W3 (Women Who Worship)

This Wednesday W3 will be meeting with the rest of the Crossroads family in the CFC auditorium to view the “Passion of the Christ” and to pray for our community to be impacted during this holiday season.  Please use your complimentary ticket and come or contact the church office at 266.1919 to get one and come at 6:30pm at the auditorium.

Hope your Bible Study is going well.  Comment here with questions or thoughts or concerns….

In His Name, Sunshine

Opportunities are available at every step we take.

In two weeks, Crossroads is taking the opportunity as a church body to view “The Passion of the Christ” and have a time of corporate prayer for the upcoming Easter holiday season.  We are hoping to impact the community and the most surefire way to do that is to pray, pray, pray for them.  If you care to join us, please stop by the WHC on Sunday to get your free ticket to reserve your seat, because only 700 people will be allowed due to fire regulations.  If you are in Motherwise or A Woman’s Heart this season, there will be NO CLASS Wednesday, March 19 so we may support this event.  The event is 6:30pm-9pm in the CFC auditorium.

Another opportunity is to serve the community by serving their children during the Easter holiday.  Crossroads is having 4 identical experiences for Easter; Saturday, March 22 at 4pm and 5:30pm and Sunday, March 23 at 9:30am and 11am!  Each experience will have opportunities for us to serve the children.  How else can we impact the 2500 people we hope will attend?  Of course this means you might have to volunteer 1 more hour that week.  That’s ok because God says we are the Light of this world, we are to show our fruit that we bear.  If you are interested in this opportunity and can spare your time, please email your name and phone number to srplato@yahoo.com and I will sign you up!

Thank you God for letting us live in a country that allows us to pray, worship and proclaim your name!  You are holy, worthy and magnificent.  Thank you in advance for the abundance of volunteers that you will have prepared for service on Easter, and the families of those who do not yet know you but will soon come to meet you through Easter weekend at Crossroads.  In Jesus’ name, Amen

You have an opportunity to write a short prayer of thanks to God right here.   Just click on the comments button and type away!

Sunshine

The W3 Book Club  will meet this Saturday, February 9, at Karen Pender’s home in Adrian from 10am-noon.  We’re going to discuss the book   Sacred Influence by Gary Thomas.  It’s been a very informative read!!  How refreshing to get a man’s view of what a woman can do for a man!  I’ve been married almost 33 years, and I still learned TONS about how to improve my relationship with my husband!  This will be a discussion filled with insight and laughter, I’m sure!!  

RSVP to Shirley Bordine by email:  sbordine@bf.umich.edu   When you RSVP, ask for directions to Karen’s if you need them.    

Below is a list of the books we are reading and discussing over the next several months!  You can find these books at many local book stores, or online at Christian Book Distributors (.com) or Amazon (.com).   Please join us!!

• March 8   Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Down   (book 2)  by Neta Jackson
• April12    Dangerous Surrender  by Kay Warren
• May 10    Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Real  (book 3)  by Neta Jackson
• June 14   Same Kind of Different as Me   by Ron Hall and Denver Moore
• July 12    Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Tough   (book 4)  by Neta Jackson

Girls,

It’s time for the launch of “A Woman’s Heart: God’s Dwelling Place”!! This study begins this week at Crossroads.

The Wednesday Night group will meet this Wednesday, January 30th at 6:30pm-8:30pm in Founder’s Hall of the Christian Family Center. If you have signed up, we are excited to see you there. If you have not signed up but would still like to come, show up and we will get you registered and you can purchase a book for $16! REMEMBER, Doors will open at 6:15pm, so come early, get registered and begin hanging out right away. We have a fun evening planned with worship, prayer, orientation and an introductory video with Beth Moore! Don’t be late….

Our Thursday morning group begins this week too! Thursday, January 31 at 9:30am-11:30am at Vicky P.’s home in Onsted. If you have signed up for this time, great! If you haven’t and need the address and directions, please email me at srplato@yahoo.com. Books will be available for those who still have to purchase books.

Don’t miss out on this awesome opportunity to grow closer to God, draw closer to other women and make new or renew relationships!! In the words of Beth Moore from her promotional video, “This is gonna be so fun, this is gonna be so fun, this is gonna be so fun!”

See you there!!

Sunshine

Hello Readers,

I told you the last time I blogged how sad I was that the new diet left me without cheese and ice cream. It makes me sad. Actually though, I have broke down and officially joined the online WW, so I can get some better information and correct planning. It is not REALLY a diet, but a plan for a lifestyle change and I like it.

I weighed in tonight after 3 weeks of this plan and I have lost 4 pounds! YEAH! That is about 30% of my goal and I am ecstatic. I haven’t yet done well on the exercise. My goal is to exercise 3-4 times a week and so far it has been once a week. Looks like I have something more to work on.

