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News October is here and the leaves will soon be falling off
the trees on this side of the country and the world, and I'm so glad you could join us of for this issue of our October CrossNEWS. We here at Crossroads World Christian Center Church would love to hear from you, our
Friends of Ministry, Partners and brothers and sisters in Christ. Please feel free to call or write and tell us what you think or what we need to improve on. We are so thankful for all the gifts
and donations
we have received to keep up with the ministry work. Please keep them coming and may God bless you for it.Phase 1 Building Up and Running
We are blessed to bring you the news that our Phase 1
building is up and running where we are gathering the people to help with the vision and to help spread the gospel. We opened the doors on September 17, 2006 with a small gathering of people for Sunday services. What a
gathering it was! We had people travel from far and wide to visit. I want to thank Jim and Isabel Mullet for coming from Jackson County, Ohio to make our opening day that much more special. Jim allows us to post his
weekly emails as the Mentor's Inspirations
on our site each week. If you haven't already, you should check them out, they are truly inspirational. Jim, your presence on the 17th was a true blessing for me and others who were there. I know God has put you in my life for a reason! I am so honored to call you my mentor. I also want to mention Jane, who is
Matt Miller's
fiancé from Houston, Texas, as well as Doug Mullet from Gahanna, Ohio, who is a childhood friend of mine and the son of Isabel and Jim Mullet. Thank you to all who made it out for this blessed event!
We will be kicking off a New outreach ministry called Country Hands Inc. It is a way for rural area farmland churches to lend a hand to the congregations and youth of inner-city small churches by allowing
them to travel to the country to volunteer in those churches and to build worship and nature experiences that city dwellers don't often get. This will truly be a great experience for the kids especially, as so many city
kids never get to experience the beauty, serenity and presence of God that can be felt so strongly in rural areas. What a blessing I know this ministry will be! We already have some participating churches and are
working on building even more into our network, so if anyone can find it in their hearts and budgets to plant a seed of 5 or 10 dollars a month to help with this outreach ministry, it would be greatly appreciated. Let's
watch together as the Lord's vision for this new ministry blossoms! Donations of chairs through our "
That's My Chair!" Campaign, are going very well. I'd like to thank those who have already donated, as well as anyone planning to! We have
chairs now donated by the following people (and with the following names on the chairs) already in place in the church: Charles Self - Charles Self
Joe Castel - Castel Family
Jeff Kovack - Kovack family
Mike Moler - Moler Family
Shawn Bentz - Bentz
Will Debty - Will If you have a favorite magazine you love to read, we wanted to let you know that you can also help to support
Crossroads through our online fundraising magazine store, which has over 650 of the most popular magazine titles at up to 85% off
newsstand prices. Also, if you purchase or renew your favorite magazine subscriptions
through this store link, 40% of your purchase will go directly to our cause! A Word from the Pastor Your Presence is a Present!
'Bring me some game and prepare me some tasty food to eat, so that I may give you my blessing in the presence of the LORD before I die.'
~Genesis 27:7What a present it is to us that God gives us His presence, right here on earth! You only need to look around to see and feel His presence…His gift to us is everywhere you turn! For instance,
look at the trees. I want to use the trees because I know that where you are at right now, you can most likely look outside and see a tree or a plant somewhere. Look at them as they stand majestic and tall and focus on
the feeling inside you as you see how they reach and grow towards God. We often take that for granted, simply looking at them as trees, but they are so much more and the lessons they show us are so fundamental in what
we should be doing for our own spirit and for others. They are truly the art work of God! The leaves now are turning different beautifully rich colors, but plants and leaves always help produce
oxygen for us to breathe and live, they give us shade from the sun, trees give us wood to build houses which provide us shelter and warmth, there are medicinal properties in some plants and leaves and in the roots of
some trees…you could go on and on. All this only adds to the proof that God's presence is in them and that they use that to help us all in His honor! That goes for you and me too, for God gave us the
present of his presence inside each and every one of us! The Gift of our presence to each other is a gift that will keep on giving. As God created so many wonderful things about the tree, He has created even more
wonderful things in us. After creating Adam God breathed The Breath of Life inside him. Then He laid Adam in a deep sleep and took a rib from Adam and made woman. God birthed life into Eve because He knew that man
should not be alone and needed a companion. Many of us do feel alone. We feel lost confused about life and what it has to offer. You may ask yourself at times, "Is there really a God?" and "Why is life just
not going my way?" I truly believe that (like a lot of the answers to our problems), the answer lies inside ourselves...we only need to detect and act on His presence within us to find them. Putting yourself in
the position of being around other faith believers also helps make you aware of the presence within. Not only would your presence be a present to the church, but you receive the gifts of their spirits and uplifting of
your spirit and recognition and faithful worship of God, who is present within us all. Sometimes, we are feeling so overwhelmed an tied up in our everyday lives, that we tend to keep to ourselves or to a
small group of people (family or friends), and that overwhelmed feeling can keep us from going out and releasing that gift and receiving the reminder of the gifts God has given to you, including your inner presence.
Your presence at a gathering of believers could be somebody's light out of a dark place, maybe laughter or uplifting that could heal his or her tears and pain. Your presence could be a present to someone else. God has blessed you with so many things your smile, your eyes, or just a friendly hug could not only help someone else, it helps you too, if you allow your presence to be someone else's gift! God opens
the windows of Heaven and helps you with what you are going through if you only give Him the chance to do so (and you must give Him the chance, as another present from Him to us is free will). If you give Him that
chance, you will start to see that when you help others with their problems, your problems don't seam to be that big. That light you shine for that person in a dark place becomes a light that also fills in your dark
places, the laughter that takes away your own pain. Now if you are so down and can't get out to help others or to help yourself, that's what "knee mail" is all about…get down on your knees and
ask for God's help! Reach out to others and ask for help and prayer, too! I learned this lesson a couple of years ago while I was on the National Parent Leadership Team with Parents Anonymous, a group of people from
around the country with a great presence that helped me learn that asking for help is a sign of strength
and that God will give you that strength to help you through. I also learned firsthand that He wants us to give to others the gift He has given to us...pass it on! Go share your presence and gifts with a local church as well as with the people around you every day. God is
always
looking for people who want to be a part of something new and are willing to share their presence and gifts with each other. Your God-given presence would certainly be a welcome present here...we invite all to attend our regular services, you can find a listing of them by clicking on our
Events page. We'll look forward to seeing you!
May God Richly Bless You and Yours Always, Pastor Cory P. Pariseau
Crossroads World Christian Center Church |
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