arieljvan.com

Like a typical Midwestern town, Kansas City takes winter hard. People drive at 5mph, downtown is abandoned, and complaining about the weather becomes the favorite pastime. Decks lose their paint, cats get thin, and cars become rusty, like my update-writing skills. Therefore, I’m writing this long-overdue update to celebrate Spring and push a single prayer request your way.

After starting informal services in the Arts Incubator last November, we rolled forward looking to put sustainable rhythms in place. A few months into 2010, we’ve figured out how to throw good services that take little upkeep–which is important, since, as a team of about 15 people, we don’t have a ton of resources to invest. Currently, we’re preaching through Ephesians, which is an amazing letter about how God’s people can live everyday with the power of Jesus’ resurrection (Happy Easter!).

We’ve jumpstarted our Core groups (2-5 men or women) and City group (dinner, Bible, prayer) for 2010 and continue to connect with downtown friends and networks. The Crossroads Community Association, Downtown Neighborhood Association, and pickup sports continue to be favorites.

As a baby church, Crossroads is in the same interesting developmental stage as our 8-month-old son Ezra, who is crawling effortlessly, wants to walk, and occasionally falls on his face.

We’re happy to be where we are, putting down roots in KC, and learning to share the gospel with our words and lives. It’s good to crawl, especially in Spring. At the same time, growing is on our mind.

In the next several months, we’d like to see our team continue to expand. Recruiting Jesus-followers who love other people, love downtown, and want to be part of a risky adventure has been a challenge. These are the players who, when you find them, you immediately ink them to a lucrative 10-year deal. (It’s just an analogy, we’re broke.) We want to find a few more, because starting Crossroads has been thrilling but not easy–and the game will continue in this vein.

We’re also happy to see some of our friends pursuing an interest in Jesus. He’s the best ending we can envision for any story. Therefore, we’re always are excited to see people entering our circle and wrestling with the gospel–and we want it to happen all the time.

As we leave Winter in the rearview mirror, pray that we’ll cooperate with God’s Spirit, who is actively working to restore KC and introduce people to Jesus. Pray that we’ll continue to actively participate in Jesus’ plan for our city, and that God will send more people our way. Go ahead, pray. I mean it, right now. Thanks.

If you have questions or would like to get involved in a risky plan to see Jesus’ kingdom grow in the Crossroads, West Side, Downtown Loop, and City Market, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Peace!

CrossroadsChurchKC.com

Crossroads Facebook Page

Asher, Lindsay and Aidan in the construction zone

Lindsay and I can sum up 2009 in one word: Construction.

About a year ago we began planting Crossroads Church with four people, no money, no home, no church location, and a dream to see a gospel community take root in post-Christian downtown Kansas City, MO.

In the past year, God slowly and steadily pulled together a team of about 15 people who love Jesus, love other people, and are willing to invest their lives downtown.

After numerous conversations with pastors and leaders, we formed partnerships with a handful of churches who committed enough money and support for our family and the baby church plant to make ends meet.

After months of home-searching, negotiating, and number crunching, God opened the door for us to move out of my in-laws’ basement and into an ideally located home by downtown. (We’ve been remodeling ever since; the current look is exposed-electrical-wiring-chic.)

And after several volunteer projects in the Arts Incubator, a landmark gallery and studio building downtown, the director invited us to hold informal church services there free of charge. We started weekly Sunday night services in November 2009.

At times, we felt like we were choking on clouds of construction dust. When we paused and got perspective, we realized that God’s been slowly hammering a foundation for Crossroads into place.

Moving into the first quarter of 2010, it’s hard to imagine that God will switch things up too much this year. Our immediate goals are to continue building our team, line up several more church partners, roll forward with our informal services at the Arts Incubator, and keep serving downtown.

And ultimately, as people who love Jesus and work to keep him at the center of our lives, the best thing we can envision for our friends downtown is that they experience the liberating goodness of the gospel as well. We invite you to keep praying with us for these goals.

God kindly got a lot done in a short time in 2009, and as we move into 2010, we have lots more work ahead of us.

We’re looking forward to more times of worship, more remodeling, more team players, more parties, and, most important, more transparency and generosity in our lives that will result in conversations, invitations, new friendships, and more serving. We trust that God will use all this to steadily move more people toward life-changing faith in Jesus.

Thanks for walking alongside us in this adventure. We covet your prayers, and we’re also always good for a coffee and catching up. If you or someone you know might be interested in what’s happening with Crossroads, get in touch. As we move ahead, we’ll do our best to keep you posted.

Jose, Lindsay and Erin tune up

October will go down as the month of church-plant-improv and changed timelines. Earlier in the church planting game, our plan was to gradually build our team until we reached a “critical mass” of at least 30-40 people, then begin downtown services with the numbers to be somewhat self-sustaining.

