Ray Moore

Think Big. It is an interesting sermon series title. We took the Bible verse that gave us the main reason for Jesus coming to earth and used it as a springboard to speak from. The verse, although small, carries a massive idea. Luke 19:10 says that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. Such a small verse, but our eternity hangs on it. It shows us just how Jesus is, and it shows us His heart. In Luke 15 we read how the religious people of the day were once again disgusted by the type of people Jesus hung out with. Jesus of course either hearing their words or thoughts told them three stories so they would understand His heart more. Does Jesus hate sin? Yes, he does but He loves everyone and came to this earth to pay our sin debt. Romans 6:23 gives us the bad news that our sin has earned us death. It also lets us know that there is a gift we can receive if we want. This gift is eternal life paid for by Jesus. As Jesus first called his disciples He told them He was going to make them fishers of men. I believe we as Christians get this call backwards. Many of us go years even a lifetime without sharing our faith or even inviting someone to a church service. We get so wrapped up in our jobs, vacations, sports, etc., that we completely forget that the reason God left us on this earth was to follow His earthly footsteps of evangelism. We are supposed to genuinely love people, build relationships with them, and pray God uses us to lead them to know and experience Jesus’ love the way we have. I read a statement from a well know atheist Sunday. He said, “How much do you have to hate someone to believe in a Heaven and a Hell and not tell them about it?” That statement has stayed with me and I pray it has stayed with many others at CrossPointe. I want our church to be known for many, many things. But more than anything, I pray we will be known as a church that loves people the way Jesus does. I pray these few weeks of talks will forever change the way we view people. May we fall more in love with our God and in turn more in love with people. ray

That little three letter word seems to carry with it so much. It was created by God to be so many things. He wanted it to be something that married couples share with each other. He created it to be passionate, and pleasurable. He created sex to be not just physical but to bring us together in the strongest sense of intimacy. He created it to join the couple together physically, emotionally, and spiritually. God even chose to use this act of love and intimacy to be the means by which he creates human life.  Just like with everything else the father of lies gets involved. Since God made sex so powerful, the opposite effects it can bring if done outside of God’s plans can be destructive. We live in a culture of sex, created by Satan. He has done an incredible job pushing a view of sex on us that will ultimately destroy us. He shows us so many ways that his view of sex is better. Since the day we could understand what we were watching or hearing we have been inundated day after day with the wrong message. What, and who we have allowed to speak into our lives about sex will show us how we really think about it. It is impossible to think that MTV can teach our children about sex for years and that they will still somehow come away from that with the correct view. I truly believe that generations of parents and churches have been silent on this issue because of how delicate it is. I believe if we want to continue to have affairs and watch our children and ourselves self destruct sexually than we just need to continue to stay silent. Anytime God’s Word is spoken it will bring up things that make us uncomfortable. I would much rather have an uncomfortable audience and myself be a little uncomfortable then to continue to say nothing about sex and hope it all works out in the end. For 5 weeks I will be sharing God’s true plan for sex and intimacy. I want  God’s Spirit to move in us to save us from the sexual grip this culture has. I pray these five weeks of teachings will change us all, and help renew our minds.

Well Christmas and New Years is behind us, and it was a fun filled, packed several days. The excitement of watching my daughters open presents never gets old. This year at CrossPointe we decided to have a Christmas night communion service. It was one of those things we didn’t really know what to expect because we had never done one before. God once again blew my expectations away as I watched the people keep pouring in, and more chairs having to be pulled out. The atmosphere of the night was quiet yet electric. It was obvious that God was there, and we worshiped Him all night long. Every part of the service lifted up the name of Christ, as it should. After a short Christmas message we were able to take communion together. It is always an awesome feeling for me to watch everyones face as it dawns on them once again how amazing God’s love is toward us to die on that Cross for us. As we eat the bread and drink the juice it is an incredible reminder to us of  what a perfect God did for us. We don’t usually have a public alter call but I’m glad we did. God’s Spirit in our service drove many people to come forward and pray. The last service of 2011 was great; and so was the first service of 2012. I know with everything within me it is simply the tip of the iceberg of what God is going to do through CrossPointe this year. This Sunday we start a new sermon series called Chances. We will be going through the book of Jonah. I can’t wait to see and feel God work as he shows us all He is still the loving God of another chance.

As I mentioned in the last post I was very nervous about spending so much time talking about money. The “Church” has such a bad reputation with people when it comes to money. Some of that reputation is warranted some is not. I, as all preachers do, feel if I speak on this, than attendance will go down and so will moral. I could not have been more wrong. I’m not really sure why God picked our Church covering this subject as a time to bless but He did. It may be simply He was already planning to or maybe I was so nervous that I prayed much more and relied on Him more, which I did. Our attendance rose significantly every week. The last day of our series we set a record for most people not on a special occasion day. I got a feeling that even though we teach trusting God we tend to get a little nervous ourselves to follow His lead when it comes to areas we think He can’t really bless in. God had been leading me to speak on money for a while but I was very hesitant thinking it might send church growth backwards. I finally allowed the Spirit to lead me, and God blessed that decision. Last Sunday was an incredible service, not because of the crowd, but because God moved in people’s hearts, and not just about money. I love it when God shows His power when I least expect it, oh how I want to see and experience much more of it.

