Swamp People & Jesus People or “Why do they not use gloves?!”
Dear Sent Ones,
I should get kick backs from the creators of “Swamp People”. I have heard from many of you that you have started watching and are getting hooked on our gator catching, non-glove/shirt wearing friends. Glad I could help! My hope is that Crossbridge would be the “Jesus People” equivalent. That our city would see our generosity, grace-extending, hope-giving, love-enacting community at work and be like “Are you kidding me?! Who does that? They believe that stuff?! I’m a little freaked out but totally enamored!” Don’t you want to be part of a church like that?!
When the local church is at its best; the gospel is flooding the mind, fueling the heart and flowing through the hands and feet of the Christian community. The scripture shows this over and over. Not only the scripture, but if you take a look at church history you find it as well. Read what one historian wrote around 260 AD about the church as it responded to the great epidemic hitting the Greco-Roman world.
“(During the great epidemic) most of our brother Christians showed unbound love and loyalty, never sparing themselves…Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ…Many, in nursing and curing others, transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead…The (pagans) behaved in the opposite way. At the first onset of the disease, they pushed the sufferers away and fled from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead.”
Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria (around 260 AD)
Wow! I still have a long way to go but I want be a man who displays and declares the gospel like that!
On another note as many of you know, this year our budget is our biggest financial stretch yet in our church’s history. We have rolled our building debt into our normal operating budget. We need to bring in through tithes and giving $68,757 a month to make this budget. In January we brought in $59,495. We need to continue to pray about God providing for our church family so that our global giving, church planting support and regular ministry to our city doesn’t suffer. If you are a regular giver, thank you for your obedience to God’s word and giving to the local church. If you are not a regular giver and you call Crossbridge your church home, let me encourage you to begin to give regularly to our mission. It is what the Bible expects of followers of Jesus in a faith community. We are praying and asking God to pay off this debt this year and put us in a position to do even more ministry in the next 18-24 months. God is faithful and good. Let’s do our part together. You can pick up a copy of our total budget at our information table this Sunday if you are interested in learning more.
This Sunday we will finish our series “I am Sent”. Let me encourage you to be here as we will be praying as a church for our Chili on the Porch Sunday and Easter which counting today is 62 days away! Our friends from Attack Poverty will be here again too and you will have an opportunity to sign-up as a Community Group, family or individual to be part of our “Friends of North Richmond” initiative! It should be a great day!
See-ya Sunday!
Gator Huntin’ Rules!
Chuck
Words from Chuck
Dear Crossbridge,
I want to tell you how thankful I am for your generous hearts! You did a marvelous job on the Christmas Toy Drive this year! Those toys will go to My Brother’s Keeper Outreach who this year is serving over 1000 families with their Christmas outreach! Through your generosity and the partnership of other local churches we are able to bless many families who are in need.
As the year is winding down I wanted to remind you that all financial gifts have to be turned in or postmarked by 12-31 for you to receive tax credit. As you are thinking of being generous this year I would ask for you to consider our Advent Offering. We are seeking to raise money to put toward a fresh water well with Living Water International (water.cc), gather scholarship money for 2012′s youth and children’s camp and build our benevolence fund so that that we might continue to bless those in need. Be sure to mark your checks “Advent Offering” so that we are aware of your desires.
One more thing for you to consider is giving extra toward our general operating fund as we are absorbing our building debt into it. Extra given towards that will help us pay off that debt as soon as possible.
Also a quick reminder of our upcoming gathering schedule, as this Sunday will be our last regular worship gathering of 2011. We will gather to light the candle of joy and finish our reflection on Isaiah 9:6. Our Christmas Eve services will be at 5:00 and 6:30 p.m. I hope you are taking the time to invite people to join us for these services. We will not have services on Christmas Day and we will only have 1 family worship service on January 1st at 10:00 a.m. Our regular Sunday service schedule will resume January 8th!
Waiting for Him with you.
Chuck
Chuck’s Thoughts
What Made Me Smile?
This past Sunday I smiled a lot. Not that I go around with a frown a lot but Sunday was a day full of smiles for me. As we had our “Patties and Pies on the Porch” Sunday there were three things that made me smile.
- New People: It was great to meet brand new people to Crossbridge! People were here because they had driven by the church a few times or found us online. What made me smile the most was when I met people that were invited by you! That makes me smile because I knew that Crossbridgers were seeking to invest in people and invite them to be a part of our faith community. We are seeking to make growing followers of Jesus Christ and one of our primary ways we do that is by personally investing in people far from God and introducing them to our community. Great job guys! Keep investing! And if your friend didn’t come this Sunday the next best thing to invite them to is our Christmas Eve services!
