January 29th, 2010 by Tim Moore

I am stoked about this weekend. We are launching a new 4 week series called Authority Issues. I first heard this concept years ago from Fellowship Church. For many years I have wanted to communicate a message on Authority to our church, because most of us simply don’t understand it.

Let’s be honest, in our society today most people have a real issue with people in authority over them.

Kids don’t respect their parent’s authority.
Adults don’t respect their boss’ authority.
Citizens don’t respect the authority of their government.
Criminals don’t respect the authority of the law.

This series will touch everyone. This series is for everyone. Whether you are a parent struggling with a teenager or work a job where you report to someone else – you need to know the truth about authority. So, bring someone with you for this relevant message series.

See you on the Weekend!

January 27th, 2010 by Tim Moore

I believe that most people recognize areas in their life that needs to change. I don’t think we need someone to point them out to us. In fact, I bet most of us even WANT the change.

You might see that your finances are upside down and debt is piling up. You don’t want the debt.
You might see that your career isn’t moving forward. You want forward motion in your career.
You might see that your life is too busy. You want more down time.

If we can see it and even want it…then why not change it! Why stay in debt? Why stay in a dead end job? Why not slow down?
Because on our own…we CAN’T.

Many try to get out of debt, but that motivation only lasts until you see something you have to buy!!
Many work hard to get a head in their career, but become discouraged when things don’t happen soon enough.
Many want to slow down, but keep saying YES to everything.

The truth is, you probably won’t be able to create lasting change in your life. After all, you got yourself into the place your in now. What you probably need is a greater power than you possess.

Chew on this verse today and ask Christ to HELP you make a real change.

For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

Philippians 4:13

January 26th, 2010 by Tim Moore

Well, this past weekend I shared some exciting news about our next step as a church. As we are wrapping up our current construction project in the next 3 months, we are already poised to take our next step as a church. We are going to expand our auditorium to make more room as we continue to fill our current auditorium.

As long as we continue to reach people with the Gospel, I believe we will always be growing. Which means we will have to expand to meet that need. Here we find ourselves again with a bigger vision than our bank roll. It creates another situation where our need is greater than our resources.

But isn’t that where faith lives? Faith lives in the gap where our need is greater than our resources. Actually, I am excited about another opportunity to see God’s provision for His vision!

I thank God for what He has done through our church to this point, but I know that what He has called us to is not over. We cannot rest. We cannot put it on cruise control and just take it easy! God won’t let me do that and I won’t let our church do that.

If your vision will allow you to rest and take it easy…it is WAY to small!

January 21st, 2010 by Tim Moore

Where there is no word from God, people are uncontrolled,
but those who obey what they have been taught are happy.
Proverbs 29:18

How important is vision?

Without it, you can’t thrive.
Without it you can’t accomplish anything significant.
Without it you feel restless inside.
Without it you are lost.

Vision is vital to living the life God has called you to live. Do you have vision?

I am so excited about this weekend. I am going to be sharing some great news with our church about the direction we are taking in 2010. I love casting vision, because we have a vision to cast. You don’t want to miss this weekend, it is going to be an inspiring event!

January 20th, 2010 by Tim Moore

I want to take a moment to brag on our church. Not because we are great or better than any other church…but because our church is learning to become generous!

Within 1 month, our church has taken up 2 special offerings. These were taken up over and above our current giving of tithes and offerings (which has not declined).

We took up a special offering on December 20th to help meet the needs of people in our church and community. We recognized that many families were struggling due to the economic situation and we wanted to show them we cared!

I was shocked when our church gave more money for the offering that we took in for our regular giving. We brought in over $8500 for this one special offering. For a church averaging 400 in attendance that rocks!! And guess what…we gave it all away!

This past weekend, I challenged our church to give again for Haiti Relief. I know this is a tough time of the year. Everyone is trying to pay their way out of the hole they created for financing Christmas. But our church still gave generously. In fact, our church gave $5,000 for Haiti relief with almost no notice (again over our regular tithes and offerings).

Can I just say that for a church our size, that spells GENEROSITY.

God has been leading me to be more generous this year. He challenged me to step out in faith with my giving. I realized that if I wanted to lead our church to be generous, I must be generous. God is still working this into my heart, but I can’t believe how quickly our church is following suit.

I’m so proud of you Crossroads. We are contacting some faith based organizations today to find out how to get this money to relief ASAP.

If you have not given anything to help those in Haiti, might I challenge you to watch this message.

January 16th, 2010 by Tim Moore

This Sunday I am preaching about Jesus’ miracle in Feeding the 5,000.  (This was planned even before the earthquake hit Haiti). As I considered this text, the tragedy in Haiti was on my heart.  Knowing that possibly 140,000 or more people may have lost their lives is tough to imagine.  Watching all the news reports of people just trying to survive with little or no food/water or medical treatment makes me want to do something about it. 

Perhaps I should…perhaps WE should! 

Yet when I watch the news reports and see how big the need is, I think to myself “what can we do?”  It seems there are more people to feed and treat than we have supplies or money.  That sounds like the same situation the disciples found themselves in with the multitudes. And as I read Jesus’ response to his disciples concerns of scarcity, it wouldn’t leave me alone.

