people, so many stay in hiding and die in their addictions. God has used The Crossing to lead hundreds of addicts out their hurts, habits, and hang-ups. We want to teach other churches how they, too, can SET THE CAPTIVES FREE! (Luke 4:18)      

14. The Crossing School of the Bible and Missions. Tons of people in our church are being called by God to plant churches and reach more people for Christ, but most of these people are undereducated and underfunded. We are exploring the idea of launching a Bible and Missions training school for pastors and missionaries to go bi-vocationally into all the world and preach the Gospel (Mark 16:15). Please pray for God to give us wisdom as we move toward this goal.   

15. 5 New Campuses in 2013. Our mission from God is to start 200 Crossing campuses in 20 years. I believe God is calling us to start 5 new Crossing campuses in 2013. These campuses will be small portable campuses led by a bi-vocational campus pastor and worship leader in smaller communities in Minnesota. Right now we are in the process of recruiting and training the men and women that will lead these campuses. Please pray that God would direct our steps and lead the right people to step out and become a part of this serious faith step.

Lastly, I am just thankful for a relationship with Jesus Christ. I don’t deserve it. I didn’t earn it. I can’t work for it. He just loves me as I am and is willing to use a jacked-up dude like me when I live in surrender to Him.

1 Corinthians 1:27-29 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things-and the things that are not-to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.

THAT IS ME, AND I AM THANKFUL!  

On Being Bread

****I am deeply indebted to Henry Nouwen and Bishop T.D. Jakes for rocking my world and teaching me what I am about to so poorly communicate.****

Luke 24:30 As Jesus sat at the table with them, He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.

This little verse is packed with so much. Jesus took bread, He blessed the bread, He broke the bread and then He gave it to the people. This is the same pattern Jesus must take all His people through in order to be used by greatly by Him.

• Jesus takes us. He takes us from where we were and what we were doing, and He takes us for a new use. He takes us to be used by Him and for Him (Col 1:16). We would never choose this on our own, so God initiates grace towards us and takes us in spite of ourselves. God did this for me when I was seventeen. He took me from a path of sin and rebellion and despair and gave me a second chance. I am so thankful God did this for a rebellious guy like me. And once He took me or I like to say “OVERTOOK” me, I was never the same.

• Jesus blesses us. After Christ takes us, He blesses us. As we follow Him, he blesses us with His Spirit to guide us (John 16:13), His wisdom to make good choices (I Cor 2:16), His heart to love others (Ezek 36:26), His vision to care about broken and lost people (Lk 19:10), and His ways to interact in our world as His hands and feet. (Ps 86:11) I am so thankful Jesus has blessed me far more than I will ever deserve.

• Jesus breaks us. This is where it gets hard, and so many people quit on God. After He takes you and blesses you, He must break you. (James 1:2-4) You have to die to yourself before you can truly live like Jesus and for Jesus. For this to happen He must BREAK you. And to go through the breaking process is the most painful thing you will ever endure. It will feel like you are going to die, and you will not be able to make it another day. St John of the Cross calls this the “dark night of the soul”. But if you are unwilling to go through this breaking period, you will never live up to your full potential. Remember, if God brutally breaks you, it means He has great plans for you. So don’t quit. (Gal 6:9) Don’t give up. God will not break you and abandon you. He will break you in order to use you in greater and greater ways.

• Jesus gives you to the people. Once you are broken, then the new you, the better you, the usable you, can be given out to help the world around you. God will give you out to feed the spiritually hungry and hurting, and the end result is spiritual nourishment for all. You will be bread for the world, like Jesus is the “bread of life.”

This pattern is seen all throughout Scripture.

Moses:

• He was taken from the river.

• He was blessed to live in Pharaoh’s house.

• He was broken by living as an outlaw shepherd on the backside of the desert.

• He was given to the people as leader.

David:

• He was taken and anointed king.

• He was blessed with leadership and courage to defeat Goliath.

• He was broken by an evil king whose desire was to kill him, and spent years in the wilderness as a fugitive.

• He was given to the people as king.

Jesus

• He was taken and chosen by God at His baptism.