That plan changed when Crossroads Church Kansas City was offered the opportunity to begin meeting in a landmark downtown studio and gallery building, the Arts Incubator. After praying about it, we concluded that we should go looking for used sound equipment, describe our upcoming services as “informal,” and go for it.

In a nutshell, that’s the story of last month. Our team of 15 people stepped up to the plate and took ownership of the upcoming services. It’s been cool to see our people pool time, energy, and a lot of creativity as we get things moving. Starting November 8, we’ll be holding weekly services at the Arts Incubator, 6pm Sunday nights.

In many ways, the Crossroads District downtown is a community of start-ups—artists starting careers from scratch, small businesses beginning in empty warehouses. As our church plant takes on an even more off-the-cuff personality, we’ve been challenged to rely on faith in a sovereign God rather than in a “large launch” or a windfall of resources.  But the correlation between the roots of this church and the roots of the Crossroads area is a something we appreciate.

Last month we also launched Core groups, 2-4 men or women meeting weekly, which we see as critical in forming the Crossroads culture. By design, these groups will help us hold each other accountable for our mission—Love Jesus, connect people, transform cities—and focus heavily on prayer and Bible. The architecture for City groups (10-15 people) is being designed as well.

Midway through the month Lindsay and I decided there wasn’t enough going on (nod, wink) so we decided to move forward into the second phase of remodeling in the Brick House. This meant inviting a team of highly motivated students in to start demo on our kitchen/dining room. There is nothing like a swirling cloud of dust to make all of life seem more dramatic.

This has been a challenging and somewhat chaotic month, but it’s good to know that we’re in the right place, surrounded by a great team, strengthening our ties downtown and following God’s lead into uncharted territory.

As we continue to gear up for services and invest in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, please pray:

- That God would send a worship leader our way—we’re still looking for the right person to lead music for us long term. See our Craigslist ad.

- For more opportunities to serve. We’re looking forward to volunteering at the Leedy-Voulkous Gallery and Arts Incubator in the days ahead, and will continue to look for ways to meet genuine needs in relational ways.

- That worship services will come together. We’re moving fast, light on our feet and light on resources (ha). So when I tell friends I’m not exactly sure what to expect, I’m more than half serious.

Thanks for your prayers. We look forward to pausing a month from now, letting the dust settle, and reflecting on how God is working as we plow ahead.

This update is a little terse, seeing as it’s about 3 weeks overdue, so shoot us a note if you’d like to catch up. As always, we’d love to grab coffee or talk at more depth about what’s going on. And most definitely shoot us a note if you have a penniless but talented indie rocker living in your basement–we’ll put that guy to work.

Cutting to the chase: August was a big month for Crossroads. We added some new team members, threw a First Friday pre-party, and decided to start weekly services in November. In rapid fire mode…

Jon, Bethany, Ruth & Jessica at our Covenant-Signing Party

Jose & Erin sign their lives away--uh, that is, sign the Crossroads covenant

We’re pumped about more people God has sent our way, Jose and Erin Martinez, with their three-year-old, Max, and Bethany Brown—all great folks who love the gospel and love downtown. A few days ago we pulled out our team covenant and added the new autographs amid applause and some mild trash talking…God continues to add people to the mix who will bring new gifts and vision to the table. If you suspect God is tugging you this direction, get in touch.

Ezra helped me paint the door "electric Jayhawk blue"

First Friday is a major event for the downtown community, as the 60+ galleries located in the Crossroads District open their doors, and thousands of people flood the streets to eat, drink, and take in the art scene. After three months of slow but steady renovations in the Brick House, we were ready to throw a First Friday pre-party and invite friends to come hang out en route to the galleries. We had a great time, had some good conversations, made some new friends, and will be hosting more parties in the future.

After a conversation with Jeff, the director of the Arts Incubator, we prayed about his invitation to start informal services in the Arts Incubator studio/gallery building downtown, and decided to go for it. This is a modification to our original plan to start services with a larger, more polished “launch,” but we feel God pulling us this way. We’re excited to start worshipping, preaching, and praying Sunday nights at ground zero in the Crossroads Arts District, a move which will give us another avenue for our downtown friends to participate and hear about Jesus. Pull out your calendar: Our first service will be Sunday night, November 8.

In addition to the above, I got a chance to preach on Acts 2:42-47, one of my favorite passages, at Crossroads Church Grain Valley (our sidekick in the mafia brotherhood of churches). A couple church planting roundtables were crammed into the usual mix of meetings and planning, and I also had the opportunity to facilitate a training session on social media (blogging, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) for some local pastors and leaders. We tackled another service project on the West Side. And our team continues to gather Sunday nights for Bible and planning as well as Wednesday mornings for prayer.

