from Matthew 16:24 (and other selected passages)
w/ Lory Beth Huffman
Tag: Crossroads
“Framework for Faithfulness: Christ at the Center” (September 23, 2018)
from Luke 10:38-42
We are conditioned, many of us, to compartmentalize our lives as a means of surviving the pace at which we tend to operate. We can call it self-preservation, and while it might help us feel like we are keeping our heads above water, when that mentality creeps into our spiritual life it becomes dangerous.
Without realizing it, it means that define what is at the center of our lives by determining what Christ can touch and what He must leave alone. We set aside time to connect with Him, and often in doing so, try to decide the parts of us that He gets to connect with.
What if everything we do is meant to be an act of worship, and act of placing and keeping Christ at the center of who we are?
w/ Vern Collins
“Framework for Faithfulness: Vision” (September 2, 2018)
from Nehemiah 1:1-2:6
Much of our time, energy, and attention are spent reacting to someone else’s urgent or to our own need to achieve or acquire or accomplish. We have deadlines to meet, meetings to make, assignments due, bills to pay and on top of all of that we set goals and have ideas for things we’d like to accomplish and overcome.
This is life, right? But is this really the “full life” Jesus came to offer (John 10:10)?
What if the picture we grabbed on to for who we could be come or what our situation or the situation of the world around us could look like isn’t born out of our own need for validation or comfort or security…what if it is born out of something that God plants in us?
What if God has a vision for you? A preferred future born out of His call to live life to bring Him glory and invite others into His story?
w/ Vern Collins
“Summer Reading-John: I Am The Vine” (July 29, 2018)
from John 15:1-17
What is your life oriented around?
There is a saying often used in the business world that states, “All organizations are perfectly designed to get the results they are now getting. If we want different results, we must change the way we do things.”
While your life is not an organization or a system, the same truth is applicable. If Jesus says that we are to bear fruit for His Kingdom, it begs the question: what kind of fruit are you bearing?
What if our primary focus isn’t the fruit, but what our lives are rooted in?
w/ Vern Collins
“Let the Journey Begin” (July 15, 2018)
from Genesis 12:1-9
In the first of a special two-part series (and brief break from our “Summer Reading” series), we welcome new Senior Pastor Lory Beth Huffman who challenges us to consider what it might look like for us to journey TOGETHER with the future that God is calling us in to.
God is calling. Right where you are. Will you follow?
w/ Lory Beth Huffman
“Sumer Reading-John: I Am the Light of the World” (June 24, 2018)
from John 8:12-20
Imagine what could change about the way your life and the world around you if you lived into the truth, that while things may seem dark now…the promise is that darkness not only will not endure, but has been swallowed up in Light!
w/ Jeff McClain
“Summer Reading-John: The Bread of Life” (June 17, 2018)
from John 6:35-59
“Desire” is not a word we use often in the church…somehow it has come to mean something bad…after all, isn’t it our desires that lead to sin…that lead to choosing things that are less than what God wants for us?
In our passage this week, Jesus isn’t challenging the crowd on having desire, rather calling them to consider that perhaps their desire is simply misplaced.
We spend a great deal of time and energy trying to satisfy our need to be fulfilled with things that at the least will only leave us hungry for more, and at worst will steal life from us…but what if we could find our desires fulfilled in something or Someone Who will not only satisfy us, but give us life?
“Come and eat and be filled…”
w/ Vern Collins
“Summer Reading-John: Nicodemus” (June 3, 2018)
from John 3:1-18
Have you considered what coming face to face with the Good News of the Gospel of Christ might truly mean for your life?
It has the power to shape the way you view your life, understand your purpose. It has the power to change the way you view others. It has the power to define who you are.
In this, Pastor David Hockett’s last Sunday with us, he proclaims a powerful, hopeful, and inviting message that is at the core of who we are invited to be as individuals, and who we are called to be as the church.
w/ David Hockett
“Summer Reading-John: Prologue” (May 27, 2018)
from John 1:1-18
Do you ever stop to think of the power of your words? Words have the power to create, and they have the power to destroy. Words have the power to uplift and they have the power to tear down, to heal and to wound…
As we begin our “Summer Reading” series through the Gospel of John, we are invited to encounter the power of One Word in particular…the fullness of the wisdom, and knowledge, and purpose, and creativity of God wrapped up in the flesh…Jesus.
What does it mean that this Word was spoken into the darkness? What does it mean that this Word is spoken into YOUR darkness?
w/ Vern
“Life Together: Confession and Communion” (May 13, 2018)
from Psalm 51:1-17
Paul writes in his letter to the church in Galatia that, “it is for freedom that you have been set free,” and challenges the believers there to no longer be yoked by slavery…and yet, many of us walk around bound by the weight of our failures and our sin.
We bear it to the point that we become experts at hiding it…
But what if freedom is found, not in hiding it…but by being willing to be honest about those times when we miss the mark?