• He was blessed by God at the transfiguration.

• He was broken by God at the cross.

• He was given to the people with the resurrection.

He is the bread of life.

Leader, pastor, teacher, Christian. - In order to be used greatly by God you must not only be willing to be taken and blessed, but also to be broken and given.

Once I heard Pastor Mark Driscoll say it this way, “In order to be used greatly by God you must first be wounded deeply by God.”

Today, allow God to be God.

Let him do what He wants with your life. Don’t fight Him. Trust Him. You are just bread. This is the best place you could be. You are in the hands of JESUS!

OH, YEAH! Story from Pastor Bruce Rauma

The other night before the service, a young man came up to me and say, "Tonight is my night."  I asked him what he meant, and he said that he wanted to be saved.  He said, "Before I can do that, I need to go help on the PIT team, but right after I want to come and be saved and I want you to lead me to Christ." I was blown away by all of it and couldn't wait for the opportunity.  He went out to the corner and served on the parking team, and then came back in for the service.  Immediately following the service he came and found me.  He was so excited, and I too couldn't wait to bend a knee with him.  We went to my office with several of his friends and a couple of other leaders. We walked through his decision and what it means and looks like to give your life completely to God.  He loved every minute of our discussion and asked a ton of questions.  I could see in his eyes that this was going to be the turning point of his life forever.  Shortly thereafter, I asked if he was ready and he said, "Boy, am I ever!"  We dropped to a knee and he repeated after me, "Jesus, forgive my sins.  Lead my life.  I'm sorry for my past.  I want to follow you and trust you.  Lead me and guide me.  Amen."  With many hands on him and over him, that young man's life was changed right there in my office.   Every one of us clapped for him and gave him high fives, and then he asked what his next step is.  I told him the next step from here is to get baptized.  He said, "You mean I get to be baptized now?  YES!"  He was so stoked, and he and his friends left my office laughing and filled with joy. Undoubtedly, there are some monumental moments in life--like getting married, having a child, buying a home. But there is no greater experience then to share in that moment on a knee with someone.  I am blessed and honored that he came to me to lead him through his decision.  Yay God!

 

A Life Literally Saved...Guest Blogger Pastor John Hill

Part of our code at The Crossing is that “we will not take this for granted.” I feel like sometimes this is really difficult not to do. When I first gave my life to Jesus, a sunny day would be a God thing. I don’t know what changed, but after working in the church for years sometimes I forget to stop and smell the roses. This weekend The Crossing, I feel, had one of those weekends that you just can’t miss God working. I got to pray with so many people and see God rescue over and over again. I could share story after story for hours, but one in particular was too good to pass up. It really got my heart. (This is man-speak for "made me cry like a little baby.")

At the end of the 1:00pm service (for those of you who don’t know this is always the best, highest energy service except maybe the Sunday night--WOOT!) I was praying with several people. The last lady in line captured my attention immediately. When she got to me I could both see and feel the hurt. I asked her how I could pray for her and she looked at me in the eye and said “I don’t want to live anymore…” (Insert choked sobs here) I feel like guy reflex at this point is to run around screaming like we are on fire and there is a bear chasing us, but God made me calm, and I just knew that this girl was going to ask Jesus to forgive her sins and lead her life that day.

I led her and a friend out of the auditorium and myself and another pastor talked to her for a little bit. She was homeless, had two kids and a drug problem. She had people in her life who abused her in every way. Pastor Diane asked her if she wanted freedom from her past today and she timidly replied “yes.” I made her look me in the eye and I said “You know that if you do this, God is going to forget your past… ALL of it... and only see the HOPE and the FUTURE that He has for you? Do you understand that there is NOTHING that you have done in your past N-O-T-H-I-N-G at all that God will not forgive? Do you know that He looks at you right now and is enthralled with your beauty?”

She began to weep and replied saying she had not known these things. We prayed together and both she and I were weeping as we felt God’s Spirit come to live in her heart. Sometimes in these situations I wonder if the person actually gets it, but this time I KNEW she did. She wept saying “I’m forgiven.” And for the first time I saw her face light up with a smile that reached all the way from her eyes to her heart. 

