As 2011 draws to a close, I want to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU for your prayers and financial support of Crossroads Kids Club in the year behind us. It has been quite an exciting! Not only have we shifted our paradigm to work exclusively through local churches, but we are in more schools than last year and have three more set to open next month!
Just over 12 months ago, I was personally in a very different place than I am today. In October 2010, I was the pastor of New Hope Community (which we had launched in 2007) and director of Crossroads, which was working with schools in two towns and one school district. I was directly responsible for each Club and also for the church. Through the summer of 2010, I had a nagging sense that something wasn't right. Looking back, I would call it a "holy discontent," which was leading me toward something new. In October of 2010, I traveled to Uganda with two good friends. While far from home (and on some long plane rides), I was able to be very honest with my friends and listen to their encouragement and counsel. When I returned home I knew that I needed to step down as pastor of the church. My gifts and personality didn't suggest a great fit for pastoral ministry, and that had become very clear to me. In realizing this, I also thought it was time for me to move on from leading Crossroads since the two ministries were so intimately connected. Little did I know that the Lord had something else in store for Crossroads, for New Hope, and for me!
In November 2010, I began some conversations with friends in leadership at Awana Clubs. We spoke about the possibility of working together to take the Crossroads Kids Club model and share it with churches nationwide--to equip and empower local churches to share the gospel with children inside the public schools in their communities. These conversations with Awana and the Crossroads Board continued through February 2011. Finally, in March, I stepped down from leading the church, became the full time executive director of Crossroads, moved in to the Awana Clubs headquarters in Streamwood, and began pursuing the vision of helping local churches reach kids in their own
communities.Since then, I gained some key knowledge that has helped Crossroads grow in 2011 and will, God willing, bring us forward in 2012. One of the things that I worked on was to learn what similar ministry was taking place around the nation. I wanted to know if anyone else was connecting churches to schools to reach children with the Good News of Jesus.
I found two national organizations working inside of schools. One of these, although it works through churches, does not share the gospel with kids or even engage in spiritual conversations. The other does not work through churches but embraces a para-church model of ministry. I also found a couple of local ministries that were engaging churches with schools for evangelism but only on a regional level.
I learned through my research that there are four key commitments in our new ministry paradigm that make Crossroads Kids Club unique:
- We are committed to the local church.
- We are committed to public schools.
- We are committed to evangelism.
- And we are committed to serving churches across the nation.
In fact, this is something else I discovered this year: God has people in all kinds of places! The original eight churches we are working with are from really diverse church traditions. What I have discovered is that the unifying themes are: a high view of Scripture plus a commitment to evangelism and neighborhood outreach. Outside of those things though, we have liturgical, charismatic, mainline, non-denominational, small and medium churches engaged. We have also seen that both urban and suburban churches are interested.
I have learned so many other things this year as we have moved in this direction. I have become more and more convinced of the importance of what we are doing and of God's call to do exactly that. There are so many things I could share, but I want to close by talking about the local ministry in Streamwood and Hanover Park. After I left New Hope Community, the church faced some dark times, but God raised up new leadership for New Hope! We have a new pastor, and the church has moved to a new location in Streamwood. Currently, my role at the church is as the volunteer children's ministry director and an elder. New Hope is growing and is the sponsoring church of four different Crossroads Kids Clubs in our community. This past November, nearly 30 children in our church's Crossroads Kids Club ministry professed faith in Jesus! Seeing changed lives at the local level is really what the big-picture vision is about. Now we want to see these results grow and spread across this nation.
Through your faithful prayer and financial support of Crossroads Jesus has changed these children's lives! Not only that, but we are on track to see the impact of sharing the gospel inside of public schools exponentially expand the number of children that will be reached in the years ahead. So, thank you for your partnership in the gospel! I am truly grateful.
With great expectancy of amazing things from God in the year ahead and with sincere gratitude for his faithfulness in 2011,
Matt
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