Eric Offstage

2nd Highest Attendance Ever!

Wow!  This past weekend was amazing.  We had the second highest attendance ever as a church and I didn't even give the talk.  I wonder if that is why everyone showed up, they knew they didn't have to listen to me?  Maybe I should be off the stage more often.  HMMMM....

Anyway, cool weekend.  The Tape of Love was hilarious, and the rapper for the Black Eyed Peas song was amazing.  I just love our church.  What an awesome experience it is every weekend.   

Fourth service I bailed and went down to the Exchange and caught the last 1/2 of our daughter church's service.  They did an awesome job.  Eric and his team have a great thing going.  If you get a chance go downtown and worship with them.

 

Overwhelmed by Sacrficial Christians Who "Get It" At The Crossing

I just have to say you all amaze me!  I love this church.  I promised with this new series we were going to blow the church up, and that has really happened. 

For 3 weeks now I have talked hard-core truths about servant-hood, sacrifice and commitment to Christ.  I have over and over again said we have to stop playing church and we have get to work and be part of the solution and not the problem. 

I have set the bar super high (where I think Jesus set it.)  He gave it all for us, the least we can do is give Him our all in return.   

I know I have offended a bunch of spiritual teenagers, but you know what? 
At the end of the day a ton, and I mean a ton, of Crossing attenders have gotten out of the seats and risen to the challenge and taken their faith to the next level. 

• In the past three weeks volunteerism has almost doubled at our church. 
• Our attendance is huge!!  (I haven't scared people away with these straight up talks.)
• We have more names for Uncas Dunes Wilderness clean up day than they were expecting.  
• We are sending like $700 to Africa to build a well from Nalgene Water Bottle proceeds.
• We are sending around $1200 to LOVE146 to fight child sex slavery due to T-shirt sales. (We sold out & have ordered more shirts.) 
• We received seven full pages of names for Feed My Starving Children.  HOLY COW!!  Little kids are going to stay alive because of you all!
• Many of you Sponsored a Hope child with World Vision.
• A group of you traveled to Fargo this week to haul sand bags.

All I can say is Yay God!!  I am overwhelmed and humbled by your servant-hood, love for Christ, care for the planet and desire to help people in our world.  Thank you, church, for not playing church but truly being the church in this world.  I think Jesus is saying WELL DONE!!   

You are an amazing bunch of people, and I love you all for working so hard to honor Christ and change the status quo and make a difference.  

Thank You.  Thank You!  Thank You.  I know it isn't easy. Keep up the hard work.  Jesus is worth every bit of your effort. 

Have a fantastic day.  We will see you this weekend.  Preferably on Saturday night. 

 

A Killer Verse and quote

I have one last post I have to make about Francis Chan's Crazy love.  Near the end of the book he talks about Phil 3:18-19 and then he has a quote from Annie Dillard.

Let me share both with you and then give you some of my thoughts: 
Phil 3:18-19    For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.  Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things.

WOW!!  Paul is seriously harsh.  He is saying many people (who think they are Christians) live as enemies of Jesus and are actually going straight to hell.  They are going their because of 3 things: 

1. Their stomach is their god.  They are about their own desires and personal pleasure instead of Christ's desires and His pleasure and glory.
2. Their glory is their shame.  They brag about how they do the wrong thing, live selfishly, and focus on their own personal status. 
3. Their mind is on earthly things.  They focus on this life and what they can get out of it for themselves versus thinking how they can please Christ, honor Jesus and point more people toward heaven. 

People that live those kind of lives are not really Christians.  They might go to church, sing songs and know Bible stories but, "destruction is their destiny."

I don't want to live that way.  I want each day to be lived putting aside my own pleasure for Christ's pleasure and glory.  I want to be known as a person who gets uncomfortable for the glory of Christ. 

The quote from Annie Dillard says:  How we live our day is...  how we live our lives. 

Or what I do today is really what I believe about God.  What I do today is what my life will turn out to be about.  It is not what I say I believe that counts.  It is what I did that counts in the end. 

So I pray that I actually live today for Christ's glory and set aside my own pleasure today and don't just claim to do this. 

Jesus, I seek your pleasure today not my own. 
I seek to point people to the comfort of your arms, not to live for personal comfort. 

God help me make you famous TODAY!! 

  

Seeking to be Greener

So after this last weekend's talk on being green, my family and I put in to practice many of the things we discussed on Sunday. 

-  Monday night dinner was local food only --  venison and farm fresh eggs. (I know we skipped the veggies but I had a big salad for lunch earlier in the day.) 

