A Little Summer Nostalgia

We are having our first heat-wave of the Summer here in the Northwest. Well over 90 degrees today! I found myself being thankful for the fact that we have air conditioning in our building – something we didn’t have in our old facility on NE 8th Street. (“it never gets that warm in Seattle”).  A Sunday like today would have been miserable for our bodies (though always sweet for the soul). So let’s be thankful for the small blessing that enhanced our worship this morning. Now if we could just turn the utility bill into something small…

88 Children

Recently our children gave to a special missions project. They were challenged to give only their own money … no parental help expected. Pennies, nickels, quarters, and a suprising number of dollars made their way from allowances, special jobs, birthday gifts, and the like over the course of the month. $706 came in by the appointed Sunday, which means 88 children in Rawanda will be going to camp this summer to hear about Jesus.

Yellow. Cards. And. You. Fill. Them. Out. Please!

At just about every worship service at Crossroads we will call attention to a very simple piece of cardstock … the multi-purpose Crossroads communication card, commonly known as the “Yellow Card” … which is inside the weekly copy of Crossroads Today. We ask everyone in attendance to complete a card weekly (actually, you only need to fill in your name if nothing has changed). And we promise, your information is collected for our use only.

Why is this card so helpful to us? Let me count some of the ways:

1. It lets our ministry teams know you were here! And that is important to us on so many levels. With over 2000 people attending CBC we just are not always able to notice who might be sitting in worship. And worship is important to us.
2. It helps us capture address changes and other information. And we seem to have lots of address and information changes!
3. It is a means of requesting information about CBC membership, baptism or various ministry programs.
4. It is a means of communicating to the staff team. We may be in the e-age and we certainly get our share of comments and questions via email but there are a surprising number of people who still like to communicate using a writing implement. And we read every card, passing them on to the most appropriate ministry team.
5. We also encourage you to jot down anything you would like our ministry teams to be praying about. Every request received is actually prayed for by a prayer team each Sunday morning before the services are over! We also distribute the prayer requests to the staff and elders every week.

So … help us serve you … don’t be afraid … complete the yellow card every week.

 

Do We Really Need More Staff?

The recent season of hiring has raised the question? Do we really need all the staff we already have? And why are we hiring so many more. That post on staffing explains some general principles, but let me give a few “Executive Pastor” perspectives on they issue since staffing fits into my responsibilities.

Sometimes we find “holes” in our ministry and discover that filling them will take time and skills beyond that available to the average volunteer. Some of those holes have become painfully obvious as we have worked to restructure our ministry team in light of 40% growth in the last three years. We just cannot continue to pile more work, more oversight, more responsibility on all of our current staff – both pastoral and support staff – so something has been missed. Most obvious to us has been missed opportunities in equipping and shepherding adults. We have re-allocated some of our pastors primary responsibilities. For example, I have been greatly freed up from many administrative tasks by the addition of a Business Administrator so I can better work with Jerry, the Elders and the other staff. Pastor Jim Wright has added focus on Men’s Ministries, and we hoped to address adult ministries with other staff changes that just have not worked out as we thought. So now we intend to add Tom Bell to our Pastoral team (congregational approval permitting) to oversee the connecting, equipping, serving, and mission of our adult groups which we believe are strategic to our future. As a well qualified pastor, Tom will help much!

The rule of thumb is that a healthy church will have a ministry staff member for every 120-150 regularly involved in the church. With worship attendance each weekend at 1500 and over 2000 calling CBC their church home, we are pretty much on target.

Most of the hiring we are currently doing is replacement hiring for staff that have moved on for various reasons. We just hired two children’s directors to take on what had been one pastoral position. Matt Chapman’s call to missions creastes a need in the Junior High ministry (one of the most vital ages to guide well). With Jayson’s move to Saturday preaching and Adult Ministries two years ago we sought to shepherd our collegiates using interns. We have decided to fill that ministry with a more permanent ministry staff memeber. And our two part-time women’s ministry directors have stepped into the void left when Paulette Gledhill retired. Finally our search for a music pastor, minister or director has been ongoing and, of course, that too is a replacement position.

So, even with lots of staffing activity we are not increasing our personnel count as much as it might appear.

We Changed our Minds

A few weeks ago I wrote about a staff transition in Children’s Ministries. At that time we had been in a search for a Children’s Pastor or Minister for several weeks knowing that this would be a most difficult position to fill. We received several applications and connected with a few interested individuals yet none of them fit who we are either doctrinally, philosophically or programmatically.

In the meantime Charla Mills, and the entire Children’s coordination team, have been doing a wonderful job – not just holding down the fort - but continuing to develop ministry as well. In fact, you will not find a more motivated team anywhere else in the church (and we have some great teams!) so it was an exciting moment when we discovered a way to bring effective leadership to this ministry without making much of a change at all. We have hired Charla as Children’s Ministries Director serving about 25 hours weekly. We added depth by bringing on Faith Sodefi (formerly the departmental administrative assistant) as Co-Director to assist with the oversight of the ministry. Both of them will be accountable to the Executive Pastor and will be working with several Elders on the Children’s Ministries Task Group.

Sometimes God likes to change our minds about something. This is one of those times.

Mission

Along with worshipping, connecting, equipping, serving we expect our membership to engage in the mission of the gospel.  Fulfilling the great commission is the logical outcome of Building a Community. 

First, it is our desire that each Christian live as a missionary right where they are – that is, we all will live redemptive lives and share redemptive words to effectively bring the good news to those around us. The mission field of the church begins are out own front door.   

Second, as a community of believers we want to do our part to bring redemptive change to greater Seattle as well – especially the Eastside areas.  To that end  we will develop the missional impact of CBC locally by seeking to create intentional structures to bring the gospel to those in our local community. We will also engage in partnerships with a select strategic ministries in the community at large for the sake of the Gospel. 

Finally, Crossroads continues to be committed to world missions.  We will always seek to strategically partner with those committed to bringing the truth to countries and peoples where the gospel is not yet established. 

We are building a community … to change the world. 

How are you participating in God’s mission to the world that begins in Eastgate?