Note from Dixie
Dixie Moreau is our Preschool Ministry Director
Hi Crossbridgers!
I am so excited to update you this week about some of the great things happening here at Crossbridge!
I am sure you have noticed that with all the new smiling faces and babies on Sunday mornings, we are growing! You all are doing a great job of sharing Jesus with your friends and families and inviting them to come to church! As with any growth comes change and the change going on here at Crossbridge is exciting! Here are some things you can expect this week…
Crossbridge Kids has a new look! With all of the new babies arriving, we needed more space to accommodate them and the new mommas that need a quiet place to sooth or feed their child. This additional space allows moms to feed their baby and still be able to hear the worship service going on in the auditorium. So when parents of infants arrive on Sunday, the new class will be at the end of the hall where the Kindergartners used to have class.
We have a great group of Kindergartners that love learning about Jesus, and their new room will continue to be a place where they can do just that! They will have room to hear the great story about Christ’s love for us and still have a place to use that valuable energy. Their new room is the first door on the right down the Children’s hall.
It is so great to have the ability to change classes to fit the needs of our kids as we grow! God has provided a great building for us to use to spread the Gospel, and this growth shows that He is at work through you all!
Next up, Teen Chaos starts meeting this Sunday, next door at the One2One Fitness gym. This is such a great time for the youth in our church to connect with one another and hear a message about Jesus directed specifically to them on Sundays! Teen Chaos will meet only during the first service at 9:30am. Make sure that you get your teen out of bed early because they don’t want to miss the great things happening in Teen Chaos!
Finally, What better change could happen than the change you make when you decide to give your life to Jesus? So, this Sunday is extra special because we get to witness fellow Christians making their faith public through baptism. They are making a change in their life and a great statement that their old life is washed away and now they are new in Jesus! What a gift this will be to witness Sunday morning!
Thank you for growing and changing with us!
Join us this Sunday; you don’t want to miss these exciting changes!
Dixie
“It Came from Within”
Beginning September 19th!
ARE YOU AFRAID TO LOOK INSIDE?
Why do you do the things you do? Why do people suddenly get divorced or engage in destructive behavior?
Everyone looks for someone else to blame. But the real enemy lurks within in our hearts.
Not the organ that pumps blood through our veins, but that invisible, intangible place where we experience love, compassion, contempt and jealousy.
Join Crossbridge Church as we examine what Jesus said about…
what lurks in the human heart and how to experience a transformed heart.
- September 19th – Introducing The Heart
- September 26th – The Menace of Worry
- October 3rd – The Grip of Fear
- October 10th – The Monster of Anger
- October 17th – The Hunger of Envy
Party on the Porch!
Come celebrate Crossbridge Church’s 8th Birthday!!
Join us for one of our worship services at 9:30 or 11:15am and stay for our Birthday Party! There will be free food and drinks and lots of fun activities for the kids!!
We will also be starting a new series the same Sunday called “It Came from Within,” discovering what lurks in the human heart!
Ladies’ Bible Study Sign Up
Back to School Drive: Last Sunday to bring Supplies
Don’t forget, the last Sunday for our Back to SchoolDRIVE is THIS Sunday!
Get the whole family involved and be the hands, and feet of Christ this Summer! Pick up a list of needed supplies at the Children’s Check-In, or print the list below. You can drop them off this Sunday!
Back to SchoolDrive List*:
pencils
pens
yellow highlighters
folders with brads
rulers
scissors
notebook paper
composition notebooks
colored pencils
colored markers
elmer’s glue
glue sticks
pencil boxes
notebooks
* don’t forget that the Dollar Store is an affordable place to buy these things!
Note from Ben
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
As we celebrate our Independence as a nation this weekend, let’s not forget that the freedom we have in Christ is what truly sustains us!
I really enjoy our times each Sunday where we can join together as a church and worship God. It is always a special time when we read scripture together, sing songs together, hear the truth of the bible together and take communion together. “Reverent corporate worship truly brings to expression the very being of the church,” Wayne Grudem says. God has not given his church an option to worship him, but, rather, it should be a direct expression to our ultimate purpose for living. And what is our purpose for living? To glorify God and to fully enjoy him forever! I can miss out on this at times and treat Sunday’s as just another thing on the schedule to complete, but I really get the most out of corporate worship when I prepare myself during the week, and I focus on what genuine worship can really accomplish. Here are a few results of genuine worship:
We delight in God: David wrote in the book of Psalms that, “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” We probably experience delight in God more during worship than any other activity in life.
God delights in us: Isaiah 62 says, “the Lord delights in you… as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” This scripture should really bring encouragement to us, for as we worship God, we are bringing joy and delight to his heart.
We draw near to God: Hebrews 10:19-22 says that we can have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus. We have the amazing privilege to enter directly into the holy of holies when we worship!
God draws near to us: James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.” We should come to worship with clean hands and pure hearts and we can expect God’s presence to be with us.
God ministers to us: When we worship God, he meets with us and directly ministers to us—strengthening our faith, intensifying our awareness of his presence, and granting refreshment to our spirits. Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace in time of need.”
The Lord’s enemies flee: 2 Chronicles 20 talks about how when God’s people would sing and praise, he would fight for them against their enemies. Even today God will fight our enemies when we worship him.
Unbelievers know they are in God’s presence: Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:25 that if there is genuine worship “the unbeliever will disclose the secrets of his heart” and “worship God and declare that God is really among you.” Wouldn’t it be amazing to see unbelievers come to Christ because of the worship that is happening at Crossbridge!
I would encourage you to constantly be preparing yourselves for our worship services on Sunday. We have a Preparation for Sunday blog that goes out every week that has the songs and readings that we will do for the upcoming worship service. We also provide scripture for those songs so that you can see where the lyrics we sing are in the bible. This is just one of many tools that you can use to prepare yourself to encounter the great God of the universe each week. Let’s be a church of genuine worshippers who live to glorify God and fully enjoy him forever!!