We invite you to pray…

Viva la Crossroads!

1. For more church partners. We’re gearing up for public services with their accompanying costs. Pray that some more gospel-loving churches will step up to the plate and get involved in what’s happening downtown–ideally in relational, volunteer ways as well as financially.

2. For the services coming up. We’re working to keep our mission and values in front of us as we plan services that will be simple & unpretentious, but appropriate and Jesus-centered. We need wisdom and prayerful planning to stay ahead of the curve. We’re also still looking for the right worship leader to help us pull this off.

3. For continued Brick House renovations. Working with skilled volunteers is perfect for our budget (ha ha) but a slow process, since it means coordinating lots of schedules. We’d like to finish out the office/meeting room space, our first major project, and move forward on other remodels. Each step forward gets us closer to using this Brick House for meetings and hospitality the way we want to.

4. For continued engagement with friends downtown. We like how Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 9:19 (The Message). “I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!” This is who we want to be as well.

Once again, thanks for praying for the Crossroads plant and helping resource this gospel endeavor. We feel like the whole ride so far has been high speed, and we’re about to accelerate again. Our saving grace is that we serve a sovereign God who is way out ahead of us. And that’s good news for all of us.

Peace,

AJ (Ariel) & Lindsay…closely followed by Aidan, Asher & Ezra

Crossroads Church Kansas City

Lindsay and Aidan chill with a momentarily quiet Ezra.

Is it possible the dog days of summer have already come and gone? Since it’s currently 60 degrees like October outside, I’m going to hope for the best. But what has definitely come and gone is the due date of our third son, who arrived on August 4 after a short, smooth, delivery.

Ezra Keller weighed in at 6 lbs 13 ounces and 20 inches long with a full head of dark hair. He’s our tallest baby yet, so we have him slotted for the power forward spot on the family basketball team. Lindsay and Ezra are back home and doing well, and Ezra is already popular with his older brothers, who argue over who gets to hold him.

Ezra’s name means “rescuer” or “help is on the way,” and is a head nod to one of our favorite Old Testament heroes who braved hostility and demonstrated great faith in rebuilding the temple and restoring worship after Israel’s return to Jerusalem. “Keller” is a Gaelic name that means “little champion” or “dear friend” and is already a good testament to the little guy’s chutzpah.

Asher is jazzed about "Little E"

“Little E” has of course been the highlight of the last month, but amid trips to the hospital, arranging baby furniture, and the first of many sleepless nights there has been lots more going on.

Crossroads Church helped with a ten-day event called “Mission to the City.” About 70 students, mostly high school-age, arrived in Kansas City from multiple churches, ready to serve and learn about the urban core. Our Crossroads church plant coordinated a service project on the West Side, downtown prayer walks, several remodeling projects in our new Brick House, and a downtown tour to orient the participants to the urban experience and spiritual needs here.

A couple local churches, Lee’s Summit Community Church and Pleasant Valley Baptist Church, provided scholarships to the annual Leadership Summit held at Pleasant Valley for myself and a few team members-we’ll continue to discuss and benefit from those high-caliber leadership lessons in the months ahead.

I enjoyed chances to preach a couple times at Cornerstone Community Church as I continue to get my preaching game in shape. Our team made visits and presentations at a couple partner churches, Northland Baptist and Crossroads Grain Valley as well.

On the home front here at the Brick House, we’re enjoying some great opportunities to connect with neighbors as we take walks and hang out in front of the house. We’ve also started making some initial steps forward in remodeling, as our team and some local partners have begun to pitch in. We’re increasingly grateful for the way God orchestrated this place to live and minister.

Our team continues to meet weekly to pray, plan, eat, and get in the Bible together. This month we got excellent news from friends Kacey and Stephanie Nelson in Illinois, who told us they’ll be relocating to KC to join the church plant. We’re praying Kacey is able to find a job in Kansas City in the next several months.

It’s good for my family to pause after another packed month and reflect on everything that’s happened. With August almost over, we’re considering what new initiatives to pursue as fall begins, and looking for additional ways to connect and serve downtown, as we move toward the point of holding public services. We’ll keep you posted.

Thanks again for tracking the progress of Crossroads Church and keeping us in your prayers. As wild and unexpected as the ride has already been, we know that God will continue to surprise us in the ways he works in the months ahead.

Peace,

AJ (Ariel), Lindsay, Aidan, Asher, and Ezra

Crossroads Church Kansas City

P.S. You’ll find some pictures of Ezra at my blog, http://arieljvan.com.