Why What We Do Matters- Creative Arts Training Day

Team,

I'm really excited about our upcoming Training Day after church on August 23rd. A little over a year ago when I joined the staff at Crossroads, I knew we would need to develop an annual "get together" as part of our strategy to build community and equipping into the fabric of our team, but with staff transitions I knew it wasn't going to happen right away. Thankfully, the right time is now!

Some of you might remember our first gathering- not a training day, but we did get together last November and I shared some of my heart with the team. I talked for 40 minutes! Ha! I have a video if you missed it ;).

I promise- no 40 minute speeches this time around. We are working hard as a staff to make sure our gathering is fun, informative, and useful for preparing us for our next Season of ministry.

But there was a reason I spoke for so long...

Let me ask you a question- given that our facility would support a congregation 3 times the size of our current Sunday attendance, do you think it's OK to continue to do ministry the same way we've been doing it with a congregation of our current size? My answer to that question is NO...and here's why: there are 1000s of people within 20 miles of our church who do not know Jesus and have no church community to call home. Friends, our job is not done. We cannot be content with business as usual when there are so many people who need to understand the love of Christ.

That's why it's important to improve our game. What can we do better? What changes can we make that will help Sundays be the best, most interesting and impactful moment of the week for those who come?

Sometimes we can have a chip on our shoulder when it comes to learning new things, or improving our performance. We think we're doing just fine. We have a certain groove and don't want it disrupted. We are suspicious or adverse to change. We simply don't want somebody else telling us what to do.

I want to humbly ask us all to set those kinds of attitudes aside, and come to our training day with open hearts and minds, ready to learn and grow.

I will not, and cannot believe that God's plan for Crossroads is to minister to 1/3 of the people we are capable of ministering to. So let's role up our sleeves, improve our game, and trust God for a new adventure. JIM

PS- It's not all about numbers, but numbers can be useful as a gauge of our effectiveness. Be encouraged- It's hard to see this in the summer, but our Sunday morning attendance is consistently up by around 10 percent over last year...so we are already on the move at Crossroads!