Crossroads Christian Church

I was blown away by my first church visit! I think I may have found my new church home. Lucky for my readers, they have a Saturday night service that I plan to start attending. I'm having too much fun churchsurfing already to stop.

Let me tell you about my trip to Crossroads in an objective way. I'll try, anyway. I really have a lot of good things to say.

First, I have to say that it is a million times easier to go to church when you have someone to go with you. It's intimidating to go by yourself. You never know who is going to talk to you(or not talk to you). I was greeted by a lovely local lady and accompanied by another lovely local lady(both of whom shall not be named because of privacy issues). I feel like I got to cheat a little this time because I got my questions about the church answered. Most times, I would have to attend quite a bit longer to get the inside information that I got this morning.

Crossroads is a spectacularly child-friendly church. They have child care/Sunday School classes for children from newborns all the way up to high school. The middle school and high school programs are only during the 11:15 service in order to have the largest group in attendance.

On the other hand, I'm not sure how they reach out to the singles in the congregation. That's a big concern for me, being a single woman looking for a church. I love families and children, but I certainly don't want to be overwhelmed by them.

Attire is anything goes! I daresay they wouldn't even look at you askance if you showed up in your pajamas. Not that I'm going to, but just in case I was ever late for church... There were a lot of jeans, and the lead guitarist even wore flip-flops. Instead of pews, there are chairs.

The music was upbeat, and the church has a full band--drums, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, and keyboardist. They also had vocalists, one of whom kind of looked like an aging hippie. Definitely my kind of people! None of the songs were any I knew until it came to communion time. Then, they took a traditional hymn and changed it so that it sounded like contemporary praise and worship song.

One thing that I prefer at the churches I attend is that they have communion every week. This is a personal preference, and I think it has a lot to do with the denomination I grew up in. If you learn that it's best to do it only at certain points during the year, that's probably going to be your preference. I think I'll probably write a post later on about communion and what it means to me, so I won't go into that now.

Something that really impressed me was that I was told that there is a very active group of parents of children with disabilities at the church. The children are integrated into the class that best meets their needs. I don't think that other churches are necessarily unfriendly to the needs of children with disabilities, but more somewhat ignorant of their needs.

The sermon was about taking a risk. To my surprise, one of the church's female ministers got up to give the message. I'll say that it's no fault of the church's. I'd had a conversation with a friend the night before about characteristics of Christian churches. Among those was that they don't allow women in leadership in ministry. I was thrilled to find that I was wrong. I was raised by a feminist, and I consider myself a feminist as well. Any church that doesn't let women take leadership in ministry doesn't fly with me. My friend who attends the church told me that she gives the message at least once per sermon series.

I really enjoyed the sermon. The speaker brought the scripture to life. That's awesome for me because I feel like I've heard them all so many times that I could tell them myself, in my sleep. She spoke about the time when Jesus washes the disciples' feet. She described it in such a vivid way. The disciples arrive, and there's no one to wash their feet. On those reclining benches they ate on during Biblical times, your feet would end up in someone else's face. Yet none of the disciples themselves offered to wash one another's feet. I can't do it justice, so if you'd really like to know what she said, go here and read the transcript.

Obviously, I really enjoyed myself and I have plans to go back! If you have questions about anything I didn't mention, please feel free to ask! And if you're looking for a church, certainly check out Crossroads Christian at either its Lexington or Georgetown campuses!