Hello, Crossroads Family !
Coming up at Crossroads :
- Tonight : Immerse, 7pm. Come join us for good fellowship and discussion. The reading assignment is pp 311-355 in the Immerse Bible (Obadiah, and the first half of Ezekiel).
- Sunday morning : Worship at 10 am. Children’s Church for 0-7 year-olds, and Bible class for 8-13 year-olds during the sermon time.
- Sunday evening : Sunday Night Bible Study, 6 pm. We’ll meet at Jenny’s home. Come with a favorite psalm of yours to share with the group.
- Sunday, November 16 : Crafts and gift basket preparation at the church at 3:30 pm. We’ll be preparing small crafts and assembling Christmas gift baskets for the residents and staff at Nathan Richard Care Center. Everyone is welcome ! We’ll deliver the gifts, and will carol the residents and staff, on Sunday, December 7. If you have items that could be part of gift baskets for the staff (snack items, hand sanitizer, Kleenex, throat lozenges, etc), please bring them this Sunday and leave them in the basket at the back of the worship area. Thank you !
- Next Men’s Recharge : Thursday, November 20, 6:30 pm. All men and your friends are invited !
- Next Elders Meeting : Sunday, November 30, following worship. Donna and Cris Rodriguez are preparing an initial 2026 church budget proposal for review by the elders before a congregational vote in December. If you are a ministry team leader and would like to give some input to Donna and Cris for your line in the budget for next year, please reach out to them. Thank you !
Needs at Community Outreach
With colder weather coming, and with some uncertainty for families due to the government shutdown, Community Outreach could use our help providing food to individuals and families in our area. The soup kitchen at Community Outreach serves meals seven days a week and would welcome non-perishable food items you could bring them, especially Thanksgiving-related food items.
For example, …
- canned green beans
- canned corn
- canned sweet potatoes
- cans of gravy
- instant mashed potatoes
- stuffing mixes
Thank you for helping with this need ! The soup kitchen served 104 people last Friday. The address for Community Outreach is 229 N. Cedar Street.
Missionaries Update
Our missionaries are busy serving the Lord both in the U.S. and overseas. Thank you for praying for them !
Jesse and Erica McCallister and family have been traveling a lot, visiting supporters and churches. They’ve had the joy of a German friend coming to the U.S. who has shared his story of faith in Christ with some of those the McCallisters have met with. Their team in Berlin has an opportunity to rent a cafe space in the heart of the city that could be used for Bible studies, discipleship, language cafe, and more. Thank you for praying for these opportunities and for God’s blessing on the McCallister family.
Colin Welch’s team is making creative use of a gallery in Paris to build connections with artists and other Parisians. Please pray for his team as they make decisions concerning the use of this space and that they would make great connections in the weeks and months to come. Also, please pray for Colin and Angie as they pursue God’s will for their future marriage and ministry together. Thank you !
Why all the fuss ?
One of the hard things a pastor (or elder or other teacher in the church) must do is to teach on sin. Obedience to Christ in all things sometimes may seem like a legalistic type of thing. Why all the fuss about sin ? After all, we know that everyone sins. Can’t we just leave well enough alone ?
Sin is actually a danger to ourselves, so to warn each other and to encourage each other to repent of sin and follow Christ obediently is actually a help to each other.
A favorite Bible verse of mine is John 14:21 where Jesus says, “He who has my commands and keeps them, he is the one who loves Me. He who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”
What a joy to walk closely with the Lord Jesus and to be in a position where He “discloses” Himself to us. I look at this as Him guiding us, filling us with His joy, making His presence more closely felt — something we, of course, all desire ! But the condition is, “Keep my commands.” Walk in obedience.
In John 15:10, Jesus said, “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” Yes, we are loved by God ; but do we always abide / live in the Father’s love, enjoying it moment by moment throughout the day ? Maybe not, and possibly because we’re not serious about His commands, or we make excuses for why it’s okay not to follow some of them.
It’s often said that all sins are the same, but are they really ? Yes, all sins are the same in the sense that they separate us from fellowship with God ; any sin defines us as a lawbreaker. But the consequences of all sins are not the same. In addition, public sin brings a faster response from those watching than does private sin ; it dishonors God’s name more quickly and perhaps more severely than private sins. (That’s not to say that private sins are okay either, however.)
We must be careful. The Apostle Peter wrote, “I urge you to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11). The great danger of sin is that it wages war against our souls. We may not even realize it. Yet, we must believe it because God says it’s so.
Psalm 112 : “How blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commandments. His descendants will be mighty on earth” (vv 1-2). That psalm goes on to speak of an obedient believer as being someone who is also gracious, compassionate, and righteous — someone who helps others, whose causes are just, and who will never be shaken.
As you pray for our church family, pray that God would make us sensitive to the danger of all sin, and that a love for God and desire for close communion with Him will keep us walking in all His ways.
— Tom
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