Whew! Long time, no blog! Lots going on here @ CP – here’s a recap of everything awesome that happened at church on Mother’s Day:

Worship Setlist

Awesome, awesome stuff from this band this week, as usual! And a shout-out to another one of our teens, Riley Hoyt, who helped to lead us. Love seeing our teens becoming involved onstage on Sunday mornings. Here’s their set list:

Holy Spirit – Bryan & Katie Torwalt // Here On Earth

God Is Able – Hillsong Live // God Is Able

Open Up Our Eyes – Elevation Worship // Nothing Is Wasted

Your Name – Paul Baloche // A Greater Song

Children’s Choir! 

Our very own CP Kids rocked out for us this Sunday and did an awesome job! Huge kudo’s to Pastor Kathy and her leaders who helped the kids remember their words, do their actions and make their way on and off the stage – no easy task!!

Video

We very rarely show a video from another church, but made an exception this week. Here’s Mommy Rhapsody, from Church on the Move:

Sermon

We did a detour from the usual Mother’s Day stuff (have a mom guest-speak) and just decided to have a straight-forward good ol’ fashioned sermon about Jesus. Specifically, we talked about worship — the what and the why and the how, etc. Some soundbites:

“The Bible tells us we should be shouting and praising and dancing! How did we leave it up to bars and reality TV shows to be the only places to dance?”

“David danced like a maniac, and then decided to show the people he could get even more undignified. How did we go from a naked king who was after God’s heart to having churches with a dress code?!” (Disclaimer: please do not dance naked in church next Sunday. K, thanks)

“It’s not about our preference; it’s about His presence.”

“Your ‘inability’ to sing is not an excuse to not sing. God’s not concerned with your vocal ability; He’s concerned about your heart.”

“Don’t come to church and sit back with your arms folded and expect God to blow you away. You don’t come here to just GET stuff from Him, we’re here to GIVE Him the praise He’s due.”

“When we say we have things like a ‘drinking problem’ or ‘financial problems’, more often than not, those are actually ‘worship’ problems. Don’t forget the first commandment.”

And then we wrapped up the day by getting some great family shots taken in our totally awesome, super-legit photo booth!! AJ Guptill did an incredible job putting that together for us, and you guys used it well! Look for your pics on the Facebook site – they’re up, and getting tons of feedback. Very fun!! Hope you all had an awesome Mother’s Day!

This past Sunday we launched into the third and final portion of our vision: Go Out! Here’s a quick recap:

Worship Set 

Furious – Bethel Live // Be Lifted High

Open Up Our Eyes – Elevation Worship // Nothing is Wasted

Revelation Song – Kari Jobe // Passion: Let the Future Begin

Pursuit – Jesus Culture // Live from New York

Search My Heart – Hillsong United // Live from Miami

Seriously great stuff from the worship team this week. Loving the new “Open up our Eyes” song! And another huge shout-out to Brianne Gallant, one of our teens making her debut onstage. Girl can sing!!

Sermon Soundbites

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8

Could we technically get by without the Holy Spirit on a Sunday morning? And if so, would anyone notice? What are we doing that we couldn’t accomplish apart from God’s power?

We say, “I don’t know the right words!” He gives them to you. We say, “I’m not brave enough!” He’s your courage. We say, “I don’t know who to talk to!” He’ll guide your steps. He’s your power.

Jesus hung out with sinners; he went to their homes, enjoyed their parties, ate their food, and told them stories. Not a bad evangelism model.

Everything we do, we do in Jesus name! Social justice is great, but I’m ultimately not just about social transformation, but spiritual transformation. If all we ever do is nice for things for people in need, and never mention Jesus, we’re no different from the Red Cross. I don’t want to just offer people what anyone else in the world can offer them; I want to give them Jesus.

If you were trying to explain the music of The Beatles to someone, you wouldn’t read them a dissertation explaining what chords they used and where they were born and what color their hair was; you’d play their music. Do that for people — don’t regurgitate memorized phrases and verses to your neighbor; show them a life lived for Jesus.

North America, with over 200,000 million unchurched people, is the 4th largest mission field in the world. You don’t have to go far to go out.

…and then we wrapped it all up with a video from our very own Orlesky family, who had some big, crazy, exciting news: They’re moving to Haiti to become full-time missionaries! WOAH! They’re literally ‘going out’ and selling their home and moving their entire family to become missionaries for Boaz. Unreal. We’re super pumped about this, so stay tuned for further info on how we can support them. Exciting stuff!

