Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Monday Morning Update

Okay, I know, it's nowhere near Monday, but we left town Sunday afternoon to go to my parents' house, and this is the first time I've had opportunity to sit down and write about the weekend.

We really had an incredible weekend at The Crossroads. It actually started Saturday as we celebrated the 4th of July. Several of us went to the home of some Crossroadies and ate brisket and played Guitar Hero World Tour together. We had a great time, laughed a lot, and just enjoyed being around each other. I thank God for the incredible people he has brought together at The Crossroads.

Afterwards, we went to the Anna High School football field to watch the Anna Fireworks display. A couple of friends of mine are responsible for putting on the show, and they did an incredible job. As people were arriving for the event, we gave out helium balloons to all the kids with The Crossroads' logo and website URL on them. Just another great way for us to make connection with the community and show God's love to them.

Sunday morning broke with heavy rain showers. This made for cooler temperatures, which was wonderful since we meet in a cheer gym that has questionable air conditioning at best. However, rainy days usually don't make for the best church attendance, especially when you are a new church plant reaching people who haven't been to church in years or who have never been to church. Couple that with the fact that it was the 4th of July weekend, and we just weren't expecting to see a lot of people. In fact, five minutes before the service started, it looked like it was just going to be our really committed people there.

But, God loves to surprise us. We had a group of old friends join to worship with us, and two new families also came. The service was great. Our team that went to Mexico shared about their experiences there. It's so awesome to see the passion for mission that we are already developing in this church that is less than a year old. They shared about how going to Mexico changed their view of things (That's why I love taking people on an international mission trip. It changes their view of the world and gives them a greater passion for the Great Commission.) and some of the awesome thinngs God did while we were there. At the end, I used a witnessing bracelet that we used with the kids in Mexico to explain the simple message of the gospel.

After the service was over, I looked through our decision cards and found that two of our guests had given their lives to Christ. One of those and another of our guests said they wanted to get baptized. So, on a rainy Sunday morning on a major holiday weekend when I really wasn't preaching, two people gave their lives to Christ. Amazing!

This weekend, we will be showing a movie in one of the neighborhoods in Anna and we will have a baptism on Sunday evening. Great times and really cool things are happening at The Crossroads.

No comments: