Every year, the CrossPoint staff gathers in Salina for our All Staff Retreat. We worship together, eat together, laugh together, learn together, and take time to celebrate what God is doing across our church family. It is always one of the highlights of the year. God gave us much to celebrate together.
In a church spread across multiple communities, it can be easy to become focused only on what is happening in our own location or ministry. The retreat gives us the chance to step back and remember that we are one church, one team, and one family, joined together around one mission. We meet because relationships matter, unity matters, and the mission God has given us is too important for us to lead disconnected from one another.
This year’s theme was “Unwritten.” The idea was simple and hopeful: the story God is writing through CrossPoint is still unfolding. No one has arrived, and God is not finished with us yet. Everyone has a role in what comes next, and that is worth celebrating.
Throughout the retreat, we reflected on what God has already done through the faithful service of our staff and congregations. We also looked forward with expectation. We were challenged to offer God our next “yes,” to release what we have built when He calls us to, and to keep developing people who can carry the mission farther than we ever could on our own.
One of the clearest reminders of the week was that a mobilized church is measured not only by what it sustains, but by what it sends. CrossPoint is full of gifted, faithful people who serve in ways both seen and unseen. Our staff works hard, but the goal has never been for the staff to do all the ministry. Ephesians 4:12 reminds us that church leaders are called to “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.”
Who’s the church? We are.
That means one of the greatest things we can celebrate is not simply what our staff produces, but who they are developing. Ministry that depends on one person will eventually plateau. Ministry that multiplies through others can outlast all of us. Every volunteer who is equipped, every leader who is released, every disciple who begins helping another person follow Jesus, and every person who says yes to living sent becomes part of the unwritten story God is telling through CrossPoint.
We left the retreat grateful, encouraged, and full of expectation. I am grateful for the men and women who serve CrossPoint with humility, faithfulness, creativity, and joy. I am equally thankful for every person across our congregations who prays, gives, serves, leads, invites, encourages, and lives on mission.
The future is unwritten, but we know the One writing it. We will keep celebrating His faithfulness, saying yes to His leading, developing Kingdom Multipliers, and trusting Him with every chapter still to come.
Eric Franklin | Lead Pastor of Strategy