We hit the halfway mark of our Vision Series on Sunday and had another fantastic service! (or three) Here’s the recap:

Worship Set: 

Rock of Ages – Charlie Hall // The Death of Death

God is Able – Hillsong Live // God is Able

None but Jesus – Hillsong United // The iHeart Revolution

Like Incense/Sometimes by Step – Hillsong Live // A Beautiful Exchange

Open Our Eyes – Elevation Worship // Nothing is Wasted

What an incredible time of worship. We were seriously ushered in to the presence of God on Sunday. Very powerful. LOVED the new song at the end -so good! Kudo’s to the whole team for doing awesomely in the midst of technical difficulties throughout the morning.

Sermon Soundbites: 

Pastor Jamie has turned into a preaching machine! We were looking at the “Grow Up” portion of our vision for a second week, and he brought it. Here’s a quick recap of his message on 1 Samuel 3:1-18.

“No matter where you are on your spiritual growth, there’s always a Next Step; you can never grow enough.”

“We are called to be spiritually mature with the stipulation that we are always spiritually maturing.”

“If you want to grow, you have to want to be as close to the presence of God as you possibly can.”

“Hearing from God  simply requires good ears, but truly listening to God requires obedience.”

“We need to realize that sometimes when God speaks to us, he tells us things we don’t want to hear. But it’s irrelevant whether or not you like what God has to say; the important thing is to do what he says.”

“It’s your responsibility to grow up; it takes effort. The onus is on you because growing is intentional, not accidental.”

Really, really good stuff from Pastor Jamie! Next week we’ll being looking at the “GO OUT” portion of our vision and I’m pumped to get into it! Don’t miss it!

Reminder: May 5th is our NEXT event – we’ll be eating and talking and hanging out with some of our newest Crosspointers after 3rd service. You can sign up at the Hello Desk in the lobby. If you’re new(ish), we’d love to see you there!

Another thanks to all who came out to our Membership Class last week – we took in 13 new members! Woohoo!

Happy Tuesday! The snow from this weekend has (mostly) melted and the sun is (mostly) shining, and it’s the perfect time to take a minute and reflect on what happened this past Sunday @ CP. It was a very powerful and ‘thick’ kind of morning… in a good way! Here’s the scoop.

Worship Set 

Here For You – Matt Redman // 10,000 Reasons

Oh, Our Lord – Paul Baloche // the Same Love

Saviour King – Hillsong United // The I Heart Revolution

Rock of Ages – Charlie Hall // Death of Death

God I Look to You – Bethel Live // Be Lifted High

Sermon 

We recently kicked off our Vision Series, and this week we began looking at the “Grow Up” portion of our vision. I gave you fair warning that it was going to be a bit of a doozy, and you responded awesomely! It’s rather difficult to summarize a sermon that really covered a wide range of topics, many of which require the full context of the sermon to make sense, so I’d encourage you to watch it if you missed it. It’ll be posted very soon on our website! (Click here to watch)

Some quick soundbites:

“You can tell the truth and still be a jerk. You can be ‘right’ in the wrong way.”

“Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself.” – Tolstoy

“The temptation of the age is to look good without being good.” -Brennan Manning

“Jesus said love your neighbour, not judge your neighbour.”

“Speak the truth in love.” Ephesians 4:15

“If a crazy miracle happened in our church today – someone coming back from the dead, for example – half of you would be pumped, and half of you would never come back.”

Anyway. Solid morning. Great response. God was moving, His spirit was evident, and I pray you left you feeling encouraged and challenged.

A few reminders:

*Membership Class this Saturday! 10am-12pm at the church. Everyone is welcome, you don’t need to bring anything – just come and learn!

*NEXT Class – are you new within the past 6 months or so, and want to learn about Crosspoint and how you can get connected? Join us after 3rd service on May 5th for a free meal and a chance to meet the pastors and learn what’s next for you @ CP! Sign up at the Hello desk anytime.

We kicked off a new series this Sunday – it doesn’t have a catchy name or fancy titles or anything, it’s simply known as our Vision Series. If you’ve been attending Crosspoint for at least the past few months, then you should (hopefully) be aware of our short-but-sweet church vision:

Come In

Grow Up

Go Out

That’s it! Six words! And yet…it says everything we need it to. We will utilize every creative method possible to encourage people to come in, and then we’ll provide simple next steps to help them grow up in their faith, and then we’ll help fulfill the Great Commission but going out and spreading the gospel. So, that’s who we are and what we do. And we’ll be unpacking that over the next month. Highlights from Week #1:

Worship Set

The Solid Rock – Charlie Hall // Passion: Hymns Ancient and Modern

Praise Him – Hillsong Live // Cornerstone

Love Came Down – Ben Cantelon // Everything in Color

Whom Shall I Fear – Chris Tomlin // Burning Lights

Be Thou My Vision – Page CXVI // Hymns III

Sermon Soundbites

Pastors Kathy, Jamie and Nathalie all did an excellent job communicating why we do what we do to reach children and youth — and ultimately, people of all ages. We heard some great stories and updates about what’s going on in our ministries to reach these younger generations, and then Nathalie led us in a prayer time for all of those currently helping to lead these ministries in any capacity. It was fantastic! If you weren’t fired up hearing about stories of spiritual growth in our kids and youth, then check your pulse; God’s doing some major work in our church, and a lot of it is happening with these age groups. Awesome!

