Go Elevate Students!

I am so proud of Pastor Scott, Family Pastor for teaming up with Youth America by leading 12 students to serve there for three days. While at Youth America our students worked hard (in 100 degree heat) to tear down the beds in the dorm rooms, cleaned the campus and dorm rooms, dug ditches, set up and tore down the main meeting room for kids camp, loaded luggage for the kids leaving camp that day, and did an outreach event at Church of the Harvest's Stillwater Campus. Here are a couple photos of our students in action!

Welcome Chad Large, Community Pastor

This past Sunday I made a huge announcement that we have hired Chad Large to serve as our Community Pastor. Here is some information about Chad and his life.

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CHAD LARGE

Before moving to Ada, Ok in May of 2008, I served as Associate Pastor/Youth Pastor and Worship leader at Hillcrest Christian Fellowship in Muskogee, Ok from 1998-2007. I had the unique opportunity to serve under my grandfather who was the pastor at that time. What was so unique about this opportunity was that this type of ‘ministry apprenticeship’ was nothing new in my family. I am a fourth generation minister, the first generation being my great-grandmother, who is still ministering at the age of 91. After my stay at Hillcrest, I volunteered at First United Methodist in Okmulgee, Ok for a period. During my time in Okmulgee, I had the opportunity to work with my brother and sister-in-law who are the youth pastors there. My stay in Okmulgee was short, however. In early 2008, my wife Ashley had an advancement opportunity with her job that would require us to move to Ada. After much prayer and consideration, my wife and I felt that moving to Ada was the right decision. We quickly sold our home and made the move. She and I knew that one of the most important aspects of starting out in a new town was finding a solid church which we could become a part of. It wasn’t long before we found Crosspointe. We fit in perfect. From the first Sunday we attended, we knew that Crosspointe was our new church home. That was one year ago.

Ashley and I have been happily married for over 11 years and have two beautiful children, Caleb and Kennedy. Caleb will be turning 13 in August and will be in the 7^th grade at Byng elementary. Kennedy will turn 6 in July and she will be in 1^st grade at Homer elementary. I myself am currently a Junior at East Central University majoring in English. I love God, I’m an avid reader, I love the outdoors, and I love playing music. I have no doubt that my family’s arrival in Ada, and ultimately at Crosspointe, is nothing short of a divine appointment. I am excited about what God has in store for Crosspointe and I am honored to be a part.

Follow Chad at Twitter Here

Facebook Here

Email: chad@crosspointeada.com

New Series

I am pleased to announce that we will be joining hundreds of churches in July for a new sermon series entilted, "Call 2 Fall!" A "Call 2 Fall" is a movement which will challenge Christians to focus on the discipline of praying for our Country and National Leaders.

Please join us on July 5th for the launching of this exciting series!!

Please click on the logo to visit the Call 2 Fall website.

Great Fathers Day Weekend

We had an awesome day today at Crosspointe as we honored all the men for Fathers Day 2009 with gifts of beef jerky! I shared a sermon entitled "God Made Men Out Dirt," which encouraged the men of Crosspointe to live to their fullest potential in Christ. It will be uploaded to our site Tuesday. Also, Pastor Scott baptized two awesome people!!! One was saved today too. Congrats to all three!!!

We also made a huge announcement about an addition to our pastoral staff. We have hired Chad Large to serve as Crosspointe's Community Pastor. I will post more soon about Chad and the position in which he will serve in. He is a great friend and I encourage you to get to know him. Feel free to follow him on Twitter and/or Facebook too.

Raise them Right Part 3

This will be the last of the post of "Raise them Right," which was a series I shared at Crosspointe Church to encourage parents to raise children with Biblical principals being applied in everyday life. The last topic was "Discipline." I know, I know, this has got to be one of the touchiest topics shared in a church setting. Where you have 100 people, there would be 100 different views on how to properly discipline. Therefore, I chose to use the Scripture as our guide and not what is currently popular. Here are four things that will help guide you in raising your children "right".

1. Discipline in the Early Years.

2. Discipline with Consistency.

3. Discipline in Unity.

4. Discipline in Love.

For more info, please feel free to visit www.crosspointeada.com to download the sermons.

Raise them Right Part 2

John Wilmot once said, “Before I was married I had six theories about bringing up children. Now I have six children and no theories!”

I think that statement sums up how most parents feel when raising their Children and what a great responsibility children are! The Bible calls children a "gift" from God in Psalm 127:3, but sometimes parents can feel completely overwhelmed in raising their Children. That's why I decided to teach on the very subject.

Driving home from the hospital after my daughter was born, I remember that I would laugh at loud for few minutes because I was overwhelmed with joy. Then I cried for a few minutes because of the overwhelming responsibility that I felt to now raise this child! I did this all the way home. Laughing, crying, laughing, crying!

As a Christian, we have a major responsibility not to raise perfect children, but to raise children who love and fear God! Here are three ways that we can instill the love and fear of God in our children and "Raise them Right!"

1. LOVING God in front of our children!

2. TEACHING the Word of God to them.

3. DEDICATING them to God on a daily basis.

Raising them Right - Part 1

Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it."

The word "train" in the Hebrew means to “dedicate,” as in a home, temple, and/or altar!

As a godly-parent one of our greatest responsibilities is to "dedicate" our children to the Lord. This is so much more than signing our children up for the baby dedication at the church, where the pastor lays hands on them and prays over them. Although this is a start - this isn't the conclusion to dedicating our child(ren) to the Lord.

I believe "to dedicate" our children to the Lord means that a parent must narrow a child's conduct from evil and to limit options of distraction in our children's lives. In our world today there are many opportunities for evil that our children are faced with. If we don't guard and protect them from the current of this world - they will wind up in the evilness of this world. Thus, as a godly-parent I must make every effort to narrow my child's options to be involved in evil. After all, as Christians, we are to love what is right, just and holy.

Matthew 7:13-14 reads, "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."

Today, be intentional that you are narrowing your child's future path which will lead to LIFE!

Happy Mother's Day

Raise them Right

I am really excited about the new series on parenting called "Raise them Right," which is starting this Sunday and will run through May. It will be a great time of teaching on God's principal's of parenting. If you are like me, sometimes parenting can feel like you are wrestling a lion! In this series, we will examine the hope that we have in the scriptures to raise our children in the fear of the Lord and will give you the tools to defeat that lion!!!

Relaxing Day.

A couple of weekends ago, a family in our church had many of the staff and volunteer leaders out to their house for a time of eating and relaxing! We had an awesome time and I ate the best Hamburger on the planet!!!

Here are a few pics.....