Crossroads at Boone United Methodist Church
Messages and Media
from John 11:17-26
On this Resurrection Day, we hear Jesus’ statement, “I Am the Resurrection and the Life.” Jesus speaks this hopeful truth into the midst of disappointment and sadness and loss. It is not only a promise of the possibility of eternity with Him, but an invitation to life in which there is hope in the midst of our darkest place and our deepest confusion.
“Do you believe this?”
w/ Vern Collins
from Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 85:6 reads, “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?”
This longing undergirds our series and this season of revival we are asking God to bring. What is hindering your rejoicing? What is getting in the way of you living completely surrendered to the love and presence of God in your life? Where do you need revival?
As we open this series, we are invited to consider two things: 1) that even in the most seemingly impossible situations, God has the power to revive; to restore life; to make new, and 2) God isn’t after only the form or appearance of life, rather God longs to send His Holy Spirit that we may KNOW and EXPERIENCE life!
Where are the dry bones in your life? Where is the valley of death in which you need the Holy Spirit to come?
w Vern Collins
from Acts 1:6-11 and Isaiah 43:18-19
In Isaiah 43:18-19a we read, “Forget the former things do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” In Revelation 21:5, we hear the words of Jesus captured by John, “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’” Since the beginning, God has been in the business and the process of taking that which is broken, and rebuilding it…making it new!
How many times over the past 14 months have we heard or uttered some version of the statement, “I can’t wait until things go back to normal…until they go back to the way they were?”
Is it possible that our longing for what is familiar is hindering our ability to see the possibility of God doing something new?
w/ Vern Collins
from Luke 24:13-35
In Isaiah 43:18-19a we read, “Forget the former things do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” In Revelation 21:5, we hear the words of Jesus captured by John, “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!'” Since the beginning, God has been in the business and the process of taking that which is broken, and rebuilding it…making it new!
As we begin our new series, “Rebuild,” we are invited this week to consider that part of recognizing the need for God’s ability to make new is to come to terms with that which we have lost. As you consider this past year; as you consider your life-what has been lost? Where have you experienced loss? As you think about the church, where has there been loss? How might that loss open the door for possibility?
w/ Vern Collins
from John 20:1-18
Are those things in this life in which you have placed your hope able to bear up under the weight that you place on them to hold you up when you face life’s challenges?
There is One Who will not only always bear up under the weight, but will bear you up when the weight is too great!
Jesus Is Alive!
w/ Vern Collins
from 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 and 1 Corinthians 9:34-27
While we have this tendency to try to avoid struggle…to avoid suffering at all costs, one of the things that we see consistently in Scripture is that God not only meets us in our place of struggle, but God is able to use our struggle to not only do amazing things IN us, but also amazing things THROUGH us.
As we begin this 6 week series between Easter and Lent, consider we invite you to imagine what God might be able to do if you are willing to be honest about your weakness and create space for Him to meet you there.
w/ Vern Collins and Jeff McClain
from Matthew 28:1-10
The story of Jesus’ resurrection is familiar to so many, but if we allow the story to become to familiar, we run the risk of no longer expecting that we can be surprised by Jesus…we run the risk of losing sight of the fact that Jesus might just be showing up right where we are.
May the hope of the resurrection meet you in a very real way this Easter season.
w/ Lory Beth Huffman and Vern Collins
from Acts 9:1-20
The final resurrection encounter we look at as we wrap up this series is perhaps one of the most well known in all of the New Testament. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the world has been impacted with the Gospel over thousands of years in large part of the encounter that this one man had with Jesus.
Not only is this encounter so well known, but it challenges us in ways that many of us need to be challenged…it forces us to wrestle with the question in our own lives: “Am I living life WITH God…or am I living life FOR God?”
w/ Vern Collins
from John 21:1-17
Have you ever stopped to consider how our entertainment, experience, pursuit-of-satisfaction driven culture affects our expectations of what encountering the Lord ought to look like…ought to feel like?
While there are certainly times when an encounter with God evokes a physical and emotional response…while there are times when those encounters are fantastical…what about those times seeks to encounter us in the ordinary…in the familiar?
What if you began to look for God in the familiar? In the every day? Imagine how things might begin to be different…how different following Jesus might begin to look.
w/ Vern Collins
from John 20:24-29
Have you ever considered what the “locked doors” in your life might be when it comes to encountering Jesus? What are those things (either of your own making or as a result of your circumstances) that feel like a barrier between you and God? Those things that keep you from experiencing the power of the resurrection?
Have you ever considered that Jesus is willing to walk right in to that space…right in to your fear and your doubt and your disappointment…and once again, offer all of Who He is to you?
What if that were true? What if there was no amount of hiding that could keep Jesus away? Imagine the possibility.
w/ Vern Collins
from Luke 24:13-35
Without encounters with the Risen Christ, the empty tomb would be nothing more than the place where Jesus WAS…instead, as Luke and the other Gospel writers attest and as the early church bore witness to…the reality was Jesus was on the loose!
Does it feel that way in your life? Is Jesus on the loose, free to shake things up, free to redirect, free to reorient, and inspire, and challenge, and love, and meet you where you are…? Or has Jesus simply gone missing?