Coming up:

I’m back on the platform this week to talk about Growing Up! Gonna be fun – see you there!

Just a heads up that we’ll be offering a Membership Class on Saturday, April 20th from 10am-12pm. In the words of Jamie, “there’ll even be some kool-aid to drink.” Sigh.

And if you missed Sunday’s service…fear not! It’s right here. Enjoy.

I KNOW, I KNOW, it’s a week late. I was on vacation (I didn’t go anywhere, but I refuse to use the term ‘staycation’) and catching up on some rest. Regardless, we aren’t skipping this Sunday Wrap post because it was Easter Sunday and it was BONKERS.

We wrapped up our Return of the Walking Dead in 3D series with a big, loud, celebratory day. Some highlights and info:

Worship Setlist: 

Awake My Soul – Mumford and Sons // Sigh No More

Happy Day – Jesus Culture // Your Love Never Fails

Bones – Hillsong United // Live in Miami

Nothing is Wasted – Elevation Worship // Nothing is Wasted

Awake My Soul – Mumford…then Chris Tomlin…featuring Morgie Mac on the rap verses // Burning Lights

Baptisms!

We baptized a bunch of people on Sunday; what better way to cap off a series on resurrection than with the powerful picture of death-to-life-baptisms?! And, I always love the video testimonies we play beforehand. Such powerful/fantastic stories.  We baptized a child, we baptized adults, we baptized people who’ve been attending a month, we baptized people who’ve been here for the majority of their lives. So awesome.

Dry Bones Sermon

The whole resurrection theme of the past month led us to the passage in Ezekiel of the dry bones coming to life. It fit for people who didn’t know Jesus at all…and it also fit for people who’ve had their dry bones sitting in church for decades. It was short and simple and hopefully served to be one more attempt at making a spiritual (and physical, someday!) resurrection really make sense for our people.  Plus, we got hundreds of people to hit up Twitter and Facebook at the same time and proudly proclaim to the Fredericton, THIS IS MY RESURRECTION!     “Breathe into these dead bodies so they may live again.”

The perfect closing song to the day (and the whole series) was Tomlin’s new tune “Awake My Soul” …which we technically started  with Mumford’s version of  ”Awake My Soul” … we even included the awesome rap verses, featuring our own Morgan MacGregor! It was a fun and victorious way to celebrate the Easter season!  Even better? A bunch of hands went up to say, “I need a resurrection!” Wooo!

Some other notes from the day:

*We had 715 in church on Sunday. Yes. That many. In our church that seats about 280. Soooo that was crazy. Hooray for multiple services! Pretty sure every street in proximity to the church was used for parking.

*We had 378 in 2nd service alone. Um, we don’t hold that many.

*Pastor Kathy did a massive Easter Egg downstairs with the kids and she had 139 children present. CHILDREN.  I do not — literally, I do not — know how she functions after a Sunday morning.

*We took up our HUGE EASTER OFFERING! We had challenged you to beat our former best offering ever, which was almost $27,000. Gulp. The good news? We beat it by nearly $9000!! Woah! The offering is currently at around $36,000. Unbelievable. You gave sacrificially and generously and gave to the vision of Crosspoint. Much love, CP. You’re amazing.

*So yeah. Sunday happened. Biggest overall attendance, biggest one-time service attendance, most kids in attendance, and biggest offering ever … all within a 5 hour span last Sunday morning. Unreal.

God is with us, Crosspoint! Keep praying for changed lives and for the Spirit to keep moving!

Crosssssspoint! This series has been awesome, right?! God is moving, that’s for sure. Here’s a recap of another great day @ CP:

Worship Set  (Title – Artist – Album) 

Love Came Down – Ben Cantelon // In Color

Whom Shall I Fear – Chris Tomlin // Burning Lights

Nothing is Wasted – Elevation Worship // Nothing is Wasted

This is our God – Hillsong Live // This is our God

Wake Up – All Sons and Daughters // Season One

That the band did fantastically goes without saying, but huge kudos to Amanda Collicott  who led almost every song…every service. Like, 15 songs or so! Awesome.