I left that room wondering why God chose to do something like that through me. Then I realized that I just got to carry the baton across the finish line. It was a FIT team member who convinced her to come in (after she sat debating whether to come in or just kill herself), it was a Production team that set the table of her heart to hear the hope of Jesus for the first time from Pastor Eric. It was a Scrubs team that made the bathroom suitable for her to clean herself up before she came into service. It was Jesus who died for her and me and everyone. It was God who created His church to reach people just like her. I can’t believe I get to be a part of it! Don’t take it for granted. God is good! I LOVE MY JOB!! Thank you Crossing Church for seeing God’s heart and giving our all to it!!!

The Craziest Twirl Story

Check out this cool story from guest blogger, Pastor Kasey Pupeza:

God totally blew my mind yesterday!! Here’s the story:

It started at Twirl. (Pastor Kelly’s event for the women of The Crossing and their friends). At the end of Pastor Kelly’s talk she challenged the women of The Crossing to ask Jesus into their lives for the first time, recommit to following him, or to come up front for prayer. Probably around 50-75 women stepped forward for prayer. It was so cool to watch these brave women step forward and ask their Heavenly Daddy to give them freedom! After we prayed for these women we handed them a little booklet to help them identify the next steps in their faith. Inside the booklet was a post-it note. We asked them to write their name and phone number on it so a pastor could call them and follow up. The women who filled out the post-it then stuck it to the window in the back of the auditorium.

As if God moving in radical ways at Twirl wasn’t enough, what you’ll read next is how God was really showing off:

As I write this, it’s the day after Twirl. I took all these post-it’s home and began to call through them. I get to this one post-it written by a girl named “Allie”. (That’s what we’ll call her anyway) I called her and here’s kind of how my script went; “Hi, is this Allie? Hi Allie this is Pastor Kasey from The Crossing Church. I’m calling you today because last night you went to Twirl, and I first just wanted to say thank you so much for coming, and I hope you had a great time.”

She hasn’t said a word yet. “And second, I just wanted to see if I could help you to figure out the next step in your faith. Did you make a commitment to follow Jesus for the first time last night or were you recommitting?”

Finally Allie spoke, “I wasn’t at Twirl last night."

Um. OK.

She added, "My mom probably wrote my name down on something.”

I said, “OK?? Well, have you ever been to The Crossing before?” She said, “A couple of times.” My next question was, “Do you live in Elk River or anywhere close?” She said, “No, I don’t live anywhere.”

So I just kept digging. She admitted to me she is an addict who doesn’t have custody of her kids and that she is indeed homeless. She then inquired about making a commitment to follow Jesus. We talked for a while about what it meant to follow Christ. I asked her if she was ready to do that right now over the phone. She started sobbing and said that she was ready to ask Jesus to forgive her sins and lead her life. I asked her to go somewhere more quiet because she was visiting her kids at a family member’s house, and they were pretty noisy. She did. I asked her to get down on her knees, and had the privilege of leading her through a prayer as she asked Jesus into her heart for the very first time.

Personally, this was one of the most awesome experiences of my life! It was way beyond cool to see how God was using people, situations, and events to get to this girl.

After she made the commitment to follow Christ, I encouraged her to set up an appointment with one of our Crossing Recovery Pastors for the very next day. Hopefully she’ll be at CR tonight!!!!

Church, please pray for strength and courage for “Allie” today!

-Pastor Kasey Pupeza

Super Secret Staff Meeting Stuff

Psalms 9:1-2 I will thank you, LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all the marvelous things you have done. I will be filled with joy because of you. I will sing praises to your name, O Most High.

Scripture wants us to constantly tell of the good things God has done in our lives. As we praise Him for how good He is we are filled with joy! This morning in our staff meeting we shared many of the crazy cool things God is doing right now at the Crossing Church. Because most people don’t get to sit in on our staff meetings, I thought I would share a few of the things that we praised God for this morning:

1. Over 200 people in our services this past weekend made commitments to make Jesus the forgiver and leader of their lives for the first time or recommitted their life to Christ. It was amazing watching people giving their hearts and lives to Jesus! It gave me chills.

