Crossroads Church Kansas City

Cutting to the chase: August was a big month for Crossroads. We added some new team members, threw a First Friday pre-party, and decided to start weekly services in November. In rapid fire mode…

 

We’re pumped about more people God has sent our way, Jose and Erin Martinez, with their three-year-old, Max, and Bethany Brown—all great folks who love Jesus and love downtown. A few days ago we pulled out our team covenant and added the new autographs amid applause and some mild trash talking…God continues to add people to the mix who will bring new gifts and vision to the table. If you suspect God is tugging you this direction, get in touch.

 

First Friday is a major event for the downtown community, as the 60+ galleries located in the Crossroads District open their doors, and thousands of people flood the streets to eat, drink, and take in the art scene. After three months of slow but steady renovations in the Brick House, we were ready to throw a First Friday pre-party and invite friends to come hang out en route to the galleries. We had a great time, had some good conversations, made some new friends, and will be hosting more parties in the future.

 

After a conversation with Jeff, the director of the Arts Incubator, we prayed about his invitation to start informal services in the Arts Incubator studio/gallery building downtown, and decided to go for it. This is a modification to our original plan to start services with a larger, more polished “launch,” but we feel God pulling us this way. We’re excited to start worshipping, preaching, and praying Sunday nights at ground zero in the Crossroads Arts District, a move which will give us another avenue for our downtown friends to participate and hear about Jesus. Pull out your calendar: Our first service will be Sunday night, November 8.

 

In addition to the above, I got a chance to preach on Acts 2:42-47, one of my favorite passages, at Crossroads Church Grain Valley (our sidekick in the mafia brotherhood of churches). A couple church planting roundtables were crammed into the usual mix of meetings and planning, and I also had the opportunity to facilitate a training session on social media (blogging, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) for some local pastors and leaders. We tackled another service project on the West Side. And our team continues to gather Sunday nights for Bible and planning as well as Wednesday mornings for prayer.

 

We invite you to pray…

 

1. For more church partners. We’re gearing up for public services with their accompanying costs. Pray that some more gospel-loving churches will step up to the plate and get involved in what’s happening downtown–ideally in relational, volunteer ways as well as financially.

 

2. For the services coming up. We’re working to keep our mission and values in front of us as we plan services that will be simple & unpretentious, but appropriate and Jesus-centered. We need wisdom and prayerful planning to stay ahead of the curve. We’re also still looking for the right worship leader to help us pull this off.

 

3. For continued Brick House renovations. Working with skilled volunteers is perfect for our budget (ha ha) but a slow process, since it means coordinating lots of schedules. We’d like to finish out the office/meeting room space, our first major project, and move forward on other remodels. Each step forward gets us closer to using this Brick House for meetings and hospitality the way we want to.

 

4. For continued engagement with friends downtown. We like how Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 9:19 (The Message). “I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!” This is who we want to be as well.

 

Once again, thanks for praying for the Crossroads plant and helping resource this gospel endeavor. We feel like the whole ride so far has been high speed, and we’re about to accelerate again. Our saving grace is that we serve a sovereign God who is way out ahead of us. And that’s good news for all of us.

 

Tags: church, church plant, Kansas City, kansas city church

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 at 4:58 PM and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.