A Note to Crossbridge
I was a pastor, and I wasn’t giving.
Yeah, you read that right. I was 21 years old, working part time at a church as a youth pastor, and I wasn’t regularly giving back to God. I knew that believers were suppose to, but I had this whacked out view that I was already getting paid next to nothing to work at a church, and thought “isn’t it weird to give to the church my little nothing so they can just give it back?”
Over time, though, as I studied the scriptures and grew as a disciple, the Holy Spirit enlightened me to my ignorance about handling money God’s way and convicted my heart of its greed for material things and my fear that if I gave God wouldn’t take care of me.
This is what the Lord taught me about handing my money in a biblical way:
(These points can all be found in the book The Treasure Principle, by Randy Alcorn. If you would like a copy of this book email our office, and we will give you one for Christmas!)
1. God owns everything. I am His money manager.
“The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.” ~Psalm 24:1
2. My heart always goes where I put God’s money.
“For where your treasure is there your heart is also.” ~Matthew 6:21
3. Heaven, not Earth, is my home.
4. I should invest in what will last forever not what I will just enjoy for a moment.
5. Giving is the only antidote for materialism.
6. God prospers me not to raise my standard of living but to raise my standard of giving.
At the age of 22, I began to do what God invited me to do in the Old Testament book of Malachi:
“Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.” ~Malachi 3:10
For almost 18 years, I have learned that I cannot out-give God! He gives me everything I need, and, best of all, He has given me Christ who took my sin and gave me new life in Him! As this year winds down, do you need to grow in the area of regular, cheerful, sacrificial giving? If the Lord is moving you to give, then let me give you three ways to give back to Him if you are a part of Crossbridge.
General Offering – This is what goes toward our day-to-day ministry expenses at Crossbridge. This takes care of things like our operations (office, printing, phones, postage, etc.), building lease, staff, program, and mission expenses that make what we do at Crossbridge possible. The Gospel is changing lives at Crossbridge, and our continued giving makes it possible for us to create environments so disciples can be made. Remember, making disciples involves seeing people far from God become growing followers of Jesus Christ. Regular, cheerful, sacrificial giving is part of being and making disciples.
EPIC Campaign – We are in a campaign to pay for the construction of our current facility. Many Crossbridgers give toward this campaign, but we are still in need of more of you joining this endeavor to pay off this construction loan so that we might move forward with our space issues. As you may or may not know, our church has been growing numerically this fall, and the areas that feel it the most are our Children’s and Teens’ areas. Our hands are tied in moving forward to solve space issues until next fall when this debt is paid off. Your sacrificial giving can help us move forward in paying off the construction on this building so we can turn our attention to the future.
Mission Offering – We are trying to raise an extra $10,000 above and beyond regular giving and the building loan to give away for the cause of Christ in the world. $5,000 would go to build a fresh water well with Living Water International (go to http://www.water.cc to learn more), and $5,000 would go for benevolence needs in our city. You can learn more about this offering in our Advent booklet on our information table.
You can give toward any of one of these, or all of these, either on Sundays in the offering baskets or boxes, online through our website, or by mail.
When I was 22, I learned the joy of generosity and trusting God with my whole life, including my bank account and wallet. He has been more than faithful and generous to me. I know you will find Him to be good to you, as well. I want to continue to grow as a Steward (God’s money manger), and I hope we can grow together.
Giving with you,
Chuck
PS – Don’t forget that for your giving to count in 2010, it must be received in our office or postmarked, if mailed, by December 31 to be eligible for a deduction this year.
Preparation for Sunday, 12/19/2010
Song Preparation: I encourage you listen to these songs each week so that you are familiar with them by the time we sing on Sunday. I always find that becoming more familiar with the lyrics to a song gives me more freedom to be led by the Holy Spirit as I worship. We won’t play these song exactly as they sound below but this is a good start! I would encourage you to go to itunes or any other music download site and purchase these songs for your music library. That way you can spend more time listening to them and learning the lyrics!
Here is some scripture that goes well with the songs we will sing this Sunday. My Soul Magnifies the Lord: Isaiah 9:6, Luke 1:46-49; Only Your Blood: Hebrews 10:4, 9:14; Abide with Me: John 15:7-11.
Songs:
Click here to listen to this weeks songs!
A Note to Crossbridge
Hey Everybody,
I am so encouraged with what God is doing at Crossbridge Church. Did you know that this fall we had 70% of our adults in Community Groups! The average church struggles to get about 30-40% plugged into a small group ministry and we have 70%. That tells me God is doing a great work here as people are hungry to get stronger in their relationship with Jesus through community. Since August, every month our attendance average has increased! We are seeing people far from God being invited to our church by you guys! It’s really a fun season in the life of our church.
We are also a church committed to serving the needs of our city. Here is an excerpt from an e-mail from Renae Nelson, the Executive Director of My Brother’s Keeper Outreach, whom you remember we partnered with for our Thanksgiving Service Project:
We passed out 535 meals that day and another 291 on Monday. We had two groups that come and pick up meals for seniors and deliver them, as well as school families that don’t have transportation. So we did a total of 826 meals. It was truly amazing. Dr. Anderson from Crossbridge surprised us and brought about 45 Turkeys to distribute, and then another family from your church went and bought another 20 or so during the event. It was soooooo, wonderful. I am always so humbled to see what God does. We still have about 42 bags that we will give out at Christmas time. That 826 families totals 6,357 individuals. Almost two thousand more than last year. God is so very faithful.