2. This summer is the largest summer attendance this church has ever experienced (by many hundreds of people!)  God is good.

3. Someone I love and care deeply about finally after years of indecision decided yesterday to go public with their faith in Christ and get baptized. I have the honor of baptizing this close friend next Friday. That made me cry when I heard the good news!

4. We just found out in the past week that ground breaking on our Elk River campus expansion will probably begin by middle to late September!!! Things are falling into place big time for our new building!!!

5. We had the privilege of spending the day learning from a great man of God last Wednesday. Pastor Larry Brey from Elevation Church killed it! He spent the day teaching our staff and key leaders and was really just a blessing to our whole team.

6. THIS ONE IS AN ACTUAL, LEGIT MIRACLE. During one of our services back in February I said, “If you know God’s will for your life and you don’t do it, you are a coward.” One couple (Samm & Angie Platt) took that literally and sold their house, got rid of most of their possessions and decided to obey God by taking their 3 sons and moving to New Zealand for a period of time, to reach people for Christ in that country. They were to leave on a plane last Thursday morning, July 21.

   Early in the week, they asked for us to pray over them before they left. We said, “How is your fundraising going?” Their answer: “Well, it's not all there, but we're going to the airport anyway. We know God is going to provide!”

   We had them come to our Community of Leaders meeting on Wednesday night; just 7 hours before they were to leave for the airport, where we could all pray over them.

   We were so encouraged by their faith that we decided to give an offering to help them meet their goal. I was hoping we could raise a few thousand dollars to help, and The Crossing was going to match what was given, up to the amount they needed. What occurred blew my mind.

   The offering was counted, and Kelly wrote the total on a piece of paper and took it to Angie. Angie looked at it, freaked out, and then said, “Wait, what was that total again?” Kelly: “$9,471.44.” Slowly, Angie said, “Nine thousand four hundred seventy one dollars? That's EXACTLY THE NUMBER WE NEEDED!!!!” We couldn’t believe it. What are the odds of that? Our leadership gave, and God worked it out so they gave the exact dollar amount! It blew my mind. God is so amazing. The Crossing didn't need to match any of it, but added $1000 anyway. GOD OVER-PROVIDED!!!

Crossing Church, church leaders, pastors, committed Jesus people, skeptics and seekers: GOD IS GOOD! “HIS MERCIES ARE NEW EVERY MORNING! HIS LOVE NEVER FAILS. GREAT IS HIS FAITHFULNESS.” Trust Him.

I don’t know your life story, but no matter WHO YOU ARE, God wants to give you His favor. He is for you and not against you. If you will seek Him and trust Him and follow Him, you will be surprised by all the great things He is will do in your life! I hope you will try it. He is good.   

Who Is Your "One"?

I talked to our community of leaders about this last month and I thought it would be wise to bring it up here as well. 

Ministry is hard work.  We are trying to help thousands of people know Jesus, love Jesus, serve Jesus and become radically committed to Jesus.  Because we are dealing with crowds of people coming and going each and every week, it is easy to forget that every face in the crowd matters to God.  Every number is a life, and every life has a story. 

To help myself remember every life matters.  I have "one" person-- "one lost sheep" that I write every talk directed towards.  This person is far from God, hurting and in need of Jesus.  I meet with this person regularly.  He gets my phone number and email address.  We cry together, and I pray for him, and try to push him to know Jesus and love Jesus.  

He is my "one".  He is the person God sent me to reach right now, and if I remember this "one" as I lead the crowds, I love the crowds well.  If I forget about this "one" I forget to love the crowds well. 

Something about helping "one" helps them all. 

So I would ask:  Who is your "one"?  Not do you serve in the kids ministry, or on the parking team or help with greeting, but what "one" person are you doing life with?  What one person are you trying to help and save and change and coach to become like Jesus?  I think every pastor and church leader of God, needs to have "one" life that he/she is pouring into. 

It is a principle I heard Andy Stanley preach about several months ago.  He says, "Do for ONE what you wish you could do for ALL."

You can't help everyone, but you can help one.  And in helping one, we better care for all.  WHO IS YOUR ONE? 

All I Can Say Is Thank You

This is just a shout out of gratitude.

First, to the multitude of volunteers that served so tirelessly at the Thrill and Move Conference last Tuesday - Thank You!  Our conference was a HUGE SUCCESS because of you!  Hundreds of pastors and church leaders from Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa came for the day to our church; and you sacrificially served, encouraged, blessed and helped them.  THANK YOU!  The kingdom of Jesus is going to grow so much due to your hard work.  I love that we weren't just about our little church but about the entire kingdom of Jesus. 

Second, to Pastors Brad White and Shannon Odell - you guys rocked the house at our conference.  Your talks on vision and funding the church were amazing, and I am thankful to have such great pastor friends like you all.  Thanks for flying to Minnesota and encouraging pastors, church leaders and our team at the Crossing as well.  Our church and our leadership will be better because of your wisdom. 

Third, to Pastor Bil Cornelius. Thanks for being my friend, mentor, and wise board member.  Your talk all 6 services on Thrill and Move weekend were hilarious and great!  Our church was super stoked to have you preach the weekend services, and Jesus totally showed up!  But what I am personally grateful for is your friendship and wisdom.  Having a friend in ministry like you is something I will never take for granted.  So many pastors go through ministry solo, and I so thankful for your support, wisdom, and ability to get all up in my grill and explode my paradigm so I think outside the box. 

Fourth, to the Crossing staff.  You people are an amazing team, and I love you all.  You worked your guts out for the conference (not to mention every weekend), and I am so thankful you serve with me.  I have the privilege of leading the craziest, hardest working church staff on earth.  I know you love Jesus and are willing to do anything, everything or nothing to accomplish our mission to de-populate hell in the northwest suburbs.  Thank you for all you do.

Fifth, to Jesus.  Thank you for being the head of the church (specifically for being the head of The Crossing Church).  Thank you for allowing us to be part of your kingdom team and for blessing us with your presence every weekend and every day.  Without you, Jesus, we are nothing.  And once again you showed up in a HUGE way for us this past weekend and changed a TON of lives.  We are grateful, blessed, and we will not take this for granted.  We realize we serve the Greatest Savior (Jesus), on the greatest mission (The Gospel), with the greatest organization (the Church) in all the world.  Thank you Jesus for allowing us ring side seats to life change.  It is always, only about you.  

THANKS...

Interesting Trends in Christianity - Brand Loyalty & Celebrity Pastors

This is just my observation, and is not based on anything scientific.  People used to be incredibly loyal to their denominations.  They used to say, "I'm Baptist, or Lutheran, or Presbyterian, or Catholic." 

Then around the 1980's people stopped connecting with these labels or brand names in Christianity.  Instead of a label people just began to call themselves Christian or Christ-followers, and this was good.  It showed the world we were more concerned with being united in Christ than separated by the little insignificant things.  

But I think it is starting to change and move again.  Once again people are starting to take sides and throw verbal hand grenades at one another.  This time it is not over denominational loyalty but over Pastoral Loyalty.  

People have started to say things like:  "I follow Pastor Steven Furtick, or Mark Driscoll or Perry Noble or Bil Cornelius or Ed Young, Jr. or Eric Dykstra."

And something about those kind of statements really bother me. 

*****Now before I explain why, let me say I LOVE and RESPECT and HONOR all the other men I just mentioned.  They have taught me well and mentored me and helped me become a better pastor and man of God.  I shouldn't even be included with these guys.  They are way better men than me.

BUT as a Christian, there is only ONE GUY we follow, and HIS NAME IS JESUS! 

Seriously, it disturbs me how many people follow celebrity pastors and what they say rather than Jesus and what He says.  I AM INCLUDING MYSELF IN THIS.  I am just a jacked up HUMAN BEING like everyone else.  There are mornings I can barely tell my head from a hole in the ground. 

Remember something Christians.  You don't follow ME or any other Pastor - YOU FOLLOW JESUS CHRIST! 

Maybe instead of picking teams and following people, you should just FOLLOW JESUS - AND DO WHAT HE SAYS!