Please continue to pray for the 18 students and 4 adults going to summer camp on July 10. We are taking our 3rd-5th graders to experience God in a fresh way up in the piney woods near Lake Livingston. Pray for our safety, health (it’s beyond hot), and for God to move in the hearts of ALL of our kids. Also, on July 4 a group of our people will be traveling on a mission trip to El Salvador to drill a fresh water well. You can pray for them by name if you pick up a card at the info table and keep it in your bible or on your fridge as a reminder.
Sunday, July 4th is this Sunday, so don’t forget: we’ll have ONE service at 10am. It’s a family service, so all children (babies too) will be invited to worship together. Dress them up in red, white, and blue and they will get a fun little surprise that day!
And also, remember that our 2nd Annual Floats on the Porch is coming on July 18. This is an ideal day to invite a friend to experience the church AND have ice cream. What else would they want to do on a Sunday morning?? Don’t leave Sunday without snagging some invite cards at the Info Desk!
I hope you have a great rest of the week, and I look forward to worshipping our great God with you on Sunday!!
Ben
Note from Tisha
Friends,
Chuck asked that I write this week’s Update, so, here go some of my not-too-deep thoughts for you to ponder….
I am constantly amazed when learning about Jesus and his word. It’s silly, really. Why would I be shocked that there is a well of understanding about the Lord so deep that I won’t ever reach the bottom? My sweetheart 7 year old daughter has said to me in the past as we sit down to learn together, “Mommy, I love Jesus and I already know about him and have asked him into my heart.” It’s both fascinating and worrisome to see how all of us tend to think we’ve arrived. That we know him and can move on. I hope you’ve enjoyed Chuck’s series in Mark as I have. Realizing that Jesus is infinite, unmanageable, offensive. That he owes me absolutely nothing, yet he’s powerfully tender to his children. That I must remind myself that everyone is born spiritually dead, that I am far from like him, that I do not naturally gravitate to him. And too, my honing in on the hope that he wants to attack my pride, he wants me to trust him as he works on my character, and he shows me grace by offending my ego. It’s hard to be thankful in those times of his construction work on my pride, which by the way happens on nearly a daily basis. But it’s after those times that I find the most reward, the most closeness to him, a tremendous softness and humility of my heart. It’s then that the Holy Spirit puts bread before me as I hungrily follow it to learn more. So when I hear of kids and adults shirking off the idea of learning more and diving further into our complicated God, my heart leaps to tell them: spend your LIFETIME getting to know him, and in that he will transform your relationship with him in amazing and unthinkable ways!
Speaking of building relationships with God, will you pray for the 18 students and 4 adults going to summer camp on July 10? We’re counting the days until we take our 3-5th graders to experience God in a fresh way up in the piney woods near Lake Livingston. Pray for our safety, health (it’s beyond hot), and for God to move in the hearts of ALL of our kids. Also, on July 4 a group of our people will be traveling on a mission trip to El Salvador. You can pray for them by name if you pick up a card at the info table and keep it in your bible or on your fridge as a reminder.
Sunday, July 4th is around the corner, so don’t forget we’ll have ONE service at 10am that day. It’s a family service, so all children (babies too) will be invited to worship together. Dress them up in red, white, and blue and they will get a fun little surprise that day!
And also, remember that our 2nd Annual Floats on the Porch is coming on July 18. This is an ideal day to invite a friend to experience the church AND have ice cream. What else would they want to do on a Sunday morning?? Don’t leave Sunday without snagging some invite cards at the Info Desk!
I pray you will be carving out precious time with him this week so he can feed your spirit. See you Sunday for more adventure!
Tisha Rich
Children’s Ministry Director
Floats on the Porch
- Invite a friend to join us for our 2nd Annual “FLOATS ON THE PORCH” Sunday July 18th. Following each Worship Service hang out on the porch of 1049 and enjoy a yummy Root Beer Float with old and new friends!
- This is a great Sunday to introduce a friend to Crossbridge. Grab an invite card this Sunday or e-mail this website to a friend directly or through Facebook.
Meet Real, Live Missionaries This Friday!
That’s right friends! Not just people on a slide show, flannelgraph, or a ten year old video, but real, live normal people who feel called by God to live on mission with Him in Hungary! And you have the chance to meet them, pray for them, and learn how you can help them be a part of God’s redemptive plan for Hungary.
This Friday from 7-9 p.m. in the Elementary Room at 1049, Terry and Christina Cokenour (long time friends of Crossbridge and founding Partners) will be hosting a time for us to learn more about the mission God has called them to. There will be coffee and dessert but no childcare. What an awesome way to spend a Friday night! So call the sitter and make plans not just to watch another movie, but come hear how the Gospel can change a nation.
Terry and Christina have raised 20% of the support they need to go full time to Hungary and are praying to be there by January 2011.
RSVP to ccokenour@gmail.com.
Learn more at www.budapestalive.org.
Note from Kathleen
Tonight is Ladies Night OUT! Woo whooo!! Leave the cookin’ to someone else…and the clean up too!! Let’s all go hang out, and catch up at the Black Walnut Cafe! Just show up at 6:30pm, then go ahead and order, and we’ll all gather ’round for a night of laughs and conversation! (We don’t have time for a movie!!! We have too many words we need to use up!!! A movie would simply cut into our TALKING!!!!) If you are new to Crossbridge or still haven’t gotten to know some ladies, this is a perfect time to come connect in a laid back atmosphere! And don’t worry…if you’re not a great conversationalist, there’s always those weird fans on the ceiling to comment on!! Can’t wait to see you there!
~Kathleen Land