I have asked my husband to consider buying us an elliptical machine. He is considering. We haven’t come to a firm conclusion, but I would say that he is leaning heavily in favor for it.

One more thing before I go… Just a reminder to our Crossroaders: Night of Praise is this Wednesday at 6:30pm in the Auditorium. Hope you will consider attending and spending a couple hours devoted to praising God and being fed the Word of God. I will save you a seat if you leave a reply for me to. Come hear what He has to say to you!!!

Sunshine

FLIP ‘YOUR’ HEART!

 W3’s Fall study, “Breaking Free” concluded Nov 28^th with a night of celebration capped off by a time of sharing by participants, personal reflection, worship and a symbolic ceremony of “making the great exchange” –trading areas of personal bondage for Freedom in Christ.  One by one former ‘captives’ took issues such as unbelief, unforgiveness, and pride to the foot of the Cross and exchanged them for the Truth . Then after a time of awesome worship, many shared areas where God worked in their hearts and lives through the study to begin healing from past hurts or gained insight to present problems.   Others spoke of a growing love for and intimacy in their relationship with God because of the daily homework time and weekly video teaching.  New, and deeper connections were made with other women of Crossroads through the weekly discussion and answered prayer in their lives and the lives of the others.  Yet this study was just a few steps on our faith journey. We were challenged to realize why in-depth Bible study and spending time in prayer is crucial to our walk with Christ and to determine what our next step in that walk should be.  

  FLIP “YOUR” HEART  

And speaking of next steps have you seen “Flip that House” yet?  Its one of the most popular  reality shows on cable TV.  The premise is irresistible.   An investor purchases a run down, dilapidated house that is filled with trash; it requires major renovation to be sellable to potential buyers..  The investor (within their budget) personally cleans up, renovates and transforms the house into a home that reflects their vision of what the house can be –making it like new,  so that it can be placed back on the market  to earn a profit.  In the real estate world, this is known as ‘flipping’.   In God’s economy it is known as His ultimate plan for you and me.

God wants to flip your heart –He spared no expense to purchase it, giving His own Son to pay for it’s clean up and renovation.  Now He desires to transform it into His dwelling place  by taking you to a place of relationship that is closer and more personal  and making it a  place to reveal His love and Glory to the world around you–and in the process  to draw others into relationship with Him as well. 

Regardless of where you are taking your next step from, W3 invites you to take it by joining us for our winter study:  “A Woman’s Heart, God’s Dwelling Place” an 11 week, interactive, in-depth Bible Study by Beth Moore that combines video teaching and small group discussion. 

The study begins on Jan 30^th  (p.m.) or Jan 31^st  (a.m.) Choose between Wednesday evenings at the CFC in our NEW LOCATION:FOUNDERS HALL  6:30-: 30 p.m. or Thursday Mornings in the Onsted Area  at Vicky P’s home 9:30-11:30 a.m. 

Cost: $16.00 which includes the study book.

Sign up under the flipping sign in the Grand Lobby.   See you there!

Hello everyone!

So after a CRAZY busy month of December with more food than I can possibly stand (my jeans are fitting pretty tightly), I am finally able to get to Blog again.

W3 is incredibly excited to tell you about two Bible Studies set to begin in January.  First, MOTHERWISE, Wisdom for Mothers will be offered again beginning Wednesday, January 9th, and will be in the Carosel Room of the CFC in Adrian — 6:30-8:30pm for 9 weeks.  Because you never stop being a mom, this is perfect study for any mother of any age.  Check out the upcoming opportunities page at the right for more information.

And if that is not for you, feel free to wait a couple more weeks to begin A Woman’s Heart: God’s Dwelling Place by Beth Moore.  An 11 week, in depth Bible Study for Women who want to have better intimacy with God as your new year’s resolution (if it is not, choose to make it your new year resolution, now).   Consider signing up if you wish to see how the God of the old testament who lived in the tabernacle, now lives within our hearts.  There will be two times offered.  Wednesdays, starting January 30, 2008 from 6:30pm–8:30pm (arrive early as table time is a valued necessity) in the Founders Hall of the CFC.  And Thursdays, starting January 31, 2008 from 9:30am–11:30am at Vicky P.’s home in Onsted.

Just so you know, there is a Night of Praise for Crossroads January 23, 2008 at 6:30pm in the CFC auditorium.  If you have never come to this event, you must come….  It is a way to have more mature worship time with our Father and  praise Him the way only true believers can.  I usually come off so excited to be with God and then leave feeling refreshed and renewed and loved.  We do it for Him, but since He lives in us, we benefit.

