WHO WE ARE
Crossroads Students exists to see 6th-12th graders grow in leadership, develop their transformation, own their calling,
and claim their purpose! As the Student ministry of Crossroads Community Church, we carry the mission and values of Crossroads, to Connect with God, Celebrate the Change, and Contribute to the Community!
We believe that you, as a leader, have the power and potential to be used by God to spark the fire of faith in students’ lives! Through your mentorship and leadership, students’ lives will change as the Kingdom of Heaven is built!
WEEK AHEAD, MONTH AHEAD
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Our PRE-GAME this week is BUZZWORDS! We will end our HEARTS ON FIRE series learning about RUTH.
After Small Groups, we’ll play a BALLOON HUNT, where leaders spread around the building with a pack of balloons each. Students form teams, then have to find a Leader, take a balloon, blow it up and tie it, then run it back to their team. Different color balloons are worth different amounts of points, and the team with the most points wins.
For food, we will have a CEREAL BAR right after the game. So, milk, cereal, bowls, and spoons will all need to be out on the cafe counter by 8pm.
We are announcing that March 2nd will have a CHILI COOK-OFF and be DISNEY CHARACTER THEMED, where students and leaders dress up like Disney characters.
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We will begin the THIS IS THE TRUTH series, learning about what God says about CREATION.
Leaders and Students can dress up like DISNEY CHARACTERS, and sign up for the CHILI COOK-OFF! Bring cash so you can vote for the best chili. All money raised goes to the WWJD Initiative fund.
Our afterparty is a FULL CHURCH NERF WAR. This will be much less organized than a standard game - we are really just setting up the lobby, hallways, and cafe, and letting them go nuts for 20 minutes.
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Our PRE-GAME will be BABY PICTURES where we guess what leaders the baby photos belong to. So, we need Leaders to email baby photos to AnthonyS@crossroads.online with the subject BABY PHOT - YOUR NAME by March 5th.
Then, our special speaker, Brandy Droptiny, preaches THIS IS THE TRUTH: SIN.
After small groups, our AFTERPARTY is KARAOKE where students get to sing community-fresh music, and for our FOOD, in the cafe we’ll have CHIPS AND SALSA!
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We will continue our WWJD Initiative with a project serving VETERANS! We’ll also enjoy BBQ from Mission BBQ!
mark your calendars
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OUR INITIATIVES
We exist to see the Kingdom of Heaven built - and we have various ways we work to see that accomplished. Below, we’ve outlined a few of our strategies to seeing the Kingdom of Heaven come to life in our community.
Spark your six
By choosing six students to intentionally disciple, you can help keep the spark of their faith alive. We need you to let us know what six students you’re intentionally disicpling!
Vision, values, & culture
Once a quarter, we have VISION NIGHT, set aside to walk through the vision, values, and culture of our life. By taking charge of our lives and spiritual formation, we reach the vision God has for our lives!
WWJD? HE would serve.
In Sep. 2024, we made the commitment to lead 12 service projects over the following year, through Sep. 2025, giving up a traditional Sunday night service to instead do what Jesus would do… SERVE!
every 1st sunday,
Our students + leaders work in 3 teams that exist to see the Kingdom of Heaven built! The DREAM team dreams boldly about how God can use us, the GO team is the face that invites and welcomes, and SERVE team exists to meet the real needs of our community and church.
study scripture
We have a 6-month reading plan for Scripture! Leaders, volunteer a time + day you can meet with Students to check in on their progress. This can be Virtual or IRL!
OUR VISION
Without a clear vision, we lack clear direction, passively working towards an aimless future. Our vision describes the dream God has given us to see the Holy Spirit work in our world. Below, we’ve broken down the meaning of each of these ideas, so that you can understand your role in seeing this vision come to life!
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Every person can have influence, impact lives, and bring people to Jesus — anyone and everyone can be a LEADER.
