Our College Graduate and a Guy Called "Doc"

This past weekend both of my children graduated from our Master's Commission program here at Crossroads Church - Chase as a first-year student and Robin as a second-year student. Our program partners with West Coast Bible College offering a two-year bachelor's degree. Robin graduated with a degree in Biblical counseling! We are so proud of her.

So proud of her in fact, we gave her a job. (Actually Pastor Shawn Marcell did.) Shawn and Nicole recently became our Outreach Pastors here at Crossroads in addition to directing our Master's Commission. It had become necessary to actually create a department for all our outreach endeavors both here in the States and abroad. Robin will be working in that office and it is right up her alley. She loves World Missions and this position will allow her to interact with the many missionaries we support around the world. 

On another note, at the graduation ceremony Dr. Kevin Harrison, President of West Coast Bible College, presented me with an honorary Doctorate of Divinity. I was completely humbled by this extremely kind gesture. Next time you see me you can just call me "Doc." LOL.  

The Graduate

We are celebrating back-to-back graduations with our son Chase these next two weekends. Chase's High School graduation will be today at 2:00 PM. He and seven fellow Home Schoolers will be honored in a ceremony at Crossroads Church. Last year, after completing his Junior year, Chase only needed two more credits to graduate. After attending the "Experience Week" our Master's Commission program puts on every year, Chase decided he wanted to complete his school work early so that he could go ahead and join Master's Commission. That explains his second graduation, which will be next weekend when he crosses the stage to receive his diploma for the nine month discipleship school he has participated in since September. Chase plans to enroll in a second year with the program which will allow him to earn a Bachelor's Degree from West Coast Bible College. He believes God has called him into the ministry.

We are so proud of Chase. He has been an excellent student and an absolute joy to have in our home. In preparation for his graduations, we have looked through hundreds of photographs we've taken of Chase through the years. After looking at all the pictures, Donna and I came to two conclusions: 1. Our son has always been a really fun and interesting kid! 2. He's had a really fun life. We love him so much and thank God for him! 

The Porcelain Unicorn

The power of film as a medium for story telling is one of my greatest interests. I've always been drawn to stories, but never so much as when I became a Christ follower. It's then I discovered the greatest story of all time and the main character of the story was an avid story teller Himself.

Matthew 13:34 declares that Jesus never addressed a crowd without using a parable (a story) to illustrate what He was teaching. I have attempted to practice the same through my years of ministry. One of my great passions is turning those stories into mini-movies. I love using them to illustrate God's truth. I find they're so effective. The following short film demonstrates my point.

Legendary film director Sir Ridley Scott launched a global film contest for aspiring directors titled "Tell It Your Way." The film could be only three minutes, contain only six lines of narrative and be a compelling story. There were six hundred entries. The winner was "The Porcelain Unicorn" by American director Keegan Wilcox. The story is of the lifetimes of two people who are totally oppisite yet very much the same - All told in less than three minutes.  I think you'll see why it won! Enjoy.


 

Hosting District Council

Crossroads was honored this week to host the 76th District Council of the Louisiana Assemblies of God. Hundreds of pastors from all over Louisiana came to Lafayette for three days to conduct business on behalf of our district, to be encouraged by the Word of God and to enjoy the fellowship of our district family.

It may sound biased since we hosted the event, but I genuinely cannot remember a more refreshing and inspiring District Council in all the years I have been a minister with the Assemblies of God. Our guest speaker Bryan Jarrett was simply amazing! His messages were encouraging and challenging at the same time! I love this guy and look forward to getting to know him better in the days to come!

On Tuesday, we hosted a Church Planting and Development Banquet and raised over $160,000.00 to support church planters here in Louisiana! This is near and dear to my heart and I commend Pastor Al Eden for his vision and leadership over this department. It is a pleasure to serve on his team here in Louisiana. Here's a picture of Pastor Al and I along with some of my best friends in the world: Denny Duron, Bud Plake, Paul Burke, Scott Holmes and Doug McAllister.