Church of the Week: Crossroads Community Church, Florence, KY

The lovely Robin and I seized the opportunity last evening to worship with our daughter, son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren in Florence, Kentucky, at one of the three locations of the multi-site Crossroads Community Church.

We entered the expansive and inviting atrium (which has a cool fireplace at one end), and were quickly welcomed by several different people.

Large, well-placed signage made it easy to find our way around.

The check-in process for our grandchildren went smoothly and they had no reservations about joining other children in their well-staffed and fun-looking classrooms.

The worship, led by a friend of the family, was well done (if a little short--only two songs), and thematically appropriate.

The message of the evening, delivered onscreen via a recording of teaching pastor Chuck Mingo from the mainstage at Oakley Crossroads, was engaging and effective, the second in a series on the history and mission of the church, titled "Saints & Scoundrels." The use of a large central screen to supplement the two side screens made the experience every bit as immediate and personal as if the speaker had been present in the room.

Crossroads Florence is located at 828 Heights Blvd., near the Florence Mall, y'all (that's a local reference, a tiny inside joke for those who know the area).

The Most Memorable Sermons I've Ever Heard

In the past several weeks, I've had the blessing of having three different people tell me that they vividly remember a sermon they heard me preach. They even related a

little about the impact it had on them! What a joy that is for an old preacher to hear.

It got me thinking (always a dangerous thing). I've had the honor and blessing of hearing many, many wonderful, gifted preachers over the years, from Billy Graham and Tom Skinner to my own wife, brothers, as well as others whom I have mentored and encouraged as preachers and teachers. So much good--even great--preaching.

So I thought I'd take a few minutes to reflect on the most memorable sermons--not preachers, but individual, specific sermons--I've heard over the years. How many sermons can I say I remember at least the title, topic, or main thrust of the message? And I've been shocked and dismayed at the result.

Now, keep in mind, my memory is so faulty it's pathetic. For example, one of the reasons I keep a record of the books I read each year is because I have often begun reading a book only to realize, several pages or chapters into it, that I'd read it before. The lovely Robin has often related to me incidents we shared or witnessed of which I have absolutely no recollection.

Still, given the criteria I set for myself, the following are apparently the most memorable sermons I've ever heard, in the approximate order I heard them:

Paul Little, "The Effective Ambassador" (I remember this message at Urbana in--I think--1976)

Leonard Ravenhill, "The Judgment Seat of Christ" (a sermon on cassette tape)

Commissioner Andy Miller, "Garbage" (a signature sermon from a true one-of-a-kind preacher)

Tommy Nelson, "The Art of Attraction" (and other sermons from Love Song, a series on the Song of Solomon)

Brennan Manning (pictured above), "The Furious Longing of God" (a mesmerizing message from the author of The Ragamuffin Gospel, Abba's Child, and many other books)

Rachel Held Evans, "Eschet Chayil" (a podcast of a talk by Rachel Held Evans which I mentioned and linked to last May on this blog--here)

If my memory weren't so poor, I'm sure I could come up with others, from camp meetings and pastors conferences and church services over the years. But those are the sermons that come most readily to mind, spanning thirty-six years from the Paul Little sermon to the Rachel Held Evans message. Six out of hundreds, maybe thousands, I have listened to, in person, on radio and TV, via tape or CD or podcast.

What about you? How many sermons can YOU recall (by title, topic, or main thrust)?

Church Signs with Moveable Letters Should Be Outlawed (Pt.13)

So many questions. So wrong. So, so wrong.

Stumbling Block and Cornerstone

The church, like Peter, is both a stumbling block and a cornerstone. It is the latter only when it is consciously contrite for being, and having been, the former (Gil Baillie, Violence Unveiled, 275).

Searching Words from R. C. Sproul

To demand from others what the Spirit Himself patiently endures is to exalt ourselves above God (R. C. Sproul).

My 2013 Reading Plan

As I've posted about here and here, I have long made it a practice to devise a reading plan at the beginning of every year, to help guide my reading in the months to come (it usually turns out that half or more of my reading is spontaneous, so my plan is plenty flexible).

So, while the plan is always in process, here are some of the books I hope to get to in the course of 2013:

Memoir:
The Hiding Place (ten Boom)

Biography:
A Man Called Peter (Marshall)
American Lion (Meacham)

Classics
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (Poe)
Fathers and Sons (Turgenev)
The Rainbow (Lawrence)
Summer (Wharton)
Walden (Thoreau)
Silence (Endo)
Richard II (Shakespeare)

Writing:
Every Writer Needs a Tribe (Goins)
The Virginia Woolf Writer’s Workshop (Jones)

History:
Winston’s War (Dobbs)
A Daughter’s Tale (Spencer-Churchill)
Hitler’s Pre-emptive War (Lunde)

New authors:
Possession (Byatt)
The Corrections (Franzen)
A Soldier of the Great War (Helprin)
I, Elizabeth (Miles)
One for Sorrow (Reed/Mayer)
Surfeit of Lampreys (Ngaio Marsh)
False Scent (Ngaio Marsh)
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (Franklin)
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (Clarke)
Killing Floor (Child)
Die Trying (Child)

Biblical Fiction:
Havah (Lee)
Sarai (Smith)
Love Amid the Ashes (Andrews)
Michal (Smith)

Poetry:
A Poem a Day (McCosker/Albery)
Writing the River (Shaw)
A Thousand Mornings (Oliver)
The Mad Farmer Poems (Berry)

Favorites:
Conagher (L’Amour)
Down the Long Hills (L’Amour)
The Me I Want to Be (Ortberg)
Soul Salsa (Sweet)
Soul Tsunami (Sweet)

Christian:
Glorious Mess (Howerton)
The Furious Longing of God (Manning)
The Naked Life (Banks)
The Power of a Whisper (Hybels)
The Challenge of Jesus (Wright)
Just Think (Nordenson)
Seeing the Unseen (Hunt)

Church & Leadership:
Messy Church (Parsley)
You Lost Me (Kinnaman)

Related books (to be read in order):
Hitler’s Pre-emptive War (Lunde)
Winston’s War (Dobbs)
A Daughter’s Tale (Spencer-Churchill)
Blackout (Lawton)
Something Rotten (Fforde)
Gertrude & Claudius (Updike)

Contemplative/Devotional:
Abundant Living (Jones)
The Next Chapter After the Last (Tozer)
Introduction to the Devout Life (de Sales)

Friends:
Ghostwriter (Thrasher)

Books about books:
For the Love of Books (Shwartz)
My Reading Life (Conroy)

Other:
84 Charing Cross Road (Hanff)
The Last Dickens (Pearl)
11/22/63 (King)
Libra (DeLillo)
The Foolish Dictionary (Wurdz)
Jayber Crow (Berry)

Mule-choker:
A Soldier of the Great War (Helprin)
11/22/63 (King)

That’s 66 (some are listed more than twice because they fit multiple categories)…probably a bit too inflated, considering it's more than half my total of 127 books read in 2012--a total which included 34 children's books, which of course are shorter than most other books I read). But there are just so many books...and so little time.