TMG
Tom’s Midweek Greeting
Crossroads Community Church
Nevada MO
March 5, 2020
Hello, Crossroads Family!
I’m looking forward to being with you this Sunday! (Don’t forget to turn your clocks forward one hour Saturday night!) We’ll continue the series of sermons we started last Sunday looking at some of the events of the last days of Jesus on the earth. This Sunday we’ll be in Matthew 26, where we read of Jesus’ prayer and arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Sometimes a good way to study a Bible passage is to consider the place where it happens. God gives us clues to the meaning of things through the names of people and locations where events occur. “Gethsemane” means “oil press.” There was a grove of olive trees there, and olives were pressed to make oil. How did Jesus respond during these moments of ultimate pressure and anguish? How can we respond when, like Him, we are pressed down and crushed?
Some Announcements & Reminders
Thanks! Thanks to everyone who stayed and made possible our Crossroads Connection time last Sunday. What a great taco meal we enjoyed! Also, good fellowship and get-togethers for ministry teams! Thanks for your commitment. We’ll do Crossroads Connection again on April 5.
Baptism. Are you interested in being baptized? We’re planning a baptism on a Sunday morning this spring at the Y. Please let me know if you’re interested in being baptized! Thank you!
Easter Breakfast. We’ll have breakfast together at the Y prior to the worship service on Easter Sunday, April 12. More details to come. Please be thinking of someone who might like to join us Easter morning!
Home Group. Our next Home Group will be Wednesday, March 25, at the Rods’ home, 6:30-8:00 pm.
Praise & Prayer
There is a lot of good ministry going on in the Crossroads family – some of it organized on a church level, some of it individual initiatives and involvement in our Nevada community.
- Some from Crossroads recently went out with the church cooker and served a hot dog dinner in a local neighborhood. A lot of connections were made, and good conversations were had.
- Let’s also keep Donna, Erin, and others in our prayers as they seek God’s wisdom and leading for Young Life ministry. They need our support and prayers.
- Discipleship ministry is taking place in several different ways at Crossroads.
- One of our members has an opportunity to connect with visiting scholars at Cottey College.
- We’re blessed to have Ryan, Michaela, Axton, and Adley W. getting involved in our church family.
- Several of our young people are involved in sports and other activities at area high schools, and some of our adults are blessing young people by coaching various sports and activities. Let’s pray for them!
- We’re also praising God this week for a successful surgery for Joe Stanfield. Let’s pray for continued healing for Joe!
God’s Faithfulness
If you would like to help with my family’s move this Saturday morning, I would happily welcome your help! We’re going to try to get started around 9:00. Our new address will be just four blocks from where we live now! This new home will be a good place for the three of us, and then, in just a few months, for just Evan and me! We’re going to be a little closer to the high school, and a little closer to Woods Supermarket!
God has been faithful to provide such wonderful homes for the family he gave Diana and me. Upon returning to the U.S. from Europe in 2000, we “landed” in an old, very large farmhouse, twelve miles from town, in the woods, literally right on the Gasconade River, just a mile or so from where the Gasconade empties into the Missouri. It was a home with lots of problems! — a leaky roof, a cellar that flooded when it rained, windows that the wind blew through and around in the winter! But you could have hardly asked for a better place to raise eight homeschooled children. There was lots of room to play outside, to be on the river, to explore the woods, to watch wildlife (groundhogs, foxes, turkey, bald eagles) ; and maybe best of all, there was a large swimming pool across the road that we had access to. It was the old-school type of pool – big, with a 12’ deep end.
Now, we’ve enjoyed this old, beautiful Victorian home right in the center of Nevada. We’ve been close to everything we needed which has been especially helpful as I’ve raised three new drivers and shared cars with them! (When someone has been without a car, it has been easy enough to walk places.) I’ve enjoyed many a Saturday afternoon sitting on the porch swings enjoying the sunshine and the flowers (among the only ones we’ve ever raised that have actually lived and thrived!). Many of you know that not long before we came to Nevada, we bought a print of a painting of an old pink Victorian house with rose bushes around it. How interesting that we came to that very picture upon our arrival in Nevada! (Of course, the house is green now.)
I marvel sometimes that God has allowed all this while raising eight kids, putting six of them through college, living twelve years overseas, and fighting a terminal illness. There have been many very kind people who have helped us along the way. I have learned that God opens doors and closes doors if we will trust Him and wait for Him to act. I’m ashamed of my impatience, frustration, and lack of obedience at times.
Thank you for blessing this transplant family to Nevada! I’m glad to be part of a healthy, loving church family!
I hope to see you this Sunday!
— Tom
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