Last Sunday we celebrated Crosspoint in the Park which initiates our first intentional relocation. It was a beautiful day and a perfect reminder that we worship wherever we are. This is true for each of us and it is true for our fellowship.
When we first started talking about the idea of intentional relocation we had no idea what it would look like. It just seemed that a community of faith that desires to be intentional could even be intentional about location. For this season (the remainder of the year) we will meet at Monks Coffee Shop. During this time we will provide a variety of conversations and opportunities to experience generosity. It is almost Christmas time and with the excitement of the season we look forward to the Advent Conspiracy and our unique expression of spending less and giving more.
You can learn more about the Advent Conspiracy at the link below:
My closets are full, my garage is full. I don’t need more, I need less.
At this stage in my life less is more. More freedom, more time, more life as I dreamed it might be. I don’t have an updated resume. I’m not moving up or out. I’m just here longing for the simplicity that might help me to enjoy life. I mean really enjoy life, like noticing things. I’m taking a different route, listening to different music, talking to a stranger and sitting in silence. I want less of the same and more of the unknown.
I’m going to live today as if God wanted me to do something. I want to pay attention and I can’t do that with more, I must do it with less. More of Christ, less of me.
In 1991 I crafted a personal mission statement in order to begin a more focused journey that would add meaning to my life. Through the years my mission statement has guided, challenged and pushed me forward. Simply put my mission is to make disciples. While this statement appears simple you should know that I agonized days and weeks before landing on these words. I wasn’t looking for something that would satisfy a season rather I was looking for something that would direct me for a lifetime. These words created an unexpected challenge. The challenge of developing leaders.
As I begin to embrace the challenge of developing leaders I made a critical decision. A decision I think every person or organization makes knowingly or unknowingly–will I choose create followers or develop leaders. Please notice the difference here. So many leaders are only concerned about the current state of affairs and the effect that good leadership and follow-ship can create. The effects of this kind of leadership are positive but I was wanting more.
I wanted to see if leadership could extend beyond the current generation. I wondered if third generation leadership was possible. I recently read this quote, “the litmus test of any great leader is whether they can quickly write down on a piece of paper all of the people they have developed.” This is a good definition but I wonder if we can go further. Could we suggest that the test of a great leader is that those they led could write down on a piece of paper those they developed. Could we get to the third generation of leadership? While we are at it, can we even reach the fourth and fifth generation?
These are the kind of questions that have kept me in the game over the last years and into this new stage of life. It is for this reason that I hope to create an intentional mentoring and leadership ministry through Crosspoint Fellowship. This is the fourth vision point of our future at Crosspoint. It is an exciting time as we embrace this challenge for the next generation.
Here is a question for you: is it harder to be generous when you have much or little?
I guess we should be cautious how we answer that question. All I know is that in my ministry I’ve wondered what a generous church would look like. When we started Crosspoint I talked a lot about generosity. What I discovered is that it was easy to talk about it when you didn’t have much. There is a sort of comfort in that I guess. Knowing that not much is required of those who don’t have much. We were unofficially off the hook. Not so.
Generosity starts with the heart. Our very nature. Generous people are generous regardless of what they have. So shouldn’t that be true for the church? Or couldn’t it? I am hoping so. In fact I almost get excited thinking about it. A unique community, without much yet feeling as if it has everything. There is something that seems so right about that.
As we struggle to find our generous identity it is my hope that we can learn to bless others without trying to promote ourselves. I wish that we could aggressively give to missions and church starts. I think that day is soon for us. I want it to be now but I will be happy just to know that whatever we are doing, we are doing it with generous hearts.
When we first started Crosspoint one of the questions we were asked most often was, “why another church in Abilene”. We understood the heart of this question. There are churches everywhere in Abilene. Our answer became simply this, “because there is not another church like this one.” Our goal was not to become a bigger, better, cooler version of church. Our goal was to become a unique community of faith and a community of faith that would reproduce other unique communities.
In our view the reality was that Abilene needed more churches, it just didn’t need more churches of the same form. What we are learning is that there are so many who are looking for unique expressions of faith but can’t find something that fits in Abilene. We don’t believe that we are the only answer for those searching. We do believe that we could become a catalyst in Abilene where we could see many unique communities where those searching might feel comfortable.
So here we go. We are not even self supporting yet and we want to be instrumental in starting new churches. How so? Truth is that is why we are here. In Abilene. It is an overlooked mission field. Crazy huh, but no one else seemed to be considering it. We helped start a new church within the first year of our existence. It can be done. This dream reinforces one of the reasons we need to get Crosspoint on solid financial footing. We don’t want to be thinking about ourselves only. We want to be an outward focused church that can reach others through new faith communities.
