Pastor Chuck has shared many times before that we are a “pray then plan” church. So when shifting orders regarding gatherings were being handed down daily the week of March 8th, our leadership team prayed and God led us to move as much ministry as possible online by the next Sunday. That Sunday, more people heard the gospel preached at Crossroads than ever before in our 128 year history. It’s become clear to us that God has disoriented our church in this season to prepare us for greater impact than we ever imagined.
As our state begins to open up again, we continue to ask God to reveal next steps for Crossroads. Through prayer, we believe God has reminded us that He has uniquely designed every church to reach a unique group of people. This crisis has driven us to recommit to being who He has called us to be as a church, leading us to the guiding principles below that we will use to determine the timing of a return to our Corona campus, in addition to our Online campus.
Watch Pastor Chuck’s podcast and follow along with the notes below it to hear our guiding principles for returning to our Corona campus.
Crossroads will be guided by the following principles as we plan for a return to our Corona campus:
1. Our church has never closed
- The gates of hell cannot prevail against our church, and they aren’t!
- Even during this outbreak, Crossroads is refusing to “forsake the assembling together” of our people as we experience teaching and community online.
- We are reaching, building up, and caring for a greater diversity of people locally, nationally, and internationally than ever before.
2. We are a pro-life church
- We value people passionately and have a conviction that life is a gift from God and needs to be cherished and protected at all stages.
- We will take required and prudent measures to protect our most at-risk people including those with underlying health conditions, our senior citizens, and people with disabilities.
3. We’re committed to providing an excellent experience for our church family and their guests
- We are a highly relational church. Keeping distance between households and wearing masks on campus would make it difficult to be “us”.
- Reaching and keeping the next generation is a top priority for us. Social distancing is especially uncomfortable and unmanageable for kids and does not allow for them to interact in a meaningful way.
- Our church is passionate about inviting people to join us, and we work hard to remove barriers so our people and their guests can encounter Jesus. Social distancing and requiring reservations enact barriers.
We’re vigilantly monitoring changes to the current orders, and will continue to leverage every communication channel at our disposal to share future plans with you.