Glory to God for His hand on Crossbridge to be a generous church!
As you are praying about giving something extra at the end of the year, let me remind you of two opportunities for us to be a generous people again.
- Fort Bend Women’s Santa Store Drive
The Fort Bend Women’s Shelter is a center that assists survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault and their children to achieve safety and self-sufficiency. Each year the center provides the “Santa Store” as a free store for moms to “shop” for their loved ones during Christmas. Crossbridge is adopting the teens who are living at the shelter by providing Christmas gifts for their moms to pick up at the Santa Store. Some gift suggestions are: pajamas, board games, gift cards (Walmart, Target, Game Stop, etc.). - Christmas Mission Offering
The Elders of Crossbridge have set a goal of $10,000 for our mission offering this year. The money will be used for two purposes:$5,000.00 – Living Water International
LWI and Crossbridge have worked together for several years on different freshwater well projects in parts of Central America. Living Water International exists to demonstrate the love of God by helping communities acquire desperately needed clean drinking water and to experience living water – the gospel of Jesus Christ. To learn more about Living Water and what they do, go to www.water.cc. The $5,000.00 raised will build a freshwater well in an area of the world where people are dying from unclean water and a need for the gospel.$5,000.00 – Local Mission and Benevolence
The Elders would like to take the second $5,000.00 and put it aside for serving the needs of our local community. We have wanted to help families in our communities in the past, but been held back by lack of finances. This money will be set aside to help the poor and the needy in our city. It will be used for everything from helping families put groceries on the table, to buying school supplies, or even helping with some medical expenses. For the last several years we have done many service projects in our city, and this money would also be used in 2011 service projects for the needy in our city.
Crossbridge, you are the most generous church I have ever been apart of. You inspire me and challenge me to remember how much God has given me in Christ and to be generous with the resources He has entrusted me with!
Praising God for you and expectant of what He will do next!
Remember to spread the word about our two Christmas Eve services at 5pm and 6:30pm! Will you stop and pray right now that God will use it to draw people to Christ? Will you pray that God will use the banner up on the side of the building to incline someone’s heart to our services so they might hear and believe the message of the gospel!
I love being your pastor.
Chuck
Preparation for Sunday, 12/12/2010
Song Preparation: I encourage you listen to these songs each week so that you are familiar with them by the time we sing on Sunday. I always find that becoming more familiar with the lyrics to a song gives me more freedom to be led by the Holy Spirit as I worship. We won’t play these song exactly as they sound below but this is a good start! I would encourage you to go to itunes or any other music download site and purchase these songs for your music library. That way you can spend more time listening to them and learning the lyrics!
Here is some scripture that goes well with the songs we will sing this Sunday. Glorious: Psalm 145:4-5; O Come All Ye Faithful: Isaiah 7:14, Psalm 95:6; What Child is This?: Hebrews 1:1-4.
Songs:
Preparation for Sunday, 12/5/2010
Song Preparation: I encourage you listen to these songs each week so that you are familiar with them by the time we sing on Sunday. I always find that becoming more familiar with the lyrics to a song gives me more freedom to be led by the Holy Spirit as I worship. We won’t play these song exactly as they sound below but this is a good start! I would encourage you to go to itunes or any other music download site and purchase these songs for your music library. That way you can spend more time listening to them and learning the lyrics!
Here is some scripture that goes well with the songs we will sing this Sunday. My Soul Magnifies the Lord: Isaiah 9:6, Luke 1:46-49; Joy to the World: John 15:11, Psalm 66; Sweetly Broken: Luke 9:23-25.
Songs
This Sunday is the second Sunday of the Advent season. We will be lighting the candle of Peace at the beginning of the service so make sure you are on time. I look forward to worshipping of risen Lord with you this week.
Ben
Note from Chuck
Dear Crossbridge,
As I’m writing this, it is cold outside, December 1st, and Christmas music is playing in my office. All I need now is a tacky sweater, some peppermint bark, and Charlie Brown on.
What a great kick-off to the Advent season we had this past Sunday. Many of you got there to participate in the lighting of the Hope candle, and then we spent the rest of our morning worship going through song and text about why Jesus came to earth in the first place. I love that we are taking the time to slow down and lean into this season. I hope you got a chance to pick up one of the Advent booklets. We have them at the Information Table, and you can grab one this Sunday if you need to, or just come by during the week and get one.
This Friday night is our Ladies’ Christmas Tea event, and it is full! That’s right! About 100 ladies have signed up to come. The Ladies’ Tea Team has a wonderful evening planned that will be sure to encourage you in the gospel this holiday season!
Remember our project with the Fort Bend Women’s Shelter! This is another great opportunity to serve our city by demonstrating the gospel in practical ways. You can read more about this in the Service Opportunities section of our weekly email update. If you are not receiving the update and would like to, email us at info@crossbridge.cc.
I’ll see you Sunday as we light the candle of Peace this week. Remember to get here about five minutes early, so you will be ready at start time for our Advent meditation.
My prayer for us is that the wonder of Jesus coming into our world for us would capture our hearts and minds, and that it would fuel us to be more and more a people of grace and truth as we seek to love Him and our neighbors.
I’m expectant of great things this season.
Chuck