Resurrection Story 

Woah. This trio of stories has been so good and raw and powerful. This week our drummer extraordinaire Geoff Hooper gave us his story, which coincided really well with the sermon/theme of the day. Great honesty about a struggle with anxiety and depression and church. Be sure to catch it on the service video later this week.

Sermon 

This week’s message was about the Shunnemite woman whose awesome promise from God – a son! – ended early and tragically. So what do we do when God seems absent and/or distant? What do we do when our ‘alive in Christ’ live still seems half dead?  Some soundbites (that might only make sense if you were there, or watch it later:)

“Ain’t nobody got time fo dat!”

“Your impatience is not God’s indifference.”

“Here are some local movie listings, Barbie. – Siri”

“My experiences do not shape my theology; my theology shapes my experiences.”

“Our worst case scenario…is still a resurrection.”

“Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. -Eph 5:14″

I know this was a timely morning for a lot of you, especially considering the fact that our Co-Lead Pastor has been in the hospital for nearly two weeks and there’s still lots of ‘why’ questions on our minds. God was moving; I hope you left feeling encouraged.

A few notes:

DID YOU SEE THE LOBBY? Woah! Looks awesome! Huge thanks to Suzanne Munn (who painted) and Joe Connell (who crackfilled) and Jon Brown (who designed and built our desks!) and Shane Hoyt for re-locating our coat racks and Matt Hunter/AJ Guptill for doing some demo work. Whew. Got tons of great comments and the new/larger/improved/awesome room this week.

FINAL REMINDER – this Sunday is EASTER SUNDAY! Who have you invited? This is the perfect week to invite some family/friends…so let’s get on it! There’s going to be a bunch of baptisms and crazy good music and super final song/ending/closing and a powerful message. Also – we’ll be taking our Biggest Offering Ever. Like, ever.  It’s going to be a big, victorious morning – be praying!!

You know what’s difficult? Writing a quick little blog post about a Sunday that was as thick and Holy Spirit-powered like the one we experienced this past week. If you weren’t there, then you probably won’t get the full essence of it…but you should totally watch the online video once it’s posted. If you were there, then yeah, we had a good day. Here’s a recap!

Worship was stellar. Loving the new “Awake My Soul” song — and it fits the series perfectly! Here’s the set list (Title-Artist-Album):

All Because of Jesus – Fee // We Shine

Awake My Soul – Chris Tomlin // Burning Lights

All My Hope – Hillsong Live // Cornerstone

O The Blood – Gateway Worship // God Be Praised

O the Blood of Jesus – You know the one

Jesus Paid It All – Kristian Stanfill // Passion – Everything Glorious

Ben Canney from Kingswood University shared for a few minutes about Caton’s Island. We LOVE Caton’s Island and have sent a ton of campers (and staff) there over the past, oh, bunch of decades. Want more info about a stellar camping experience for your family? CLICK HERE! 

Sunday’s sermon was definitely a thick/theological look at what it means to be “dead to sin and alive in Christ.” I sincerely hope that everyone went home walking in the fullness and truth of what it really means that the resurrected Jesus has given us life. Some soundbites:

“He didn’t make you alive so you could crawl back into the grave…”

“This is not exhortation for you to DO anything, but to remember what has already been DONE for you!”

“It’s amazing how many New Testament Christians are really living the Old Testament covenant.”

“Technically speaking, God didn’t save you from hell; He saved you from HIMSELF.”

“Jesus paid your debt once and for all. You’ll never receive another bill. There will never be ‘new charges’ or any missed late fees. Jesus doesn’t have to die again. One was enough. He is enough.”

And then we watched Pierre Richard’s testimony and OHMYWORD you need to watch this. Seriously. Hit ‘fast forward’ on the sermon for all I care…but watch this. Powerful stuff, and it summed up the sermon perfectly. And to top it off, we closed with “Jesus Paid It All” and that might have been the loudest I’ve ever heard you sing in my life, Crosspoint. Whew. Chills. Awesome. Even better? Hands went up and lives got changed. YES!!

So yeah. Good Sunday. And a huge crowd. 3rd service has overtaken our 1st service in size…and is growing. Awesome!

A few reminders:

BIG HUGE EASTER OFFERING – March 31st.

BIG AWESOME EASTER BAPTISMS – March 31st

SO MAYBE DON’T MISS CHURCH ON March 31st

Continue to pray for Pastor Conard this week, too; he’ll be in Saint John for a few days receiving radiation treatment. We’ll keep you posted!