CrossRoads Café – When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong!

Lesson Learned.

I’ve been so excited in the past few weeks about how God is so obviously blessing CrossRoads. He is really doing big things and it’s a joy to watch him prosper something well beyond our human ability. Well, He really showed off on Friday!

It seemed like everything that could go wrong, did. From the food, to the projector hookup, to the keyboard, it seemed like we never got the right thing, or not enough of the right thing, or the right thing an hour later than we should have! I was so frustrated.

I was frustrated because although I enjoyed watching God bless CrossRoads, I still took pride in performance. I liked taking some of the credit for CrossRoads being what it was. This time… with record attendance (56 people showed up), performance wasn’t there…

…and God still blessed. Man, I hate when God has to tell me something I already know! Even with all the hold-ups and inconveniences, He still did his thing. And reminded me that He does not need my help! We were blessed musically by the group Pyur. I’ve had the privilege of sitting in on one of their rehearsals and their ministry is incredible! This time was no different. During the POW-WOW we discussed our decision to please God with our lives, based on Galatians 1:10. Overall, the Lord blessed. And God made another example of me.

Ok Lord. I get it. Lesson learned… I hope.

Ultra-Sound

You’re looking at my child. He or she is still months away from being here, but (as you can probably tell) I’m very excited… and scared to death!!! My wife says he or she already looks like me. I don’t see what she’s talking about.

Well… except for that HEAD!!! Whoa…

Are there brownies in Heaven!?!

After church last night I had the pleasure of sharing the gospel with an 11-year-old young man named Ravon and leading him to Jesus. After sharing with him the bad news of our sinfulness and the good news of Jesus’ sacrifice, he professed his faith in Christ and repented! Afterwards, he had some very insightful questions. His first question was whether people who were in wheelchairs here on earth would be able to walk when they got to heaven. I shared with him about our new, glorified bodies that I believed that they would. His second question was so incredible:

“I love brownies! Will there be brownies in Heaven?”

Classic. Oh to be 11 years-old again. I started by telling him that I too shared his love for brownies! Then I had to be honest that I didn’t know if there would be brownies in heaven. [Sidebar: But how tight would that be!?! Real Angel Food Brownies!] Then I started to say, “But being in heaven with God will be so great…” He finished my sentence. “…we won’t even care about brownies.”

Exactly. Come Lord quickly.

Leadership Conference – Cleveland, OH

I’ve spent the past couple of days in Cleveland, OH at the Mideast Baptist Conference Leadership Gathering. It has been a great weekend! Not because the conference was so great, but because I’ve had the opportunity to spend some time and make connections with some great Pastors in our area like Pastor T.L. Rogers from Trimphant Church, Pastor Charles Whittaker from River of Life Church, and Pastor Ronald Crawford from New Vision Church. I have enjoyed interacting with these men. As accomplished as they are, it is fun to see how down to earth they are. They don’t mind being just “regular dudes,” even with a young cat like me trying to learn from them how they do ministry.

I’ve taken every opportunity that I possibly can to sit down with them and ask questions. A couple of them even made the mistake of giving me their contact info! LOL. I’ve also enjoyed seeing how the Mideast Baptist Conference (which will soon be renamed to Converge Mid-Atlantic) values church planting, and looking forward to one day that I’ll be among the Pastor’s gathered at conferences like this.

We’ll see how God works that out!

CrossRoads Cafe – Ideating

I’m at a point now where I just enjoy watching God bless CrossRoads… blessing our labor and making stuff happen on our behalf. Not that it isn’t hard work for the Core team, but God gives us plenty of opportunity to rejoice as well! On Friday, I had a lunch meeting with a guy who has observed what we do and wants to model CrossRoads at his own church. God has so blessed what we’re doing in such a short time (and caused others to notice). I’m blown away that just a few short months ago, I was ideating!

The Café was incredible on Friday. As always, I wish I could take credit for how it all turned out, but I can’t. Every artist who performed/ministered at the Café got there a different way, but each way was equally miraculous. From a random Facebook happenstance, to a successful studio session to a cancelled tutoring session. Again, God came through for us at the last minute!