What if in choosing freedom, we are also choosing to look more like the church Jesus imagined?
w/ Vern Collins
“Life Together: The Day With Others” (April 22, 2018)
from Hebrews 10:23-25
Mission Celebration Sunday! How is God calling you to deeper discipleship? Deeper trust in His call? Deeper dependence on His leading and His provision as He draws you deeper into the full life that Jesus promises in John 10?
w/ testimony from some of our very own Crossroads family and a word from Pastor Laura Byrch
“Life Together: Community” (April 15, 2018)
from Ephesians 2:11-22 and Psalm 133
As we begin a new series inspired by Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s classic work, Life Together, consider what makes you unique? Or what is one unique thing about you?
All of us…all of humanity possess some unique quality that distinguishes us from others. The question is, how is it that our distinctions can become the things that divide us?
It is perhaps one of the greatest arguments against the church…that the Body of Christ is often as fractured as the world around it. What if, instead of defining ourselves by the things that set us apart, we find our distinction in the One thing that unites us? Christ.
w/ Vern Collins
“What You Believe” (April 8, 2018)
from John 20:19-31
What you believe determines how you live. How you respond in a given situation is dictated by the set of beliefs upon which you’ve built your life.
What you believe about love determines who you are in a relationship. What you believe about time determines how you use the time you have.
The same is true for what you believe about Who Jesus is…it impacts everything about how you live your life.
If Who you believe Jesus to be determines how you live, then what you have experienced in your walk with Jesus determines what you are living for.
w/ Vern Collins
“Falling Into Goodness: Follow Jesus” (March 25, 2018-Palm Sunday)
from Matthew 21:1-11
What is the statement you are making with your life?
Is it one of security, or of uneasiness? Is it a statement of confidence, or are you seeking identity in people and possessions?
Everything we do or say makes a deeper statement about who we are and what we believe…everything we do even makes a statement about Who we believe Jesus to be.
What if this Palm Sunday, you didn’t merely watch Jesus “pass by” on the road into Jerusalem amid shouts of “Hosanna!” but you chose to turn and follow Him?
w/ Vern Collins
“Falling Into Goodness: Wrestle With God” (March 18, 2018)
from Genesis 32:22-32
Yes, you’re taught not to fight…but we fight anyway don’t we? Maybe it’s not about throwing punches, but it nearly impossible to go through this life without finding ourselves in contention with others from time to time…
What if fighting is actually a part of the journey? What if it has everything to do with what you are fighting for and who you are fighting?
For our 5th Sunday in Lent we consider Jacob and the fight he had with God…perhaps it’s time for you to get in the dirt with God!
w/ Vern Collins
“Falling Into Goodness: Choose the Humble Path” (March 11, 2018)
from Matthew 5:1-3
As we continue our series through the season of Lent, we are invited to consider one of Jesus’ keys to the kingdom we have been talking about in recent weeks…
Humility.
What if, instead of the way we tend to think of humility, as what we stand to lose by choosing the humble path, we dare to consider that humility is instead about what we might gain?
w/ Vern Collins
“Falling Into Goodness: Imagine the Kingdom” (Marcy 4, 2018)
from Luke 17:20-21
We often speak of life with Christ as being a “journey,” but inherent in a journey is that at some point there is an end…a finish line. What does the finish line with Christ look like? How do we know when we’ve arrived?
On the 3rd Sunday of Lent, you’re invited to consider what Jesus means when He talks about this Kingdom that is coming or that is near…
Where exactly is this Kingdom breaking in? Around us…or inside us? And if it’s inside you…imagine what that means for your life!
w/ Vern Collins
“Falling Into Goodness: Live From Your True Self”
from Psalm 42 and Ephesians 3:16-19
What if you longed for God, simply for Who God is, rather than longing for the things God can do for you?
In our second week in Lent, you’re invited to consider how life might begin to look different if you live from your true self, from your true nature as one created to be deeply connected to God.
w/ Vern Collins
“Falling Into Goodness: Dwell With God” (February 18, 2018)
from Matthew 4:1-11
As we begin our journey through the season of Lent, we invite you to consider Lent perhaps differently than you ever have before.
What if, instead of surrendering some habit you are trying to break, or feeling guilty about the things you can’t surrender or simply don’t want to surrender, you saw Lent as a time to rest? A time to rest in the ground of God’s goodness, and allow God to speak to you about who you truly are as one loved deeply by Him.
w/ David Hockett
“God Is: Already and Not Yet” (February 4, 2018)
from Revelation 21:1-7
Many of us have a difficult time waiting…for anything. In this world of immediacy, we have grown impatient and feel like waiting is a waste of time…
And yet, for far too many followers of Christ, faith is little more than waiting for some promise that is going to come at the end, when the reality is that promise of a future hope is meant to have bearing on the “already,” that is the life you are living right now.
w/ Vern Collins