I want to encourage every Crossroads family member to take the following challenges in January to grow your faith like perhaps never before!

• Begin reading the Bible everyday starting today. You can do this thru downloading and printing a reading plan to keep inside your Bible as a checklist. Another way is to purchase a One Year Bible and it will guide you through daily readings. Or, you can use the YouVersion Bible App and select a reading plan for 2017 to read from your phone, computer or other electronic device.
• Attend church every Sunday for the next three weeks. We’re launching a new three-week series called PRAYING BOLDLY beginning January 8. For these three weeks you will learn how to pray more bold, powerful prayers that will literally change your life and relationship with God.
• This is also a great time to invite friends, family and anyone who needs to grow in faith to be a guest at Crossroads. Be sure to carry the invite cards that are in the lobby to help you to share with others. These cards give our service times, location and web address so they have something in their hand after you’ve invited them.
• Begin a 21-Day fast on January 8. Next weekend starts our 21 Days of Fasting & Prayer. Powerful things happen when people fast and pray. If you would like to learn more on this topic, you can follow this link: http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/fasting-for-beginners. Just know that you don’t have to give up food only, there are other things that may have more of your time and life than what you place in your mouth. We’re going to believe God together for a spiritual breakthrough in our church, our families, our community and our country during these 21 days!

Don’t allow yourself to be left out of what God may want to do in your life this year! Get off to a great start by accepting this challenge and just see what God will do. I believe this could very well be the greatest year for our church and your life also. Get ready to be changed!

There are a few things that jump out at me when I am reading the book of Acts.  One is the frequency of prayer that is mentioned and another is commitment everyone had to the fellowship of believers.

Just like I’ve preached the past three weeks, prayer is communication with God and you just can’t replace that with anything else.  If you weren’t able to be with us for that series, it was called Sync-Up and is available on the podcast (www.crossroadsavon.com).

To think of replacing prayer, would be like substituting sports events for communication in your home.  Sure, going to activities can be fun, but after a while your soul craves connection and will look for it in other places.

It excites me to read of the total commitment that each of the people in the early church seemed to exemplify.  Scripture tells us they were “devoted”, were “all together”, met “every day” in the temple, and fellowshipped in their homes.  As a result of this kind of devotion, people were saved daily and added to their number.

What if we showed that kind of passion for the Lord’s Church by praying consistently and committing wholeheartedly to its purpose?  Maybe we wouldn’t have to worry about passing laws to keep people from doing wrong, perhaps people would be changed.  Let’s try it!

What are some ways to have a great Easter?  Cadberry Eggs are a good start!  A Godiva bunny isn’t bad either.  But beyond new outfits, baskets, and candy, what are some ways to make Easter an awesome day at Crossroads.  Here are my suggestions:

1. Pray, pray, pray for the services.  Each of our worship experiences will feature an opportunity for those who don’t know Christ to come to faith in Him.  It takes the Holy Spirit to make this happen!
2. Pray for you to be used to invite someone to service.  Ask God to lay someone on your heart that you could invest in relationally and naturally invite to be your guest.  (Note:  Use the Freedom series invite cards to help spread the word)  Their eternal destiny and current reality could change because of your invitation!
3. Plan to attend the 1^st service at 9 a.m.  Why?  Because more already attend the 2^nd service each week and…it’s the most popular service for guests also.  This will help greatly with providing adequate seating in the Worship Center and crowd control in the kid’s ministry.
4. Park as far away as you can.  The walking will do most of us good!  The Worship Team and staff will already be parking over at the church offices.  In addition, you can line up along the curb on the north side of the building rather than taking up a parking space that a guest could use.

I believe by putting these suggestions into action, we can have the best Easter ever.  That’s not to say some chocolate won’t be fun too!  Which of these is the Lord challenging you to do?  Which one is the hardest to practice?

What would you want your family member to experience this Easter if you knew they would actually come?  If you are a volunteer in the church, that’s exactly how you should look at every Sunday.  The goal should be for every weekend worship experience to overwhelm every guest with God’s love.  This is displayed by our smiles, the way we teach the kids, children’s check in experience, reaching out to include others, and the use of our gifts. 

So, start thinking right now what you would want the church to look like, feel like and be like this Sunday and do your part to make it happen.  Then, do it every week (not just Easter), because you never know who’s life will be changed because of you.

Thought I would share another book report with a clever title: “Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches From Growing.”  Besides the humorous title, the book makes some very good points concerning what can hinder the advancement of God’s Kingdom through the local church.  So, you ask, “Craig, what are the ten stupid things?”  Here they are:

1. Trying to Do It All
2. Establishing the Wrong Role for the Pastor’s Family
3. Providing a Second-Rate Worship Experience
4. Settling for Low Quality in Children’s Ministry
5. Promoting Talent over Integrity
6. Clinging to a Bad Location
7. Copying Another Successful Church
8. Favoring Discipline over Reconciliation
9. Mixing Ministry and Business
10. Letting Committees Steer the Ship

 There are several things that God used in this book to get my attention, but the one I’ll share surrounds the leadership question.  Throughout the book, Geoff Surratt, refers to the importance of developing leaders.  The longer I am in ministry, the more convinced I am that this is essential.  You can’t grow past what you cannot sustain and you cannot sustain without leadership.  Our staff is spending hours talking about this topic right now and envisioning new ways to empower leaders in our church. 

 What is your next step in leadership?  Is God calling you to something bigger than yourself, but right now you’re too scared to jump?  What great thing might happen if you did?  Get positioned right now to hear God and obey His voice for what He wants to do through you in 2011.  How do you get positioned?  Shut everything else off and get alone with God, let Him speak, then get up and obey.