Archive for July, 2015
Guest Post | The Cross Church School of Ministry Enters Year Three by Jeff Crawford
Today, RonnieFloyd.com welcomes guest writer, Dr. Jeff Crawford. Dr. Crawford is the President of Cross Church School of Ministry and a Teaching Pastor at Cross Church.
It is my privilege to lead one of the most cutting edge ministry training programs in the country. The Cross Church School of Ministry is a unique, one-year ministry residency where next generation leaders come to Cross Church from literally around the globe. Based on their calling, we customize a ministry track experience built around solid mentorship.
In just a few weeks we will graduate our second cohort. As I reflect back on these last two years, I am amazed at the blessing and favor God has granted us. We’ve traveled the world on mission to places like Haiti, Venezuela, and Tanzania. We’ve traveled North America, learning from and helping church planters in Seattle, Columbus, Ohio, St. Louis, New York City, and Portland, Maine. Both years we have taken our School of Ministry cohort to the Southern Baptist Convention, exposing them to the best of who we are denominationally and the inner workings of how we get things done for the Kingdom. Nearly everyone who has come to us has engaged one of our numerous academic partnerships to earn degree credit toward a bachelor or masters degree.
As the Cross Church School of Ministry is maturing, we are entering a new phase of sending. One of the major benefits we offer is having Cross Church in your corner for the duration of your ministry career. Once the one-year ministry residency is complete, our “students” move on, many of them to significant ministry positions literally around the country.
We are currently just weeks away from beginning our third year. God has once again brought to us a high caliber group of leaders. But I can’t help but wonder if God has more people for us, even at this late date. Pastor, is there a young man or woman in your church, called to the ministry, but needs to be trained? Send them to the Cross Church School of Ministry. We will pour into them everything we know about mission and ministry, the best of Cross Church – then we will send them back to you.
Maybe you are reading this and wondering if the Cross Church School of Ministry is for you. Let me encourage you to go to our website today: www.CrossChurchSchool.com. This website is packed full of videos, testimonies, and all the information you need to discern if the Cross Church School of Ministry is for you.
Let me close by asking this important question: In a world where 50% of men and women called to ministry quit on their calling within 5 years of taking their first church, don’t you think we can do better? Don’t you believe we are called to do better?
This is why the Cross Church School of Ministry exists. Not because God deserves better, but because He deserves our best.
Dr. Jeff Crawford
President, Cross Church School of Ministry
Teaching Pastor, Cross Church
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is the President & CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.
Returning to God’s Word
The GPS is a remarkable device. Do you use one? I remember just a few short years ago when GPS devices first became popular, you could see units of various sizes suction-cupped to car windshields all over parking lots. Some of them were nearly tablet-sized.
When they were first released, to keep the maps updated, you had to plug the device into your home computer to be updated. If the map versions got too far behind, you’d hear wrong road names and get bad directions.
Now, mapping apps for smartphones have become as common as the phones themselves, providing GPS services for driving and walking. Not near an outlet in the car? No problem as long as the phone battery is strong enough. You can still hear a voice telling you to turn left in half a mile. Or, if you drive too far, “recalculating.”
Maps are helpful. Maps are needed when we don’t know where we are going. Maps are sometimes needed when we forget how to get back to were we started. And, maps can help us when someone has given us wrong directions.
The Bible is our spiritual map
The Bible is our spiritual map. It not only tells us how to get where we need to go, it tells us how to get back to where we need to be. And, it provides correction when we might have been given wrong directions.
Staying on the right road is essential to our walk with God. If we are to walk with God, we must spend time in His Word. No follower of Jesus is strong enough to ignore the counsel, wisdom, and power of the Word of God.
Spiritual renewal is never present if God’s Word is absent.
The Israelites needed God’s Word
When the children of Israel returned to Jerusalem following decades of exile, one of the first things they did was listen to the reading of God’s Word. Nehemiah 8 records the request of the people: “They asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses that the Lord had given to Israel…While he was facing the square in front of the Water Gate, he read out of it from daybreak until noon before the men, the women, and those who could understand. All the people listened attentively to the book of the law.”1 After a period of worship, the reading continued: “They read out of the book of the law of God, translating and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was read.”2 On the next day the people again listened as the Word of God was taught.3
The Scripture was essential to Jesus, too
Jesus constantly referred to the Old Testament in his teaching. One of the central components of His earthly ministry was preaching: “Jesus was going all over Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.”4 We cannot lose Jesus’ preaching in the midst of His miracles. God’s word has the same power for us as it had for the children of Israel. To return to God, we must return to His Word, and when we return to God we will return to His word.
Now is the Time to Lead,
Ronnie W. Floyd
Senior Pastor, Cross Church
General Editor, Bible Studies for Life
President, Southern Baptist Convention
References
1– Nehemiah 8:1b, 3
2– Nehemiah 8:8
3– Nehemiah 8:13-18
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is the President & CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.