- Servants: I smile when I see people jumping in and serving the mission of the church! Now we have amazing people serving every Sunday at Crossbridge but on Porch Sundays we see people go above and beyond normal service! Special thanks as always to our Porch Event coordinators Shelia and Adrian Garcia for all the work they put into this event! And BIG thanks go Tony Lawrence, Carlos Rodriguez, Angie and Scott Woods for all they did to serve at this event! We also want to thank Jeff and Wendy Brooks for their generous donation all the hamburgers this past Sunday! And a GREAT BIG, boy they were delicious I ate too much thanks goes to all of you who brought PIES! Wow you people can cook! I am glad we do that one only once a year or I would be buying some new jeans! I praise God for your servant attitude Crossbridge and thank Him for generosity that flows out of you!
- Community: I found so much joy seeing Crossbridgers connecting after both services. To see people eating and laughing together brought again a smile to my face and heart!
It was a great day everybody and I am so glad I get to follow Jesus on mission with you! See-ya Sunday!
Pastor Smiley!
PS – This Sunday I will be preaching a special message called “entitled”. I hope to see you then!
Words from Chuck
Dear Crossbridge Family,
Sunday I announced at the end of our Worship Gatherings that we had raised $150,000 toward our debt retirement! We are praising God for His provision and the sacrificial giving of many of you. While this does not retire the debt completely, the Elders are still encouraged for our future and what God wants to do with us. We are in the process of negotiating with our bank to pay off the balance. That will look like us refinancing the loan. Our goal is to refinance it for twenty-four months with the plan to pay it off in twelve. We will be making this a budget line item in 2012.
In light of this, your giving to the weekly operating budget of the church is, as always, very important. If you want to give specifically to the retiring of the building debt you still can! Please make sure that this is in addition to your regular giving and not in lieu of.
God is doing great things in our church. We are seeing gospel fruit in the lives of many people. In the last few weeks we have seen some of our highest attended Sundays. We are hearing of great gospel conversations in our Community Groups and plans to serve our city within these groups are coming forth.
Continue to pray for us that Crossbridge would be a gospel movement in our city making more and stronger followers of Jesus! This Sunday we will keep pressing on with this vision as we continue our study through the book of Proverbs in our “PROVERBIA” series. If you haven’t noticed yet, this series is very practical and would be very easy to invite people to. Over the next few weeks we will be studying what Proverbs says about wisdom and our friends, family, work, finances, and decision making. Who is God putting on your heart to invite? Pray and ask Him for courage and an open door to invite someone new to join us!
You are a great church to pastor Crossbridge. I am hopeful for who Jesus is making us into!
See-ya Sunday,
Chuck
Prayer Network
Prayer Network at Crossbridge
Vision Breakfast this Saturday!
Hey Everybody!
Every week we have several, sometime dozens of prayer requests turned in by our church. For the last nine years we have had a prayer time to receive these and spend time praying over these requests, asking God to move on behalf of His people. We have seen Him answer so many of these requests. Surgeries have gone well, people healed, jobs found, relationships reconciled, needs provided for and people saved! God has ordained to move through the prayers of His people. We talked about that some this past Sunday as we prayed for God to give us boldness.
In an attempt to be more committed to prayer as a church we are re-launching our prayer team under a new name, the Prayer Network. We are seeking to develop a network of people at Crossbridge committed to praying for the health of our church at large and the people personally. The primary responsibility of the Prayer Network will be to pray for the prayer requests of our faith community. We will attempt to meet once or twice a year for a time of telling stories, being equipped in our praying and mutual encouragement.
Do you want to grow in being a person of prayer? Then send an e-mail NOW to charlotte@crossbridge.cc telling her you would like to come to the Prayer Network Vision Breakfast this Saturday. It starts at 9am and will last one hour. There is no childcare provided and this will not be a child friendly environment so please make arrangements for your children.
At the breakfast we will go over the expectations of the network. If you sign-up for the network you will receive a copy of the book “A Praying Life” by Paul Miller.
If you are a regular attendee or Partner of Crossbridge you should come to this breakfast and learn more about how you can learn to pray and how to pray for our community even more. E-mail charlotte@crossbridge.cc! I’ll see you this Saturday!
I am honored to be your pastor!