I Cor. 1:12-13 -- Some of you are saying, “I am a follower of Paul.” Others are saying, “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Peter,” or “I follow only Christ.”  Has Christ been divided into factions? Was I, Paul, crucified for you? Were any of you baptized in the name of Paul? Of course not!

WE WERE NOT BAPTIZED IN THE NAME OF ANYONE BUT JESUS CHRIST.  ONLY JESUS DIED FOR YOU!  So love Jesus, worship Jesus, sacrifice for Jesus, give your all for Jesus.  This is what it means to be Christian.  This is where BRAND LOYALTY needs to be. 

Later on in I Cor. 1:30-31 Paul says, God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin.  Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord."

Notice:

• YOU WERE UNITED IN CHRIST
• CHRIST MADE YOU RIGHT WITH GOD
• CHRIST MADE YOU PURE AND HOLY
• CHRIST FREED US FROM SIN

So if you boast, BOAST ONLY IN JESUS.  If you follow someone, how about you make it JESUS.  All other leaders are flawed, faulty, and sometimes foolish.  Only Jesus is perfect and wise and good. 

It is always, ONLY about JESUS! This is the heartbeat of the Crossing Church and the heartbeat of my life.  We respect and honor our pastors and churches, but WE WORSHIP, LOVE, SACRIFICE and DIE FOR THE GLORY OF CHRIST ALONE! 

Pastors - How We Deal with the Summertime Blues

We are right on the verge of summer in Minnesota.  As a pastor this time of year can be SO DEPRESSING for us!  People are on vacation or at their cabins or just relaxing a little bit more on the weekends, so every summer attendance takes a hit.   

Because this is just the reality of the culture of Minnesota, here is what The Crossing does to deal with summertime blues. 

•  We cut services.  We are going from 11 services down to 9 for the summer.  Our New Summer Schedule starts this weekend. In Elk River, Saturday 5 & 6:45 (normal times) Sunday 9:30, 11:15, 1pm and 6pm.  Zimmerman is now 10 am.  Princeton and Big Lake stay the same. 
• We take a vacation too.  More of our people are gone so our staff strategically make sure they take one to two weeks of vacation during the height of summer slump to rest up for fall. 
• We make discipleship our goal.  Most of our weekend services in the summer are geared a little bit more towards Christians and spiritual growth than toward seekers and first steps with Christ.  Seekers still come to church, but this is the season where we really try to grow up our people's faith so that they can better honor Christ. 
• We try to save money.  In the summer, giving drops.  So we don't advertise, and we keep our costs down as much as possible so we have resources to reach people in the fall.  *****If you are a Crossing attender, PLEASE TITHE EVEN IF YOU ARE OUT OF TOWN FOR A WEEKEND.  Go online (www.crossing-church.com) and give there!  The same is true for your Samurai giving.  If you are committed to giving but are out of town, GIVE ONLINE!  Your church takes a huge hit in summer financially, due to attendance drop. 
• We Retrain Everyone.  Summer is the perfect time for our staff and leaders to retrain all our volunteers and develop apprentices. 
• We Recruit volunteers like crazy.  Summer is recruitment season.  With people on vacation we actually have more spots than ever to fill on our ministry teams.  So we work hard to find people who have been attending but not volunteering-and give them a chance to serve on the greatest mission on earth. 
• We care for people.  Summer is the perfect time for backyard bonfires with your volunteer teams, picnics with your small group and just general hanging out and doing life together.
• We Pray.  All summer long our leadership and staff pray for what God is going to do in the fall at The Crossing.  I am already praying for 5,000 people to attend our fall launch services Sept 10-11 and for 3,500 regularly attending by Christmas.  (God is going to do this.) 
• We stop resting on August 17.  August 17 is the end of summer break rest at The Crossing.  From that moment on our staff and leadership start working like mad to get ready for the HUGE CROWDS of people who are far from God who will begin walking in the doors after Labor Day weekend, and hear the message of Christ.

This is how we deal with summertime blues at Crossing Church.  Pastors, if it helps, steal whatever you like from us and make it your own.  If you have some ideas of your own, message me and let me know so I can steal them!