Easter weekend is one of the busiest, and most beautiful weekends in the ministry. We had the opportunity to share a gigantic Easter egg hunt with our community. I absolutely love getting out and meeting new families. It is also very special to me to recognize many of the faces in the crowd and to be able to call them friends. It is cool that in less than 2 years, a crowd of strangers is becoming a community of friends.
Saturday evening we visited with friends and watched "The Passion." That God would choose that for Himself so that He could have a relationship with me is incredible. How many relationships do we have that we would even sacrifice at all to maintain? Usually if we get "done wrong" or our feeling get hurt or we don't feel loved, we just ditch that friend and move on. I'm so glad that God didn't just ditch the human race, but He did what it took to restore us.
Sunday morning was a little rough before services. Most of our ministry leaders had experienced some type of major set back before arrival - whether electronics crashing, or difficult conversations with family or friends, health issues, or stuff with kids. That is fairly par for the course on Easter Sunday morning for people in the ministry, but our newer leaders were a little caught off guard. I don't usually think about warning them about the spiritual warfare side of leadership in the ministry.
However, the services themselves went really well. I thought the worship set came together very well. I loved "There will be a day" by Jeremy Camp and "True Love" by Phil Wickham. I was nervous about doing two new songs on Easter, but thought they turned out great. I love to see our people engage in worship. I love to see them falling in love with Jesus.
I worked in children's this week, so I missed the sermon. I am confident that Shawn did a superb job of sharing the good news that Jesus is alive and how that impacts our lives. Children's went well. I had as many kids in my 2nd-3rd grade small group as I used to have in the entire children's ministry just a few months ago. I enjoy getting to interact with the kids. Their enthusiasm is refreshing and energizing.
Our family enjoyed eating lunch with a couple of other families from our church. I appreciate being included in other people's holidays since we are far away from our own family. It is always special to me when people reach out to our family and invite us into their homes. I love getting to know people on a deeper level than what is possible in just a few minutes on Sunday morning.
I love church planting. I love reaching families that have never been to church, or who have been out of church for a long time. I love the people that I do ministry with, that share my passion and zeal for other people. I love that we focus hard on reaching out into the community, and less on making ourselves comfortable.
I am excited about the future of The Crossroads. It's the adventure of a lifetime.
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