As we begin our new series, “Encountering Jesus,” we invite you open yourself up to the places that Jesus might just be showing up in your life…the place where He might already be at work.
w/ Vern Collins
from Luke 24:1-12
“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
So often we think of what the Cross of Christ means we are saved FROM, but how often do you consider the empty tomb of Christ and ask the question, “what am I saved FOR?”
Why do we look for life in dead places? What if the resurrection isn’t just something that happened 2,000 years ago…what if the resurrection can happen in your life NOW?
w/ Vern Collins
from John 20:19-22
From hearing from some of our missionaries, to a powerful message on Jesus’ commission of His disciples from John’s Gospel, to an important invitation following our denomination’s called General Conference vote, this is a powerful Sunday.
Even in the midst of our every day, busy, running from here to there lives…even in the midst of our doubt and our hurt and our own woundedness, we are invited to remember that Jesus not only walks into that with us, but calls us to follow Him in becoming partners in His work of healing brokenness and redeeming this world.
w/ Laura Byrch, Mason Heistand, Caitlin McVay, and Vern Collins
from John 21:1-14
What does the resurrection of Jesus mean to you? There is no denying that it is the the pivotal event on which the faith of Christians for generations continues to be built…it is the hope on which the church stands, and we mark it each year when we celebrate the resurrection at Easter.
But too often, we think of the resurrection as just that-an event. Something that happened. Something that can be marked at a point in time and is completed. When we view the resurrection as simply an event, however, it becomes difficult to live in the hope that is made possible through it.
What if the resurrection is so much more than an event? What if the resurrection is an eternal reality with significant implications in your every day life?
What if Jesus, truly does meet us in the routine with new revelation of Who He is?
w/ Vern Collins
from John 11:1-44
To be sure, the raising of Lazarus from the dead is one of Jesus’ most spectacular displays of power over the course of His ministry. But for those who are familiar with the story, is it possible that we allow the miracle to overshadow the proclamation made by Jesus when He states, “I Am the resurrection and the life?”
Certainly there are tombs we need to be called out of, but in making this statement, what is Jesus speaking in to our present…what is Jesus speaking into all of our “IF ONLY” statements?
w/ Vern Collins
from John 20:1-18
We have a great tendency to hope for things that will not last. Sure, like the end of the week, they may bring relief or rest for a brief period of time, but ultimately they are as fleeting as Fridays.
What if, instead of hoping for temporary newness, and the wrong kind of resurrection…you dare to believe that Jesus brings lasting hope and a new life that will not spoil or fade?
Imagine the possibility.
Jesus is RISEN!
w/ Vern Collins
from Mark 16:1-8
In each of the Gospels we are given an account of the resurrection of Jesus…that moment, that event which took place on the third morning when Jesus walked out of the tomb. The event that changed everything. The hope of the church, and the world hangs on that one event. The one that says death and sin DO NOT have the final say.
We hear that story each year on Easter morning…hear that hope proclaimed. But how do you make more than just the retelling of an account of something that happened 2,000 years ago? How do you, like Peter for example, EXPERIENCE the resurrection…the LIVING HOPE of the resurrection…the hope that affects your life NOW right where you are?
Mark’s Gospel gives us an idea of how we might go from hearing an account to be transformed by this Savior!
w/ Vern Collins
from Ephesians 1:15-23
Too often we allow our circumstances to determine our perspective…when you are having a good day or things are going your way, then life is good, right? But, when you’re in a tough season, or you’ve just gotten some terrible news, then life is NOT good.
What if, instead, you allowed your perspective to determine how you view your circumstances?
There is reason to hope…hope that penetrates and permeates any circumstance you might be walking through…and it is a hope born out of the power of the resurrection.
w/ Vern Collins
from John 15:1-11
A mark of maturity is independence. Whether it is making decisions on your own, setting your own curfew, paying rent, buying a car, owning a home, attaining a job, trying something new, or starting a career, the ability to think, act, care for oneself shows independence…which translates to this world as a sign of maturity.
The problem comes when that thinking or that value system begins to affect our understanding of life with Jesus. No matter how much we accomplish, we are all fragile people living fragile lives.
What if, your maturity in Christ weren’t about exercising your independence, but becoming more deeply dependent on Jesus? In John 15, Jesus calls that, “remaining,” or, “abiding,” in Him.
What would it look like for you to embrace your fragility, rather than try and cover it up with all that you are chasing or accomplishing?
w/ Vern Collins
from Luke 24:36-53
Paul promises in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians that if anyone is in Christ then they are a new creation…he goes on to say that the old has gone and the new has come (from 2nd Corinthians 5).
That is quite a promise for those desperate for change. It is a promise that is full of hope that things don’t have to continue to be as they are…that the struggles we currently have we might just be able to lay down, right? Well, yes…sort of.
What if the change that is promised does not have anything to do with your circumstances, but you within them…or your perspective about them?
We tend to get frustrated when we don’t see the change we long for as followers of Christ, but perhaps we are looking for change in the wrong place.
What if the reality were you were just few adjustments away from experiencing the change you long for in Jesus…change that sets you loose on this world as one who can shape it for God’s Kingdom?
Things change when things have changed.
w/ Vern Collins
