Monday, June 23

Yesterday

Yesterday was awesome. I say it all the time, but it truly was another impacting day @ Crosspoint! Here are the highlights
- It didn't take me 10 minutes to walk to church and I looked 'less' like I was 90 years old!
- It's getting harder to move people into the sanctuary when the service starts. We really need to get the lobby LCD patched in to the new Mac in the sanctuary. But, it's good that folks are enjoying the coffee and the fellowship!
- Worship was smokin'! We did an opening set, then I set up (verbally) communion, and then we continued to worship. It was the extended worship set that I think we've needed for a few weeks. Great job Ruthie, John, Eric, Amanda, Shea and Jeff!
- Communion. We keep fiddlin with ways for people to 'come and take' communion rather than us 'serving' communion to them while they sit in a pew. I felt as though many people did business with God before and during communion.
- Pastor Conard brought an excellent sermon on "Gentleness" as we continued the "Juicy Fruit" series. Conard's blend of personal experiences and poignant scriptures really made the sermon stick in our heads. Great job!
- Another excellent crowd for this time of year.

In other happenings...
- We had 7 females in our home Saturday night. I really need more man time! Hope had a friend from Moncton down for the week. Autumn had a friend from Moncton down for the week. Their cousin Jessica arrived from Ontario. She's with us for the next 3 weeks. Add in Gayla and Judy and you get 7!
- We returned 2 of the 7 to Moncton yesterday. Hope and other Crosspointers attended the Kutless/Barlow Girl concert at the Moncton Coliseum last night.
- We got to enjoy dinner with some friends from Moncton. (Great job on the steaks Ralph!)

Another week is underway. Pastor Amy and Laura are here gearing up for the big Slip n Slide tonight. I'm drinking a cup of Java Moose and thinking that I'm going to need another coffee before the morning is done! We're looking forward to the conclusion of the Juicy Fruit series this Sunday. I'm really feeling as though God has something we all need to hear/experience this coming Sunday. The theme is "Self-Control".

Who can you invite to church this Sunday?

Thursday, June 19

Almost 7

There were 6 of us working at the church today. I think next week it might actually work out that we'll all be in on the same day. I'm off tomorrow, so there's 0 chance. Still, we celebrated with donuts and coffee. Well, 4 coffees, a french vanilla and an apple juice. Laura is the youngest and she is a pre-coffee drinker. She's holding up quite well to the office peer pressure. I think she might cave by the end of the summer and actually try a hot drink. VBS will likely push her over the edge! Ha.

Met with Eric Porter of porterviewdesigns.com to start hammering out www.crosspointchurch.ca Mark and I set up our new emails today. The old Olivet emails will still work for awhile but we are merging over to tim@crosspointchurch.ca, mark@..., amy@..., etc.

Met with Paul Inman today to discuss a brand new 'no-step' entrance to the church. It's a very exciting project that you will hear more about this Sunday. It's basically a new courtyard type interlocking stone entrance. The old stairs and ramp will be toast and a new landscaped area will emerge. Can't wait!

2 MORE WEEKS in the "Juicy Fruit" series. Pastor Conard is preaching on 'Gentleness' this Sunday. We are also going to be sharing together in communion. It's shaping up to be another impacting Sunday. We are working diligently on keeping the quality of the services as good as possible over the summer. Don't take the summer off!!

See ya Sunday!

Monday, June 16

Quick Points

As I typed in the title for this post, I realized that every time I use the word 'point' someone is going to think that I'm making a cheesy reference to 'Crosspoint'. Hmmm, not sure what to do about that.