There is no better time to do it. If we had the resources we might think we had something to do with it. Let’s start now. Let’s embrace the God-sized dream. Let’s place our future and our hope in God.
Crosspoint has always had a simple structure. We have never sought to be program driven church, rather we desire to be mission driven. It seemed that a simple structure would empower our community to have more freedom to be missionally minded. In this process we are discovering a more simple way. This simple way involves more than schedule and structure. It does involve stewardship of resources. One of our best experiences was when we unpluggedfrom a few things like weekly doughnuts and asked people to bring home baked goods. Now each week our table is filled with good and sometimes even healthy foods. Sure we have saved a few bucks but the significant lesson is that we empowered people and gained a greater sense of community.
The simple way extends to all aspects of our life. The tension in this lifestyle is that there will always be more. You will always find more that you can do to simplify. One checkpoint is to make sure that simplifying isn’t selfish. That is what I think is interesting about the simple way. It has an impact on others–community if you will. I don’t think healthy community can exist without the simple way. The simple way frees up resources and empowers a new way of doing life together.
In our recent conversation about resources at Crosspoint we are learning to live in this larger community of faith in a more simple way. We believe that this is one of the unique qualities of Crosspoint. We want to share our simple way stories so that our community can be enriched. If you have some thoughts then share them but more importantly live them. Let’s be an encouragement to one another in a simple way.
Last Sunday I gave the clearest talk that I have ever given on money. OK, now that I said that you can understand why I have waited all week to say anything more. We are living in our best times at Crosspoint. Our purposes are clearer than at any other time and more of our community is starting to get it. While our giving is solid it still falls short of our simple budget and we continue to rely on outside gifts to meet budget. This is frustrating because as a missional community we want to do more. Let me clarify, I’m not talking about having more but doing more. Here are the priorities I suggest we move toward:
Become self supporting. This is the number 1 priority.
Be a catalyst for starting new churches and ministries in Abilene and beyond
Give aggressive support to missional objectives.
Develop an intern ministry that provides the opportunity to clarify strengths and participate in a unique ministry.
Purchase a multi-purpose building.
All of these priorities are currently out of reach but are at the very heart of our identity at Crosspoint. This is our best time. Check back over the next few days as I go over some possibilities of each of these priorities.
“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” These were the words that I found myself repeating as I was getting ready for the message last week. At times it was a steady stream of thought going through my head. I couldn’t stop wondering what this might mean for my life. They are words that I wanted to work deep into my life. How is it that I learn to die in order that I might multiply? I understand the farming concept. Growing up in West Texas I see the principle at work all around me but how do I take my life, bury it and give it the opportunity to bear fruit?
In any way that you put it, dying is not a easy word to respond to. Death stirs emotions and makes maybe makes us feel uncomfortable. It is not pleasant to talk about. It forces my hand in regard to my own mortality. Those are my typical thoughts about death. Then there is Easter. A reminder that it is through dying that we really live.
This week we had an opportunity to hear the faith story of one of our families. It was an incredible story. A hard story but one that captured our attention. Hearing this talk reminded me of the importance of our connected story. The story of the church. The people who chose to follow God and open themselves to one another in love. It is so good for us to be reminded of this story. Maybe this will help us to look deep into our own. Gaining some understanding how God has or is working in our life.
My hope is that we don’t stop with own story but that we begin to notice how our story connects with others. It is here that the church is most effective. Living in the community of stories. Helping one another cope, encouraging one another, praying for one another. This is where life happens. This is where our story becomes meaningful.
Listen for the stories this week. Even your own story.
There was so much to do today that I thought, “what the heck, I’ll get up at 4am and get an early start.” Well, here I am. One pot of coffee (only a four cup pot) down, a look at Facebook, and a couple of chapters in one of my current readings. Wow, I feel refreshed! Nah, but I don’t have that fuzzy feeling in my head like I usually get when I just can’t sleep.
I am a wondering if I could pull this off on a regular basis. I mean there is so much to accomplish and I haven’t been interupted once. No phone calls, no texts, and no emails. This could lead toward maximum production. I get a little excited about that. Productivity is important to me and that is what put me here. With a full week of not being out of town and a one day planning meeting I was thinking I could get a lot done this week. Now here I am on Friday panicked about schedule and lack of progress. Damn. I did it again. Too much unfinished business.
Well, the difference this time is that I decided to do something about it. Early to rise and I will just have to see how the rest of this plays out. BYW, don’t wake me if I sleep. Just let it ride. I’ll start my list over next week.
