Eric Offstage

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

Perfection vs. Passion. - Guest Blogger Clint Haley

From Eric: Clint Haley, our weekend Service Director, wrote this and read it to the band last weekend before our service.  I thought everyone should have an opportunity to be impacted by Clint's message.

I've been listening to some legends of music tonight. Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who, Elvis Presley, Rolling Stones. I have so much admiration for their art. I call it art because to them it's expression of who they are. You can feel it in your chest when you listen to it.

It's so frustrating to me to think that our modern day culture is so obsessed with perfection that it misses the opportunity at passion. I know not everyone agrees with American Idol, and I hope I am assuming the worse, but if you placed Janis Joplin on American Idol she'd fail. She'd never make it.
Her style is sloppy. She doesn't always hit the notes. She doesn't have the perfect figure or angelic features. She's too spastic on stage for the American audience.

If our modern day music snobs were to judge "the king" and his guitar skills he'd never get the opportunity to make a record. Maybe, just maybe, they'd tell him to stick to truckin'...

Buddy Holly is too repetitive. average skills. nothing flashy.

Jimi Hendrix should have direction to his guitar solos, and he should stop singing.  No vocal skills. Have someone else sing. (Can you imagine his guitar work without his voice?)


Just these few examples makes me wonder....is anyone out there still desiring to see passion on display? Would we rather listen to the perfection of Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift than the raw emotion of a Janis Joplin? is there room for an emerging Elvis Presley in the sea of faceless pop rock and techno beats?

Would you rather go to a concert where the band has been doing the same thing all tour long? 
...or experience a moment where a guitarist takes the stage and makes history as he plays The Star Spangled Banner?

Maybe I am posting this to a culture of people who could really care less about the musician's heart; the artist's heart. But I guess I care. I guess that's why I would rather listen to something raw like mewithoutyou or Switchfoot. Saul Williams and U2. Janis Joplin and Elvis Presley. It may not be perfect. but it bleeds their heart's passion.

I wonder...Are musicians today trying to write music? Or are they trying to live music? Are people trying to manipulate and distort themselves to be able to climb the cultural ladder? Or are their passionate hearts bleeding out expressions of what they love and feel and believe?

Haven't you ever noticed how many bands' careers go south after their first "breakout" record? How many times have record companies gotten a hold of a band only to crush everything that made them special?

I know I have been hitting music pretty hard, but this goes way beyond how media filters out the music that they don't think sells...this is about you. This is about me. It's about our struggle. This is where we have to fight to keep our hearts and dreams alive. This is the moment and we can choose to sit back and take it or take a stand to be more than what the world would allow of us. We have a choice that many times comes down to one or the other: Perfection or Passion.

Passion will lead to perfection, but perfection will never lead to passion.

I choose passion first.