Chuck
Words from Chuck
Dear Stewards,
This Sunday we will start a brand new message series entitled “REVIVE”. We will spend the next few weeks looking at how God revives His people through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is not just a filler series till we start Proverbs on September 18th, but I really sense God wanting to say something specific to our church. Our Leadership Community (Community Group, Servant Team, Staff and Elders) just spent a weekend retreat focusing on what spiritual revival/renewal looks like in our personal life and in our church. It was a great time and now I want to bring that learning to our whole church. We continually want to make more and stronger followers of Jesus so this series will hopefully be a great way to gear up for a fall season of growing and reaching our neighbors with the Gospel.
As we approach August 28th, our Opportunity Sunday, I want to continue to ask you regular attendees and Partners to be praying about what you can give toward retiring our construction loan. It is due this October and we only have a little over $300,000 left on it. We desire to get this debt paid off and out of the way so we can focus on the future of Crossbridge Church and our vision to be a gospel movement in our city. Please go to this link and review what God has been doing here. Pray and ask Him to put on your heart your part in this season of Opportunity. Then would you tell us what the Lord has told you through giving that on August 28th, or telling us through a pledge card what you will be giving over the next month, before October, so our Elders can begin planning?
You are a generous church Crossbridge. Through your generous giving God has used you to plant churches in our city, send missionaries to other countries, and fuel our own work here as God continually is rescuing and renewing people in the Gospel every week. I know you will respond with willingness and faithfulness to Jesus.
As you are praying about this please remember that this gift is not in lieu of regular giving. We have a slight drop in our giving over the summer as people have been traveling and out of their normal rhythms. While giving has had a slight drop God has been growing us as a church! We average 100 more people per Sunday than we did at this time last year! And we look forward to a fall of spiritual and numerical growth as the gospel goes forward.
We need your support now more than ever to continue to run after God’s calling on our church. If you have not given to Crossbridge in the past, there is no better time to start. If you have been looking for an opportunity to give above and beyond your normal tithe, (besides the debt retirement) now may be the time.
I know the economy seems very shaky but we are in a Kingdom that cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:28)!
Thank you for your partnership in the Gospel.
May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. Psalm 67:1-2
I love being your pastor!
Chuck
Words from Chuck
Crossbridgers,
Even though its 99 degrees outside, we are gearing up for the Fall! School supplies are being bought (they still make Trapper Keepers?!), new clothes are being negotiated for (by my daughters) and Community Group sign-up begins this Sunday! That’s right our new Community Group season is upon and we are very excited.
We just had our annual Leadership Retreat last weekend and I couldn’t be more excited about the possibilities of what God may do in our midst. This fall we will have 16 Community Groups which is more groups than we have ever had as a church!
For those of you new to our church, Community Groups are small groups of people who gather to enjoy and extend the gospel of Jesus Christ as a community. These groups explore the implications of the gospel in the scriptures, care for each other, and serve the city through creative outreach. Community Groups are the primary way to connect to others at Crossbridge. They can be anywhere from 6-15 but can get up to 20 people or so. If you have never been a part of a Crossbridge Community Group I would highly encourage you to jump in this fall with us!
We will be doing a church wide study of the book of Proverbs this fall. I will be preaching on the major themes of the book and the Groups will be discussing those themes as well.
Come to the information table beginning this Sunday and learn where and when these groups will be meeting!
My prayer is that each of you will experience the transforming power of a community centered around the gospel this fall through one of our Community Groups.
See-ya Sunday
Chuck
PS – Remember Opportunity Sunday is August 28th. Go here to learn more and begin/continue praying about your part in this great opportunity in the life of our church!
Chuck’s Thoughts
Hi Everyone!
I have missed you! Over the past three weeks I have been on a Pastor’s Retreat with Kathleen in Vail, Colorado, put on by the Acts 29 Network, took 2 weeks of vacation and have been spending the last three days at a bay house studying, praying and preparing for the rest of the year. It has been a very fruitful time and I feel rested and refreshed. I have missed preaching to you but it has been good for my soul to pull back, rest, play, read fiction, and let God just be my savior and friend and not just a boss I work for during the week. I must confess it was hard leaving 50 degree weather in Vail to come back to 101 here!
This Sunday we will be starting a new message series entitled “PSALMS: Seeking God’s Heart”. We will spend the next 6 weeks looking at various Psalms that show different aspects of a life that seeks to know God deeply. The Psalms has been a book that the people of God have used in their worship services to sing, pray and use as a guide on how to interact with our great God. Over the past month I have been using a Bible reading plan that leads me to read 2-4 Psalms a day and the Lord has been using it to refresh my heart.