-  I biked to work this morning and talked to God on the way.  That was pretty awesome.  It was only 39 out, but boy did it feel good. 

-  And once again Kelly hung our clothes up versus putting them in the dryer so we could get some natural humidity in the house.

We are seeking to not just talk about being green; but we are trying to actually follow through and live out what we know is right.  I am hoping a bunch of you will do this. 

• Read Matthew Sleeth's book:  Serve God, Save the Planet
• Start Recycling
• Give some light-bulbs out to your friends at work as an invite to church. 

But do something.  Green is the new seat-belt.  It is a sanctity of life issue. 

 

This weekend is going to be flipping awesome!!

I have spent the past 2 years preparing for this weekend.  I have read everything I can find, listened to experts, explored every Scripture passage I could discover, and thoughtfully prayed through the issue we are teaching about this weekend. 

This weekend, I am talking about the fact that God is green.  This is going to be so much fun.  I figure I can really stir up a hornets nest with this one. 

You do not want to miss this crazy talk.  As far as I know, there is only one other mega-church in the country to ever address this subject head on, so we are on the cutting edge of this deal.    

I am going to open a huge can of worms and then let people decide what God would have them do with this.   it is going to be great.  I can't wait. 

The Crossing is going to change the world. 

God is green...
    ...R  U  Green?

Something Important The Crossing Needs to Understand

Let me just be very direct.  Our church will only grow and reach more seeking people, if we can fill up our 2 Saturday services.  It is the only way our church can presently reach more people in Elk River. 

Let me explain how this works so you understand.  You have to know 2 things:
1.  There is this thing called the 80% rule:  When 70-80% of your chairs are full at your church, your church stops growing! 

THIS IS TOTAL FACT!  I promise you I did not make this up.  When your church is 70-80% full you must either add more services or add more chairs or the church stops growing. 

On Sundays, we can't add more chairs AND we can't add more Sunday services!!  It is impossible!!    
We have been over 80% full on Sundays for well over 2 years now.  SO IF WE CAN'T GET CROSSING PEOPLE TO SWITCH TO SATURDAY NIGHTS WE WILL STOP REACHING PEOPLE!!  

2.  Seeking people will almost always attend a church on a Sunday.  It is just tradition. 

When 70-80% of our seats are full, they will feel crowded and assume there is not space for them at our church and they will not come back. 

Therefore, I need those of you that love Jesus, love the Crossing and love lost people, to help us make our Saturday services larger than our Sunday services. 

I am serious as a heart attack.  I want Saturday services to be larger than Sundays.  We can always add more chairs on Saturday night.  Sunday we are stuck.  We are limited to only 210 seats.   

So I need you to commit to attending on Saturdays, bringing your friends on Saturdays, and serving on Saturdays so that those 2 Saturday services thrive and our church can continue to grow.    

One more thing you should know:
A status report on where we are presently at with Saturdays.

Last weekend's 5:30pm service attendance was good and strong and larger that our 9:00 on Sunday.  that is fantastic.  Let's keep filling that service up. 

However, our 7:00pm service attendance is pretty rough.  I think we only had about 90 people at that service counting kids.  That is to small.  We need that service to succeed and grow.  If you are a Crossing regular Sunday attender please switch to 7:00pm on Saturdays. 

From now until Memorial Day weekend make the 7:00pm Saturday service your service of choice.  Our church can keep growing, you can keep growing, and the mission of Jesus can keep moving forward.

Thanks.  I love you all for being on this journey with me. I will see you at 7:00pm on Saturday.  

We exploded our volunteer base in one weekend!!

This past weekend we started a new series called Part of the Solution, and as many of you know we blew up the church!!  Boom goes the dynamite! 

We spent the weekend reminding people that being a Christian is about serving and sacrifice; not sitting and consuming.  And here is the amazing thing about our church --  THE RESPONSE WAS OVERWHELMING!! 

We signed up more volunteers in one weekend than in the entire history of our church.  Once again the people of The Crossing blew me away with your commitment to the radical message of Jesus. 

I know that God is going to continue do great things with us, now that I have seen the numbers of volunteers explode in one weekend!!  Holy Cow!  Jesus, you are amazing!! 

Church, thank you for listening to God's call for you life. 


 

  

The Value of Strategically Ignoring Some Ideas

I am sure I won't say this as well as I would like, but here goes anyway.  I read Mark 9 yesterday for part of my time with God.  It is the story of Jesus going up on the mountain with Peter James and John and being transformed in all his glory.  Really interesting story. 

