Crossing Community Church

James Gilardi is a high school senior that has experienced a great deal in his short life. Abandoned by his parents, living on the streets, foster care, adoption and finally a life changing experience with Jesus. Pull out the tissues and take a chair for this one. 

Throughout the Bible we find stories of people who were going about their daily life when God used them right where they were. God is still doing that today -- even though there are restrictions on the way we live our life. But circumstances like a virus don't hinder God, instead they are a vehicle for him! We are not limited by the quarantine. God is creative and eager to use anyone that wants to be used. Don't waste the quarantine! There are opportunities at hand that will be gone when social distancing is a thing of the past. Ask God to use you!

As we close our study of Genesis, we can look back on the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph and find life lessons in their stories. But more importantly, we can look and find God's character in their story. We are never more safe and more certain of our place in the circumstances of our world then when are depending on God and His character!

As Jacob prepares to leave Canaan and enter Egypt God appears to him in a dream and assures him that He is going before him as he leaves the land of his forefathers. In speaking to him, God makes provides for Jacob the reassurance he needed to know that he was trully following God and that God was with him. God makes those same provisions to you as well. Read His Word. Listen to Him and learn how he is walking with you during these uncertain days!

In our text today, Joseph reveals his true identity to his brothers. Instead of lashing out in anger or vengence, he comforts his brothers. He tells them not to "be grieved or angry" for what they did because God used their actions for the good of all of them. Joseph's perspective on the wrongs done to him allowed him to not be angry or bitter for his years of suffering. He saw that all of that was used by God to provide salvation for their entire family. What is your perspective on the difficult circumstances you are in? God is able to bring good from bad. He is sovereign over the virus, your unemployment, your fear -- no matter your situation, God knows about it and wants to use it for good. Do you believe that?

There are lots of people who claim to "know" what the Bible says and who Jesus is. But unless you investigate those claims for yourself your eternal destiny hinges on what someone else thinks they know. You need to be sure for yourself. This Easter, Pastor Tim teaches from Matthew 28 and draws our attention to 3 observations from the text that should be true for all of us. 

In our ongoing series of Crossing people sharing how God has changed their lives, we are glad to have Dan Andros share his story with us. As you listen to him you'll what many who follow Christ say, "Growing in Christ, becoming mature in Him, takes time." Dan is very honest about the way Christ convicted him and brought him to pivotal places in his life of change. Enjoy his story!

As the impact of Covid19 continues to spread, more and more of us are finding ourselves concerned about our finances. Will we be able to pay our bills? Keep our house? Keep the car? How will we manage if we don't have a job?As we've said many times of late, God's Word is eternal and has the supernatural ability to apply to every circumstance -- even the circumstances of your life today. This week, Pastor Tim looks at several passages that remind us that God is in control and longs to prove Himself able to handle all our cares and needs. 

A lot of people are sitting. Waiting. Waiting on all kinds of things. To hear about the kids school. To hear about a job. To hear about a diagnosis. But if it was COVID19 it would be something else, because in this life we are all waiting, every day, on something -- the grocery check out line, traffic, report cards -- the list is endless. But if we think that the virus going away and life getting back to normal is what we are really waiting on, we are mistaken. God tells us to wait on Him. When we do that we find out that He has a plan and a purpose for every situation in life and He is working that plan to perfection. Waiting on God means we can escape the anxiety of a pandemic and peacefully wait on God's perfect plan to work itself out. During these days of livestreamed services we are including the music set of our service. To get to the sermon fastforward to the 8:40 mark of the podcast. 

This week was our first week of live streaming our service due to COVID-19. We made changes to the service to better accomodate the live stream format by only including three songs. And those songs sounded so great on the recording that we've included them on the podcast. Skip forward to the 18:40 mark if you want to just listen to the sermon. Throughout history, the Church has stepped into the disasters and epidemics of the day to serve and minister to those who are suffering and their loved ones. By doing this, Christians demonstrated that they understood the teachings of Christ when He spoke of the the good Samaritan or of ministering to the "least of these." And now here we are Church. Will we step into our moment of history to love and minister to those who are out of work, in fear of dying, suffering from the loss of a loved one? Will future generations look back on what we do now and take encouragement from it? 

How should our faith influence how we respond and feel about the spread of the Coronavirus. What does the Bible say about the situation our world finds itself in? Well, if you look up 'Coronavirus' in your concordance you won't find anything there! But God's Word is timeless and universal. The principles we find in the Bible extend to all situations and events throughout history. This week Pastor Tim taught from Ephesians 5 to help us deal with our fears and with our attitudes toward other people. 

In Genesis 43 & 44 Joseph's brothers return for more food and must face Joseph again. It's in these chapters that we see the story of Joseph turn from being about Joseph and being about Judah becoming the true leader of the family. Jacob was the father figure to all the sons. Joseph had the power of Egypt at his command and all the resources that comes with that. But it is Judah that becomes the central figure of the story. In doing that we see how God used the events of Joseph's life to save the 'family of promise' as He continues to fulfill the promise of descendants to Abraham. 

After many years of separation, years of injustice and years to consider "what if" -- Joseph finds the brothers who betrayed him bowed before him. The opportunity to extract justice is in his hands, to treat them as they treated him. It's been said that Joseph proved his character and integrity when he was wrongly accused by Potipher's wife and again when he was forgotten and left in prison. But in reality, the true test of Joseph's character and integrity was in that moment that he could extract justice and vengence and didn't. Chapter 42 is an extraordinary story! 

Geri Secrest shared her testimony for us this week. She has been a member at Crossing for nearly 14 years, having served as our church secretary for a few years and more recently serving in Son Country, our children's ministry. There are two great themes in her story: the power of the choices we make in our life and the difference it makes when we actively participate in a local church. Her story demonstrates how God has moved in her life and answers our prayers, even the prayers we pray as young teenagers!

After 13 years of languishing in slavery and prison, Joseph goes from a forgotten Hebrew prisoner to second in authority only to Pharaoh. God's favor on Joseph continues to benefit him as God gives Joseph the correct interpretation of Pharaoh's dreams. This surprising change of events is a total turnaround in the life of Joseph. Now Joseph is in position for the fulfillment of the dreams of his youth and the preservation of Egypt as the looming famine gets ever closer. 

Joseph's story is important in the grander story of God keeping His covenant with Abraham to give him an everlasting possession of the land and of descendants that will cover the earth and bless all mankind. But as that story is being told and fulfilled there are lessons to be learned. This week as Pastor Tim teaches through Genesis 39-40 we take time to pay attention to some of those lessons. 

This week Pastor Tim picked up our study of Genesis by reminding us how God's covenant with Abraham to give his descendants the land of Canaan is the central theme of the book. As we compared the story of Joseph in chapter 37 with Judah's story in chapter 38 we were challenged to consider how God works out His plans and how different that is from what we think it should be. His ways are higher than ours!

Graeme Burgan also served as a speaker for the Worship Summit. Graeme is a professor at Cairn University as well as the Executive Director of Csehy Summer School of Music. His topic was "What We Sing." He gave a great overview of different aspects of a worship service and how they determine the song choices we make for our church services. 

Our final session of the day for the 2020 Worship Summit featured our speakers for the day, Dr. Master and Graeme Burgan plus three worship leaders -- Dan Loch, Jarred Cain and Deion Payton. Ben Best served as our moderator. The questions were submitted by those in attendance at the Summit. 

In our Sunday morning session of our Worship Summit, Dr. Master answered the question, "How do I sing praise while I am in great suffering?" He teaches us from Job 42 and helps us to understand how Job came to the place of praising God in his suffering and we can do likewise.