I will also be making an important announcement concerning our “Season of Opportunity” that we have been talking about since May. No one has dropped any gold bars by the office so don’t get your hopes up but we are going to talk about our plans as we seek to pay off our construction loan and take the next step in expanding.
Next Sunday we will have our 3rd annual “Floats on the Porch”! This is the Porch event that started it all! After each service you can stay and chat it up over delicious creamy root beer floats! I hope you’ll invite a friend to join you. This will be our last Porch event until the fall. You guys have been using these faithfully to introduce new people to our church and many are getting connected.
You are a privilege to pastor and I look forward to being back with you this Sunday!
Chuck
Words from Chuck
Stewards,
I don’t know about you but Sunday’s message has led to some great conversation at my house. Kathleen and I are looking over our calendar and budget anew because we want to be the best stewards we can be of the resources God has entrusted us with. I hope you are having those conversations as well. They can be exciting conversations as you look back at all the times God has provided for us and they can be convicting because we realize that we have a sinful bent to spend all our time and money on ourselves!
As we are having this discussion a Community Group in our church is chipping in to provide finances for one of their own. Crossbridgers are generously giving of their time, talent and treasure to honor God and bless others. I really love who God has made us and who He is making us to be.
Several of you have asked “How do we give toward the building fund?” We have been talking about it for several weeks now so if you need to get caught up on the conversation here and go here. It’s pretty easy to give to the building fund.
1. You can give on Sunday with check or cash.
• Be sure to mark in memo line of check “building fund” or put cash in a giving envelope and write somewhere on the envelope “building fund”.
2. You can give on-line. Go to this link and pick the building fund.
God is doing great things in our church and will continue to do great things!
See-ya Sunday!
Chuck
PS – Remember to “Pig-out on the Porch” June 19th! Great opportunity to invite friends and family and introduce them to your church community! Invite every dad you know to join us!
Note from Chuck
If you were out this past Sunday and missed the message I would encourage you to listen to it. You can go here.
In the message I laid out five pastoral prayers from Acts 2:42-47.
Five Pastoral Prayers
- We would continually learn how to live in the Gospel.
- We would be passionate worshipers not nominal Christians.
- We would be faithful stewards of God’s resources
- We would be a community sharing our lives not just attending meetings
- We would embrace our missionary calling in our ordinary lives
After laying these out I spent some time talking about our current situation. I said it Sunday and I’ll keep saying it; we are in an unprecedented season at Crossbridge. Since last fall we have been growing slowly in our Sunday Worship attendance where we now average around 400 people a Sunday. Last Easter we had 379 people and this Easter we had 597! Our latest snapshot of our Community Groups showed that 83% of our adult attendees are in a group! We are reaching people and seeing people connect in gospel community!
Our Elders are excited about the growth and the possibilities ahead. We see the need and opportunity to expand as our children’s ministry is seeing record numbers and feeling the need to expand our facility. Our teen ministry needs a space to call their own so they might continue to see teens transformed by the gospel of Jesus. There is space available for us to lease and renovate for our purposes but our Elders feel that we must retire the current construction debt that we have. Our current balance is $436,000. If giving continues toward the debt we will have a balance of $322,000 when the loan is due in October. We want to pay this debt off and keep moving in our mission to see people far from God come home to the Father.
What if in the next couple of months God provided us not just enough to pay off the loan but enough to pay it off and begin to move forward with our expansion! I’m praying that God will provide $600,000 – $700,000! Will you join me in praying for this?!
This is an amazing opportunity. We have unprecedented growth, a financial challenge and a God who does beyond what we can ask, think or imagine
This is an opportunity to…
1. Pray for God’s provision and our role in this matter.
2. Give sacrificially
3. See God move in a mighty way.
Will you join me in seeking God about this? My family will be asking what our role in this and what can we do to retire this debt and move forward. It will take faith on all of our parts!
To say I’m excited to see what God does in this matter is an understatement! I can’t wait to see what He does!
No matter what happens if we seek Him and obey His leadings. He’ll get the glory and we’ll get the joy!
Expecting Great Things!
Chuck
PS – Be sure to mark any giving toward this “building” or “debt retirement” so we know to apply your giving. Thank you for your continual sacrificial giving to our operating budget without which we could not be doing the ministry that is seeing the growth in this season!