But 2 verses struck me that I had never really noticed before. 
Mark 9:5-6  5 Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters-one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." 6 (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)

Here is what is going on:

• Peter out of fear, and not understanding this awesome event, told Jesus that they should build shelters for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses. 
• Peter just didn't get it, and in his lack of understanding, he tried to get Jesus off mission with  irrelevant, waste-of-time ideas. 

And I love Jesus' response ---  He ignores him.  He doesn't rebuke him, agree with him, or even discuss it with him.  He just strategically ignores him.  It isn't even worth his time to engage the idea.   
Hear this really clearly:
That is exactly how leaders many times need to deal with people who don't get the mission of a church but have ideas of their own for the church.  Leaders must strategically ignore these people.  If they don't ignore them and they listen, they will be pulled off mission; and a church will no longer be effective.    

Now don't get me wrong, these people are not bad, they have good hearts and good intentions  (like Peter did) but they just don't understand the mission, and so they offer up ideas that actually hurt our chances of success rather than help us.  These ideas must be strategically ignored.  If we engage them or try to please the people who suggest them, we will drift off mission and into people pleasing. 

OUR MISSION IS TOO IMPORTANT TO WASTE TIME ON IDEAS THAT ARE IRRELEVANT! 
Our goal is to make Elk River the hardest place on earth to go to hell from.  Every idea must be filtered through that criteria 

Let me give you some examples:
People come to the staff all the time who love our church and tell us we should do parenting seminars, or Awana, or vacation Bible school, or home schooling or prayer meetings or this ministry or that ministry.  And these are all very good, wonderful ideas from well-intentioned people that are wonderful for other churches.  But they are not right for us, and they pull us off mission. 

Our focus at the Crossing is always the weekend!!  (It is about the weekend, stupid!)  That is all we do.  It is our mission to put on an amazing, God-honoring worship experience every weekend that will thrill believers and and move seekers to Jesus.  That is always our priority. 

We only have so much time and so much energy, and many times doing all those good wonderful extra activities takes us away from our primary task.  So we say no to them, because we need to stay on mission.  And when people come to us try to add to our mission with other good things, they should be strategically ignored.

Good ideas are often the enemy of great accomplishments.  Our church can not do everything, but we can do a few things exceptionally well. 

Ignore the good intentioned ideas of some people so you can stay on mission and be about what Jesus has called you to do.          

Thank you!! This is to People that Switched to Saturdays; Our Volunteers; Staff and to Jesus.

To those of you that switched to Saturday nights:
Wow!  You guys are awesome.  Thank you so much!!  We had a packed house at 5:30 and a very good crowd at 7:00.  The crazy thing is we still filled up the 9:00 and the 10:30 on Sunday.  We had the biggest attendance for the final week of a teaching series ever!!   Please consider making the Saturday services your time to come to church so that we can reach more people on Sunday. 

To the amazing extra volunteers in the service:
You know who you are.  We had 2 kick butt violinists.  We had an extra drummer.  We had an awesome rendition of "Apologize" from a fantastic vocalist.  We had a very special girl honestly openly and courageously share her story.  THANK YOU ALL FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART!!  Our church experienced one of the most powerful moves of God ever this weekend.  THANK YOU ALL!!  I know many people are in the kingdom because of you hard work and courage.  YEAH GOD!! 

To the amazing behind the scenes volunteers:
If you worked set up, tear down, kid's ministry, first impressions, nursery, coffee, book table, sound, lighting, video, power point, backdrop, signage or any other of the many volunteer positions we have to fill this weekend, I want you to know I appreciate you. 

Your behind the scenes work helps strippers and hookers, drug dealers and drug users, judgmental religious people and honest seeking people meet Jesus every weekend.  Thank you for all you do.  The girl's story you heard this weekend was only possible because of the professional dedicated volunteers at the crossing who make our services happen each and every week.  (That is you!)  You guys rock!! 

To the best church staff on the planet:
Ben, Ted, Clint, Dave, Kelly, Renee, Tracy, Bruce, and spouses.  I know you all work like crazy people to pull off the stuff you do.  I know your heart is in love with Jesus and passionate about lost people.  I am really proud of every one of you.  I really do think I work with the best church staff on the planet.  I am so glad that you serve with me.  GOOD JOB EVERYONE!!

To Jesus:
For changing lives.  Thank you for being so amazing that your grace never gets depleted.  Thank you that every time I apologize you forgive me no matter what I do.  Thank you for dying for me; for being my Savior; for healing me; for changing me; for growing me; for loving me and doing every day life with me.  I am only as good as I am because of you.  I owe my life to you.  Thank you for letting me serve you.  I love you and am eternally grateful.