Crossroads
Community Church is hosting a “Sweet 16 Celebration” on Feb. 21, to celebrate
16 years of ministry in Stokesdale. The service will include special music, and
stories of the church’s work in Stokesdale and around the world. Guest speakers
will encourage the congregation as they look to the future. Dinner will be
served to all in attendance.
On a Sunday
morning in February 2000, Crossroads Community Church held its first public
worship service in the old Stokesdale Elementary School cafeteria. Today the
church has found its mission in “leading people into life-changing community in
Christ,” according to founding pastor David Bailey. “We encourage people to
mature from the inside-out,” he says. “That means you Center on God, Connect in
relationship, then Change your world.”
Since 2000,
Crossroads has met in 10 different locations, including living rooms, the
school gym, a nursing home and even a garage. The church now meets in an
up-fitted warehouse on B & G Court in Stokesdale. “We never wanted to own
real estate,” says Bailey, “but there is no assembly space available to rent in
Stokesdale.”
In those 16
years, the church has ministered to the community in many ways. Church members
have coached sports teams, worked with scouts and participated in Good
Samaritan Ministries events. For several years the church has provided
refreshments and fun activities for families at the Stokesdale Holiday Parade.
Members also serve as the parade announcers as the procession passes the
Stokesdale Fire Station. “This is our church’s way of blessing the community
every Christmas,” says Keith Street, one of the parade announcers. “We like to
show people God’s love.”
Crossroads
has also reached out overseas with God’s love. In 2009 the church sent a team
to Spanish Town, Jamaica to help missionaries with church building
construction. In 2015 the church partnered with The Mighty River Project,
sending a 12-person team to Uganda. The team met with Ugandan artisans who work
for TMRP, which imports their crafts for sale in the U.S. Crossroads continues to
work with this ministry which helps keep Ugandan families intact, through
employment and providing health care.
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Volunteers from Crossroads served at the Operation Christmas
Child Processing Center in Boone, NC in Dec. 2015.
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Every fall
the church packs shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child, a ministry of
Samaritan’s Purse. Last year the church sent 190 boxes, some of which were
delivered to Belize. The church also sent a team of 23 to the Samaritan’s Purse processing center
in Boone to prepare boxes for shipment overseas. “Samaritan’s Purse makes it
incredibly easy to help bless children all around the world through Operation
Christmas Child,” says Crossroads’ OCC leader Amy Strawn. “Crossroads pours out
love to children around the world every year by such a simple act as packing a
shoebox.”
Locally,
church members also work with Hannah’s Haven, a Teen Challenge substance abuse
recovery program, and Jobs for Life, a course helping unemployed people find
their way to gainful employment. The church partnered with the Kids’ Clubhouse
after school program in Kernersville last summer, to bring a missions-themed
Bible School program to dozens of energetic children.
The past 16
years serve as a foundation for future ministry, says Bailey. One of the
church’s home Bible study groups plans to begin ministering to refugees in
2016, working with The 514 Initiative in Greensboro.
“It is such
a joy to serve in this great community,” Bailey says. “We just need to
celebrate!”