First, Donnell Richardson came for an encore performance at the Café and brought Ryan Florence with him. They performed a song that they had just put down in the studio on Wednesday. I heard it Friday morning and they were at the Café on Friday night! Next, Ebonee Davis came through and shared her gift of dance with us! It was unbelievable! Then we had a brother by the name of Phoenix to bless us with one more poem. He came at the last minute and asked to do his verse. I will likely never do that again… but I don’t regret doing it this time!

The POW-WOW was about Life Decisions. I started off showing the IBM Commercial about Ideating and challenged the group from Genesis 2 that God gave Adam the freedom to choose freely! How crazy would it have been if Adam were sitting at the bottom of a Mango tree wondering if it were God’s will to eat from that tree? We as young adults do that sometimes in life, not understanding that God has given us the freedom to choose!!! We sit there ideating, waiting for God drop a mango on our head before we eat

Overall, it was a great Café. The attendance is consistently growing and the experience is consistently a blessing. It’s fun to watch when you know that God has his hand on something.

No more ideating!

Our First Mother’s Day

Today LaVera and I officially celebrated Mother’s Day for the first time. The baby is still 4 months from being here, but today I got to reflect on my wife’s incredible character and how wonderful of a mother she is going to be. I’m so excited that I’m going to be a daddy, but I’m more excited that my children will have LaVera for a mother. God has truly given me a virtuous wife. I’m grateful that my family is and will be in good hands.

Happy Mother’s Day LaVera Manning! I love you and praise God for you in my life.

Bible Fight

I can’t wait to hear what ya’ll think about this. Somebody actually came up with a video game called Bible Fight.

In the game you can pick different Bible “characters” to fight each other in hand to hand combat. The characters include Moses, Noah, Eve, Mary, Satan and Jesus (who fights wearing only a loin cloth and a crown of thorns).

Each character has ’special’ moves and powers. For instance Noah can call forth a stampede of ark animals, Eve (who is wearing only fig leaves) slings a serpent at her opponent, Moses can rain down a plague of frogs while Jesus can hit his opponents with a cross. As an added bonus, if you win enough tournaments you can unlock an additional character, God Himself.

No, I didn’t make this up!!! Try it for yourself!

So what do I think? Well, I think because of  a mix between (1) my numbness to how the world esteems Christianity, and (2) my twisted sense of humor that I actually chuckled when I saw this. It is so far past ridiculous that I can’t even get mad at it… it’s actually funny. I mean, Noah’s special move is to bring a stampede of ark animals? Who thinks of this stuff? LOL. I wonder what the God character looks like after you unlock him. I’d assume he can do everyone else’s special move… then destroy the whole world by fire if that doesn’t work.

Leave a comment. I want to hear your feedback!

Depressing…

I have a Camry… this is ridiculous!!!

Learning from a Legend

Last week I had the honor of learning in a small group from one of the premier preachers alive today, Dr. Joel Gregory.

[Sidebar: Now, that’s my opinion… but check him out and see for yourself]

Dr. Gregory has an unbelievable knowledge of Scripture, a great capacity to retain and recall history, a great ability to illustrate Biblical truths, and an unbelievable mastery of the English language. All of which contribute to being an incredible preacher. Thursday through Monday, Dr. Gregory came to our church to teach a 4-day intensive on sermon preparation and presentation. It was a great experience for me to see what happens behind the scenes to produce what he does.

I consider myself to be an okay preacher. These past few days tell me that I really have to step my game up. I will never preach like Dr. Joel Gregory. That’s good though, because God hasn’t called me to preach like Dr. Joel Gregory. If I used some of the words he uses or gave some of the same illustrations, people in my context would look at me like I’m crazy. However, God has called me to preach like me… with the same investment in my craft that Dr. Gregory invests. Which means I really have to step it up.

Dr. Gregory is the Sandman… I’m Cliff Huxtable… CHALLENGE!!!