Greetings and grace upon grace to you. I love New Years. I know it is just a date on the calendar, but the new year is a wonderful time to reflect on the faithfulness of God in our salvation and sanctification, and on where our Redeemer is taking us in the new year before us.
I want to encourage you to be intentional about preparing to walk WITH Jesus in new ways in this new year. Prayerfully, the resources we have available will help. You can find them HERE:
I encourage you to share the link with others who may not have the encouragement of community to help them fix their eyes on Jesus. We need Him now more than ever.
Please take some time in the next few days to work through your plan to place Christ, His kingdom, and His church first in the coming year. Remember, TIME is our most precious resource, so how we spend it is the greatest reflection of what we truly love and value.
What we fixate upon we migrate towards. What consumes our minds captures our hearts. What captures our hearts conforms our souls.
So what will your soul look like a year from now?
The commitments we make should be done in light of seeing Jesus as BETTER. They should help us in our pursuit of Him and His purposes and plans. Remember, He is not some ‘means to an end’ but He is the END worth pursuing! He is the promised blessing. He IS BETTER!
2023 was a wonderful year for CrossTrain. There are far too many things to list, but here are a few that stand out to me:
We saw 12 people get baptized! That is 24 in the past 18 months. This is more than the prior 5 years combined.
We gave far more support to global missions than in any year in our history. This included:
We sent our first team to the i6eight Mexico missions to support our missionaries Taylor and Fahren in caring for the least of these.
a record number of Shoeboxes being sent around the globe
feeding 200+ kids every Saturday in Costa Rica
providing funding for the bricks to build a boys dorm in Kenya
additional funding to Kenya for Christmas
Christmas initiatives to Mexico and Costa Rica
A 40% increase in our annual Marriage Retreat this summer.
Restoration happening in marriages, physical and mental well-being, and in families.
New people joining our ministry teams.
Seeing the building be a useful blessing for people in and out of our church.
Holding our first ever ‘Park Day’ as a church.
Dozens of people complete the two new offerings in our Training Center— New Testament Survey and Practical Shepherding.
And 2024 promises to be an amazing year for CrossTrain too. Just a few examples:
The Training Center will continue on Tuesday nights with a course on How To Teach God’s Word. It will begin in February. Details coming soon.
We are planning missions trips to Mexico– at least one for this spring and will get the details to you very soon.
We are equipping more and more people to be disciple-makers as we train to teach God’s truth and we are seeing the fruit in this near and far.
D-Groups, our organically formed small groups anchored in being in relationship centered around the Word, will be starting back up mid-January. I want to encourage you to open up your hearts, and maybe your homes, to inviting others into a conversation that is centered on God’s Word.
Let’s let 2024 be marked first and foremost by COMMUNITY— with Him, with one another, and with others who are not yet in the community of Christ. And then let it be marked by INTENTIONALITY — living as His Kingdom people, by His Kingdom power, for His Kingdom glory as we make disciple-makers TOGETHER.
I love being at CrossTrain Church. It is a joy to do life with you. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me or any of your leaders to discuss the things the Spirit places on your heart for this coming year.
May the Fruit of the Spirit— love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control powerfully define us in 2024!
MUCH love! Make much of our King and His Kingdom in the New Year!
—doug
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