We want to see Students grow in their leadership competency by giving opportunities to lead groups/positions/teams, speak into the future of Crossroads Students, and be a part of our decision-making process.
We believe doing this raises a generation of leaders who can carry the mantle of the future of our Church!
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There is no Junior Holy Spirit. There is no “junior” calling, no “junior” kingdom! Ministry with teenagers is not working with “the JV team”, but a valuable part of the foundation of the Church!
Every teen, no matter their age, is called to the same expectations, ability, power, and purpose as any adult in the Kingdom!We operate with this belief so we never lose sight of the potential in every student to build the Kingdom of Heaven!
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The goal of following Jesus is not passive belief, but heart transformation! We believe walking with, following, and being formed by Jesus transforms our hearts to look like His.
There is a marked, noticeable difference in the life of a follower of Jesus over time that we call transformation - holiness, christlikeness, spiritual growth and maturity - which grows the Fruit of the Spirit in our lives!
This transformation, not passive belief, is what we hope to cultivate in students.
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Every one of us was made to build the Kingdom of Heaven! We were designed by God with unique skills, passions, talents, and experiences so we can take part in God’s calling - building the Kingdom.
But we do not build the Kingdom through passively showing up on Sundays. We live in a world where Satan seeks to steal our attention, kill our motivation, and destroy our faith. Unless we take charge of our walk with Jesus, we will not see the Kingdom grow.
We must claim the purpose for which we were made.
our values + culture
To see our vision come to life, there are certain values we must have. Our values clarify what we encourage/permit, as well as what we cannot allow to take place. These are our metrics of appropriate behavior. Values are the rails guiding us to the realized vision God has given us. These values clearly define what we expect from staff, leaders, and students. The enforcement (or lack thereof) of values creates a culture, the experienced reality of our organization for staff, leaders, and students.
When our vision, values, and culture align, our vision comes to life. This requires your active participation, your commitment to honor and uphold these values in every area of your ministry leadership.
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Being honest, responsible, straightforward, and honoring our word are essentials to working with the vulnerable population we call teenagers!
We also know that God has called us to a radical, important mission that requires our hard work.
We can’t sit on the sidelines or watch others do the work because God has called US!
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Working with teens can be difficult - they are often processing painful, complicated issues and come from a generation that’s never had less respect for authority, stability, and hope for the future.
But our peaceful, kind-hearted presence, our gentle but firm response, can be a moment of order in the chaos of their life!
Our call is to be so filled with grace + hospitality that every student who walks in the building experiences God’s love through us!
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We believe that God walks with us, talks to us, communes with us, and leads us in our day-to-day lives through the influence of the Holy Spirit.
This Holy Spirit, among so many things, can provide us words to speak, actions to take, directions to go, and people to love that we’d never discover on our own.
We believe that there’s no better leader than the leadership of the Holy Spirit, who directs us to the Presence of God, where encounters with Jesus shape our hearts to look like His.
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We refuse to sit on the sidelines and watch as others have fun, grow relationships, and build the Kingdom!
So, we can’t be sitting on the back counter, hiding in the kitchen, hanging with our other leader friends, and otherwise neglecting the job at hand.
If you take the time you spend with students seriously, engaging with high-energy, you’ll help create a space where students are free to be themselves and experience the best night of their week!
RESOURCES
Caring for students well takes patience, kindness, maturity, focus, and passion! It’s never been more difficult to be a teenager, where cultural issues like social media, bullying, drugs and alcohol, violence, abuse, mental illness, misunderstandings of identity, and more devalue their walk with Jesus. This means, in turn, it’s never been harder to be a student leader! We’ve prepared resources to help you as you navigate walking with students through difficult days to build the Kingdom of Heaven!
JOIN OUR LEADERSHIP TEAM
If you have a passion to see students impacted by Jesus, to see a generation on fire, and to see the Kingdom built, we want you on our team! Shoot us a message and we will reach out to you to go over next steps.