Wednesday, August 19
An enlightening Skinny…
Four or five times a year at Crossings we host something we call ‘The Skinny’. It’s a chance for people new to our community to come and get ‘the skinny’ on Crossings. (We stole the name from Reunion Christian Church in Boston)
After our 11am service we invite anyone that wants to come to lunch upstairs at 4 Market Square to hear the story behind Crossings, hear about our values and dreams, how we view this calling to Knoxville that we feel God has given us, and to give them a time to ask questions.Obviously, in addition, one of our main motivations is to get to know these people, connect with them. As a staff, we really, truly enjoy this time.
Two weeks ago was our latest Skinny. There were about 20 people new to Crossings there.
We began the way we always do, having people go around and introduce themselves and just say how they ended up coming to Crossings. The responses during this time are usually something like, “I came with this or that friend”, “I heard about this church in Market Square, I thought I would try it out”, etc.
This time though it was a little different. Instead of talking about ‘how they ended up in our Crossings community’, they reflexively began to share ‘why they were in this community’.
And the answers were, almost verbatim…our values. I don’t know how many times I heard the word ‘story’, or ‘authenticity’ as people described why they were a part of Crossings. It was great. It was affirming that God is doing in our community what we believed He wanted to do in the first place.
If you’re wondering what these values are, here is a link.
Mark Nelson at 10:59 AM 2comments
2 Comments
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at 9:01 AM
KatrinaLynn said... Ok, ill try not to make this a novel.
Someone just asked me this past weekend why I went to Crossings. I've been going there now for about 2 years, the church before that I went to for about 2 years. Her question was, Why did you leave? What drew you to this church? Well, for one, I know I wasn't getting "fed" like I needed to be. Every week I felt like I was dragging myself to go. So instead of going to the church that was 5 minutes away, I started driving the 40 minutes away to Downtown West, leading to the now 20 minute drive. So we continued in this conversation for about 30-45 minutes, talking about the diverse community at Crossings, the passion shown in the worship and teachings, how I feel like I grow week by week through the worship and teachings, how my view of Common Meal has changed, just by a sentence someone said, and how I want to be there each Sunday. And that wasn't enough, but also the Summer Series we just ended. I heard the stories all my life, but everytime we cover them, I see something different. And for what I feel like is the first authentic time, I am trying to drag my nonChristian friends to church. It's a community that's not overpowering but is real.
God is moving at Crossings, that's for sure.
-Katrina
oh. and GO WHITE SOX! :]-
at 7:18 AM
Mark Nelson said...
Katrina...
Thanks for your thoughts...except that part about the white sox.
mark