Hope to see you attend some of these events.  Make a commitment to God to get to know Him better this year.  You won’t be sorry you did it….

Sunshine

If you did not attend Project Share’s distribution yesterday, YOU MISSED OUT!

Crossroads Community Church took on a God-sized project this Christmas season when we decided to raise money for the homeless and needy families in our community.  We recognize that with a hungry belly also comes a greater hunger for Christ.  So, in God’s great love, this church decided to partner with Feed The Children and some local agencies to reach 800+ people in our community and deliver 1 box of food, 1 box of supplies and 1 bag of extras as available to feed a family of four for 1 week.  It was the people of the Church’s job to decide what they would sacrifice for this project to cover the cost of the two semitrucks from FTC (retail $85,000, but for our bargain price of $20,000)  Last week we took the offering….  Amazingly, God put it in the hearts of His children to generously donate over $53,000!!!!!!!!  The excess amount will go to a social agency who will distribute it to people this winter who need to keep their heat on and cannot afford that!

God is so good!  And when that number exasperates you, we move forward to Saturday, December 15 when the trucks arrived.  450 Crossroads volunteers were scheduled to arrive to help unload the semis, place Crossroads labels and Christmas experience invitations in the boxes, bag miscellaneous items, load them to the docking areas, place them into delivery cars and deliver them to each family individually.  We were scheduled to arrive at 9:15am because the semis weren’t supposed to be there until 10am, but when we arrived, the semis were already there and needed to be unloaded as quickly as possible, so they could deliver their next supply before the huge snowstorm.  The craziness that was supposed to be controlled well by human volunteers quickly became controlled by God in His glory.

A human chain was formed from the back of the semi to inside the elementary school doors and down the hall.  We passed boxes back and forth and down the line and stacked them high.  Another team of people stuffed them with the invitations, labeled them and carried them back outside the doors.  The next team carried the finished boxes from outside the doors to the loading docks and another team stuffed them into cars for delivery.  Another station was the bagging of miscellany.  FTC threw in a few more unpacked pallets of food and supplies and we had to bag them up and place them out for delivery as well.  A station was set up to give directions to the delivery drivers (anyone who volunteered as long as there was an adult.  Even the cars who deliver were labeled with a magnet that designated them as from Crossroads.  All this happened in a light fluffy snow and it was COLD!!!  There was a room for 0-3 year old kids to have a place to go while their parents volunteered.  There was cookies and cocoa or coffee for every volunteer.

I cannot tell you how overwhelming the amount of boxes were.  You heard 1600 boxes, but you do not know until you see them all!!  Amazing.  God can do all that.   I was overwhelmed and so excited!  I wanted to be part of what God was doing.  He knew that this snowstorm was coming and he set it up that 865 families would have meals for a week.  865 families of at least 4 people = approximately 3460 people who were shown God’s love through Project Share.  3460 people who will be invited to hear God’s message to them at Christmas this year at Crossroads.  Countless people who will have their heat paid for this winter without fear of chill or shut off.

This is beyond belief.  It was chaotic and crazy and fun and when my leaders told me just to wait, my excitement filled me so that I just couldn’t wait.  Just because I was assigned to an area that I was told to wait, I said, “ok, I will come back and check on you later, right now I will find somewhere that needs my hands to serve the LORD.”  And that is what I did.  I was assigned to bagging, but I believe the only areas I did not help in yesterday was child care and delivery.  I ran around carrying boxes and bags inside and out, human chain line and otherwise and in heels.  I am such a GIRL!  And I believe 100% that God was made famous that day.  His glory is amazing and it is great to see it in the spirit that is Crossroads.   Well done, good and faithful servants of Christ!

So, share your Project Share story.  Did you notice something someone might not have?  Did you deliver a package?  Can you describe the human chain?  Merry Christmas!

Sunshine

Love to read?   There are so many great Christian books available!  You are invited to join the W3 Book Club!  Read a good book every month….connect with other Crossroads Women….and join in the discussion.   W3 Book Club will meet the Second Saturday of every month, beginning January 12, at Karen Pender’s home in Adrian from 10am-noon.  Please RSVP to Shirley Bordine by email:  sbordine@bf.umich.eduWhen you RSVP, ask for directions to Karen’s if you need them.   The first book we are reading is:  The Yada Yada Prayer Group (Book #1 in the series).   You can find this book at many local book stores, or online at Christian Book Distributors (.com) or Amazon (.com).      Ask for the book for Christmas…and read it before the club on Jan 12!  It’s a very fun read, and will give you alot to think about!    Hope to see you then!  -Martha, Shirley, and Karen