God’s blessings often appear in surprising ways, and that has happened over and over at CrossPoint Church in Trussville, manifesting through the church’s River of Stewardship initiative.
CrossPoint was planted in 2005 by First Baptist Church, Center Point, and Ryan Whitley, senior pastor, is grateful for the way God has led the congregation.
He noted CrossPoint has experienced many blessings in its 17 years, some of the most recent revolving around three “funding streams” in their River of Stewardship campaign that specifically affected the mortgage.
Steve Parr, CrossPoint executive pastor, explained the beginnings and impact of the River of Stewardship.
“In 2012, following a series of capital campaigns and capital campaign extensions, our stewardship team was looking for a way for us to pay off the mortgage as quickly as possible,” Parr recalled.
Since the congregation did not want another capital campaign, they sought counsel and began a new initiative.
‘It’s Your Move’
“We gave [it] the name, ‘It’s Your Move,’” he said. “We have conducted this ‘generosity initiative’ each fall since then, focusing on various aspects of stewardship and generosity. It has been a blessing and a rallying point for our church family.”
Parr noted that, as a result, the church has grown in what he calls “streams” that feed the River of Stewardship, including ministry (church budget), mortgage (every dollar reduced the mortgage) and missions (directed to SBC missions and CrossPoint missions projects).
“Since our mortgage payment was in our ministry stream budget we were able to pay additional principal payments each month, and in the last few years were reducing our mortgage by almost $500,000 per year,” Parr said. “Now that the mortgage is gone, our ministry stream budget has changed dramatically and we were able to land the mortgage stream and launch a new [one] called the manna stream.”
Generosity
Whitley agreed that CrossPoint is a generous congregation.
“Our people have always been generous,” he said. “However, much of our generosity through the years has been funneled towards reducing our mortgage. That’s not to say we have not been generous in other ways. We are consistently in the top 10 churches in Alabama that give to Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong [missions offerings]. We have been generous in numerous other ways.
“Yet the mortgage continued to limit us,” he said. “We knew we needed to become debt free in order to do more for the Kingdom of God.”
The manna stream, which has already had a major impact, gets its name from Scripture, Whitley noted.
“We call it the manna stream to illustrate its purpose. The biblical word ‘manna’ means ‘what is it?’” he explained. “Manna was given by the Lord for His people to meet their needs. Thus, we created the manna stream to enable us to discover [what it is] the Lord wants us to do to meet the needs of others. In less than three months we have seen [Him] do some breathtaking things with the manna stream.”
Gifts
Whitley said on March 13 the church disbursed $10,000 each to four ministries involved in providing relief for Ukrainian refugees: Ukrainian Baptist Theological Seminary, the North American Mission Board’s Send Relief, Samaritan’s Purse and Teleios Ministries in Romania.
Other ways CrossPoint has been a blessing are a $12,000 gift to City View Church in Atlanta, $5,000 to Clay-Chalkville Middle School for a library renovation, $7,500 to the Discovery Bible Club at Clay Elementary School, $5,000 to the Deaf Pastors Conference, $10,000 to Alabama Baptist Children’s Homes and Family Ministries, and $12,000 to the WellHouse ministry.
God at work
Whitley said it’s important for CrossPoint to share with others what God has done through the manna stream.
“Our purpose for going public about this is three-fold,” he explained. “First and foremost, we want to use the manna stream to glorify the Lord. We want others to know God did this. We did not do this, God did this.”
“Second, we want to use the manna stream, in addition to our other giving streams, to reach ‘just one more’ to become a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ. That is our singular vision and purpose.
“Finally, we want to use the manna stream to grow in our stewardship, not only in the current generation of CrossPointers, but for future generations. After looking at where we have been, and what the Lord has done in the last three months, we believe we are well on the way to accomplishing these objectives.”
Parr said he has “learned that God is faithful and that He blesses us when we are faithful to Him. I am thankful that I have been able to participate and experience God’s provision in miraculous ways in the CrossPoint family. I look forward to what He is going to do this year, and in the years to come.”
For more information about CrossPoint Church and its ministries visit crosspointchurch.info.
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