- Let's get the painful news out of the way first: Wednesday afternoon, barely walking with a cane, couldn't hardly move; Thursday noon, shuffled in to the Dr's office with a cane, got the prescriptions, went to bed; Friday, walking more with a cane, looking really funny, Gayla got to see what I'll look like in my 80's; Saturday, walking more, no cane in the afternoon; Sunday, took me 10 minutes to walk to church, stayed mostly at the media-booth, other than fetching coffee; went to two Graduation parties, over did it; Monday, took me 7 minutes to walk to church, sitting is not comfortable. I probably pulled something while playing softball last week. The Dr did use the word 'arthritis'. Ugghhh. I really need to get in to a gym and get more all-around exercise.
- "Dads n' Grads" Sunday was terrific. We had Wii's set up in the lobby for Dads to compete on. We gave away Tim Horton's gift cards to the top 6 scorers. We even had referees at each Wii. Pastor Mark, Ruthie and John Sherwood did a stellar job of pulling the service together! We had a boat-load of graduates this year. We brought them to the front of the church and gave them a card, a plush '08, and a copy of "The Message". Very cool. Stephen Woodworth, our Vice-Chair, led a prayer for the graduates. Pastor Mark preached on 'Faithfulness' as we continued with our "Juicy Fruit" series. Joanne Johnson came up to the platform and led a prayer of blessing over all of the the Dads. It was a very powerful moment. Church was pretty much packed.
- Rod and Toni Wasson and their son Adam were @ Crosspoint yesterday. Rod and I worked together @ Moncton Wesleyan. He did Children's Ministry there for about 30 years. Good to see you guys!!
- We began promoting the BBQ series: Big Bad Questions. Send in the questions that you have wanted the church to explain and we'll do our best to grill them up for you in July and August.
- Spent some time this morning in creative planning with Sherwood and Ruthie. More good services on the way ;-)
- "Gentleness" is this week's theme in the "Juicy Fruit" series. We'll celebrate the Lamb of God as we share communion together
- Board meeting tonight. I love board meetings. Seriously.

Tuesday, June 10

Summer Series



Here is the artwork for the Summer Series 2008 @ Crosspoint. The theme is BBQ which is an acronym for Big Bad Questions. We want to know what questions you have had about Christianity, religion, faith, or the Bible. Email your question to one of the staff, or Facebook us, or post it as a comment on this blog.

We'll do the top 7 questions.

And yes, we're going to bbq every single Sunday of the series. I love this church.

Goodness!

The highlight from this past Sunday was John Sherwood leading worship. John is much more than an amazingly gifted guitarist. He is a natural worship leader with the ability to shift and adjust with the Spirit throughout the entire service. Awesome. John very humbly introduced a new song to the congregation. When I got up to preach I let the cat out of the bag that John had actually written that song we just sung. People cheered.

God is good... We looked at 1 Peter 2 and how we have a responsibility to reflect God's goodness to others because he has brought us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Do some good in someone's life this week and see the difference it makes.

There was an excellent crowd there Sunday. Actually, for June it was an awesome crowd. The entire staff is pretty stoked about keeping things running at as good a level as we possibly can for the summer.

We have the design and theme for our summer series. I'll post it a little later...

Monday, June 2

Monday Thoughts

Yesterday was a powerful day @ Crosspoint. The worship was absolutely amazing. Seriously, people were truly focused on Christ and it was electric. I'm not sure how many people were there (tells you that I'm not that focused on #'s) but it was a great crowd. There were a few rows open on the right hand side of the church, but up on the left side where I usually sit people were joining us in the very front row. That's 'front row seating' in June!!

The entire band was sporting brand new Crosspoint t-shirts. Looking mighty fine.

We continued our "Juicy Fruit" series with 'Kindness'. While we were looking @ Romans 3 and God's undeserved kindness towards us, the teens were in the parking lot squeeging windshields. At the end of the service we ran a few pics of the squeegie team doing their kindness. Very cool.

Goodness. Oh my goodness. Goodness gracious... Goodness is the theme for this week.

Two new faces join the Crosspoint team today! Welcome to Laura Murray and John Sherwood! Laura is doing a 10-week hire-a-college-student deal. She'll be working the front office and leaning into a lot of our children's ministry programs. John is doing his 6-month internship in Pastoral Ministry. That means he'll pretty much be following me around for 6 months.

Someone showed kindness to me yesterday and gave me a $10 Tim Horton's card. Sweet!