I have been going to my church for over 10 years and I still have a very difficult time calling it my church. I tell the kids we are going to Crossroads. I co-ordinate meeting friends at Crossroads. If you were to ask me where I will be tomorrow, I would tell you, Crossroads. This isn't about commitment. I'm all in. And it isn't that my church is a cult. Because it really isn't. They don't dispense Kool-Aid at the soda machine or anything! It's just that Crossroads has changed the way that I had previously viewed church. It has redefined the role that a church should play not only in it's community, but in the world.
When you think of the word "church", you are likely to have very specific visuals and connotations to go with that. You might think of steeples or bell towers. You might envision a fiery pulpit. You might feel sick to your stomach with memories of the way you were treated in a place that was supposed to be safe and about God's love. My church is a place started by people who wanted to share God with their friends in a way that was accessible. It has been appealing to people of all faiths, no faith at all and people who just didn't know or care enough to have feelings one way or the other about faith. When the hubs and I started going, about 1,000 - 1,200 people or so were there with us. We moved into our own building and within a few years we had to raise money to change the building around so more people could fit in. At this point, we have another campus in another area of town, we are exploring another campus location and our original location has an average attendance of 12,000 per weekend. And it's not because we are super cool and trendy. Probably you might have thought that since I'm super cool and trendy and I go there. It's because what Crossroads does works. They connect seekers with a community of Christ followers. They don't circumvent the Bible. They just present it in a way that it feels like you can apply it to your life rather than trying to relate to people who lived 3,000 years ago. I don't know a whole lot about 3,000 years ago. But I know enough to know that I'm real comfortable with my t.v., my computer, my pork and my car. And God has something to say about how I manage these modern day marvels.
It's time for my church to embark on a building campaign. This means that our church needs money to do some stuff. We aren't trying to get a bigger building. What is exciting about this ask is that 3/4 of the goals of the campaign are focused on people we don't even know. We want to build clinics in Mamelodi, South Africa. This is an area completely under-serviced and over-crowded. Our church has partnered with a church there and we have done various mission trips there over the years - building a hospice, planting gardens, building homes and valuing children. We want to rescue girls out of sex-trafficking in Mumbai and Calcutta, India. There are children who are forced into prostitution and people cannot rescue them until there is a home for them to go to and be rehabilitated. We are building those homes. We want to build a center where we do a holistic approach to come alongside people in poverty and help them break the cycle so that their children have a brighter future with possibilities. And our final goal is to start more campuses around the city so that we can invite more friends.
Okay. I'm not trying to convert you. Really. I'm just really excited about the opportunities we face. I am so excited that I am part of the prayer team that is praying over all the different aspects of the campaign. Which brings me, finally, to the new thing of the day:
Praying over seats in the church auditorium:
I'm pretty good at praying. Like, if you were to ask me to pray for you right now, I could and I would. I would even say the prayer out loud. I wouldn't feel self-conscious or nothin'. But this was altogether different. This was a group of people going into a room of roughly 3,500 seats. A group of people committed to making sure that each and every seat would be touched by prayer. I agreed but I really didn't know what to do. We went over the instructions and headed out. I stood behind the first seat and started. And I didn't know what to say. I had no idea who was going to be sitting in that chair or how to pray for this nebulous stranger. I didn't feel moved to say any specific words. I didn't have any sort of vision or revelation. I felt awkward and I felt impotent. I was worried that if I couldn't be specific, I would fail this stranger. I would rob him or her of the opportunity to know more about God. I would fail the campaign an opportunity to gain someone's trust with their finances so that we can make the world better for lots of people. I would fail God in heeding His call to talk about Him and to talk to people on behalf of Him. I kept trying different strategies and different angles to find something that would feel more comfortable. And I kept getting anxious that other people totally looked like they knew what they were doing. Also I was getting anxious because some of them were spending life 5 minutes in a seat. Didn't they know how many seats were in there? Let's hustle up peeps! Just before we were done, I felt like I hit my stride. I found something that felt like me, if not completely repetitious. It included song and everything. If we hadn't stopped when we did, probably I would have incorporated some dance moves. Somehow we finished the entire auditorium in less than 2 hours. We gathered on the stage and prayed some more and we called it a day.
I give this experience 6 out of 10 Jenny's jewels. We all have gifts. Some of us even have more than one. I might have 15. I'm still looking into it. But I don't think that praying over seats is one of mine. Neither is singing, for that matter. Dancing might be. Not the choreographed kind - just the kind I bust out in. I think, for me, I have to know who I am praying for. Not to say that if someone asked me to pray for their sister and I don't know their sister, it's someone I know. Also, that doesn't mean that I would refuse. How heinous would that be? Nope. Sorry. Not praying for her. Not gonna do it. I mean that I want to have an idea of their story. I need to know what they need. I like to pray specifics and I need to know those specifics. But I take comfort in the fact that God knows those people who will sit in those seats and that He is super pleased that people cared enough about nameless, faceless people (where did that phrase come from? Who is really nameless? Or faceless??) to just anonymously cover them with God's love. But it is good to get out of our comfort zones from time to time. Like reading a whole blog post about something as potentially polarizing as praying over seats, for instance.
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