Economy

Well we started a series at church that I have been very nervous about. We are going to be spending several weeks dissecting God’s view of money and stuff. There seems to be nothing more that churches get a bad rap for is asking for money. And of course everyone thinks that churches are just full of money hungry preachers. Well there are quite a few of those but I pray it is a small minority. I know that I am not that way which means CrossPointe is not that way. I believe though that my extra nervousness is coming from selfishness. I am caring more about what people think instead of what God thinks. God put the commands on tithing and giving for several reasons. I believe #1 is so He knows He has complete control of our hearts. #2 Is He allows us to have a part in funding the growth of His Kingdom. Im not teaching these principles to get rich, Im teaching them because they are a command from God and if we want to do money right, this is the first step we need to take. Before we can get rid of debt and save and all of that stuff we have to learn to be generous like God and learn to give it away. I pray that when we get done with this teaching series at CrossPointe that our bank account skyrocketing will not be my goal. I pray that people will grow in their relationship with Christ and will have a generous heart, just like God.

The more I examine society and see it’s problems and watch the family erode I’m fairly confident we have a crisis of males not being men. I knew I had many shortcomings where I needed to man up, and I see other men everyday who need to do the same. Most men have no real clue what it means to be a man. We do not know how to treat our wives nor how to raise children. We have never been taught what a real man is truly like. Is it John Wayne or Chuck Norris we should be like. No; we should strive to be a man like Jesus. He cared for and was responsible for everyone. He doesn’t let us fend for ourselves He fights our battles. He takes our sin away and becomes responsible for our eternal destiny. Im excited that God has already done much work in the hearts of CrossPointe’s people, especially our men. Many men have started to change in to real biblical men. As much as the church needs great women of faith we need strong Godly men all the more. If we are to combat this culture we need our males to step up and be the Christians He has called us to be. I pray that much training of men stems from this Sunday Morning series. I need to more and so do most of us, we need to Man Up.

A week or so has passed since CrossPointe celebrated its second anniversary. I really didn’t know what to expect. We had really pushed for inviting people to the service. We brought in a large tent to have a church homecoming type meal outside after the service.  Of course we brought in the kids jumping castle. As the service time drew closer the electricity in the air got stronger. We hardly ever set a number of people that we would like to hit on the service but we wanted to hit 200 people on our second anniversary. I announced from the stage that the Lord blessed us with 213 people on that day. It was awesome to hear the cheers and clapping. We put a lot of work and prayer into the service and it went off perfectly; from the videos, the music and the testimonies. The plan was that day to celebrate the past and cast a vision of what God wants us to do in the future. I spoke about God’s plan for His Church to not fade away and become silent but to be involved in the culture to change it and redeem it. God wants to use His people to change the culture and reach more people with His Gospel and get Himself more glory. God’s power on that day was just a scratch on the service of what God wants to do with us. The  future of CrossPointe is as bright as God wants it to be. Our plan is to stay humble and follow God’s lead. It is as simple as that.

I am very excited about a Sunday that we have coming up in a few weeks. On Sunday July 24th we will be celebrating our 2 year anniversary as a church. We will have personal videos from changed lives. We will be celebrating the last two years and looking forward to the future. We are going to be eating out on the front lawn of the Church. We would really like to shoot for having 200 people on that day. We want everyone inviting friends and to sweeten the pot we are giving away an Ipad. I hope this day acomplishes a couple of things. I want the people already involved at CrossPointe to really heighten their sense of pride for our Church. When people are proud of something they want everyone to know about it. The Church is God’s chosen vehicle to carry His Gospel to people. I also want us to celebrate how great God is. I really want people to walk out of the service closer to God than when they walked in. Most of all I want God to receive Glory. He is the power behind all of the blessings so far, and whatever He leads us to do in the future. I honestly can’t believe that it has almost been two years. Time truly does travel so fast. I pray that God will use this day of celebration to get Glory for Himself and to fuel His Kingdom ahead while using us,

Well the first NOW was a huge success. Matter of fact we were not ready for how big it was actually going to be. It was planned for our people but turned out that we almost ran out of chairs. This time we are actually planning for it to be huge. We are baptizing and of course incredible worship music with Scripture reading. It is going to be an incredible night. Leading people to worship is not the easiest task. For many people years of singing in church with not actually worshiping is a hard habit to break. Matthew 15:8. It is something though that we are dedicated to. We want people to be able to learn to break out of  their worship boxes of just singing words, and truly feel a connection to their Savior as they sing. God loves when we worship Him with our lives. Obedience is the highest form of worship. We want people to obey in showing their devotion and love to Christ as they sing. So ready for this night. See you there, ray

I wish it wasn’t so easy to forget important things. It seems like some of the most important things in our lives like how important our families are, and the importance of relationships with people, our public testimony etc… Even as pastors the most important thing in our lives can take a second place to sermon prep, pushing forward, counseling in spiritual matters and the million other things that need to be done. Somehow it seems so easy to forget how important our relationship is with our Savior. In our attempt to lead our lives we forget to connect to the One and Only True Power. It is funny how we think our talent and abilities will take us where we want to go. I think everyone, even those who are the most spiritual among us get into ruts where we fail to see the importance of spending as much time as we can with our beautiful Savior. I reread the book fresh wind fresh fire. It is an incredible book to revive the need for honest fervent prayer. God moves the same way today as He always has. We can connect to that same power today the way people always have, prayer. I have rededicated myself to be a man know for His relationship with his Savior. Our staff is now reading the book and I pray they come to the same conclusion. Before we use self help, or becoming a better you, we need, as God’s People, to hit our knees and beg for mercy and grace. If we want God to use us we must join into communion with Him, we must boldly approach the Throne.