Mark 6:37a
But he answered, “You give them something to eat.”

We are called to do SOMETHING not just turn a blind eye. This may be one of the greatest times of need in our world, but I also believe it can be one of the greatest opportunities for the Church to demonstrate God’s love!

This weekend, we are going to take up a special offering for Haiti Relief. We will partner with some faith-based organizations who are leading the way in the relief efforts. I challenge all of us who call ourselves Christ-followers to do something…to give something to help. Come ready to give generously this weekend and impact someone for Christ. And continue to pray for those who are leading the efforts to find survivors and minister to the hurting.

Click here to give online and designate Haiti Relief

January 14th, 2010 by Tim Moore

Another chair that the church often wrestles with is the Discipleship Chair.  We have faced an increasing challenge to lead people beyond the point of accepting Christ to becoming more like Him.  That is a tall order.  We have tried discipleship classes, small groups, newcomer classes and more.  To be honest, we still haven’t landed in this area.  But here are some of my thoughts.

Someone once posed this question to me:  How much do you think the church is RESPONSIBLE for in the growth of a Christian?  I never thought about that before.  It seems that most church-goers think the church is SOLO responsible for helping them become a disciple.  So much so many in the church rely on the services and programs that the church creates for their growth.

The problem is when we stand before God at the end of this life, we can’t blame the church for not having enough programs or classes.  We can’t blame the church for not providing debt counseling so we couldn’t give.  We can’t blame the church for not giving us enough opportunities to share our faith.  We ALONE are responsible for ourselves.

That means we all must take the initiative to feed ourselves (true maturity).  We must be digging into the Word of God ourselves every day.  We must be asking God to show us what His Word means.  We must make time to pray and not wait for a church organized prayer meeting.  The church should be leading people to the water, but it can’t make people drink.

I do believe the church has a big role in making disciples.  But a big part is what the church does is offer an incredible corporate time for people to worship God and be fed by His Word.  We feed people the Word of God and equip them to serve others and reach out the community.  We can’t overlook how big of a thing that is.

We are still working on keeping church simple but also providing jump starting points for new believers.  But I’m just not sure to what extent the church is called to cater food to Christians versus spending time feeding those who are spiritually without Christ.

January 11th, 2010 by Tim Moore

Okay, last week I got caught up in some important meetings and didn’t get as much time as I wanted to blog about this.  So this week, I HOPE to blog some of my thoughts about the Chairs we have in church today.

One of the biggest chairs that many Christians have is the worship chair.  Depending on your church baggage (uh…I mean background) you carry with you some preconcieved ideas about what a worship service should look and feel like.  Please note as I identify some of these chairs, I am not saying any of these things are wrong ways to worship.  I’m simply stating what can become chairs to us in worship.

Some people feel that any type of worship music that is not sung from a hymn book with an organ is “not real worship”.  And if you used other instruments you were not reverent in worship.  I guess those people have never read the book of Psalms where they used stringed instruments and clashing cymbals.  Sounds almost like guitars and drums!!

I would remind those people that when hymns were introduced to the church many many years ago, the church of that day thought hymns were evil.  Many of them were penned to the tunes often heard in bars.  I guess those people wanted to connect with the people in the bars!!

Many churches moved past hymns to a more “contemporary” form of worship.  This form is ALWAYS led by an acoustic guitar and is sometimes upbeat, but mostly “worshipful”.  This reminds me of the period of music I used to be part of leading in church in the 90′s.

As of late, some churches have begun to move in an even more progressive position using hi-energy rock type atmospheres worship God in a sort of “full” throttle fashion. (Some put us in that category)

Here’s what I’ve noticed.  The style of music doesn’t matter.  It will always be changing.  It should change…because we change.  As newer generations emerge, so does a desire to worship God in a new way.  There is nothing wrong with that.  None of us must thing we have the corner on how to worship God.  Because worshiping God is not about the style or choice of instruments, but its about the sincerity and condition of our hearts.

Personally, I can’t wait to infuse a little R&B/Hip-hop into our worship.  And some people from our church challenged me about blue-grass worship!!  I balked at that…  It’s a chair!

January 5th, 2010 by Tim Moore

This past weekend we launched a new series called “The Chair“.   We had an old, ripped and torn rocking chair on the stage and I used it as an analogy to what we all have come to know and love in the church.  Many of us have an old piece of furniture that is a bit torn and worn, but we won’t get rid of it because it is COMFORTABLE.

A lot of us like our church to be like our chair.  We want it comfortable even if it is old and worn.  Am I calling the Church worn and old.  Not necessarily, but many of the things we do in church are worn and old.  The chair represents the many things we do in church that make us comfortable.  I would call many of these things our Traditions.  The way we do our worship service, the type of songs we sing, when and how communion is offered, how we baptize people, etc.

My challenge to our church was this…Are we willing to be a little uncomfortable if it will make people who need to sit in the chair and hear the Gospel comfortable?  We don’t often realize that many of the things that make us comfortable in church make the unchurched incredible UNcomfortable.

This week I am going to talk about our approach to dealing with some of the old chairs in church philosophy and what we can do to make the unchurched feel more welcome and comfortable in our churches.  Some of these things might make you a little UNcomfortable if you love your chair more than what Christ has called the church to do.