This is the place to find out all about the BIG MOVE coming in February! Check back often for more updates and news. 

Beginning February 12th, service times will change at The Crossing Church. Services in the main church will all move to Sunday. Service times will be 9 and 11am and 4 and 6pm. 

To align our ministry to students with this change, we will move our student services to Sunday nights in the NextGen Center. This service will take place during the 6:00pm service and will be called Emerge. At Emerge, we envision all students in grades 6 through 12 coming together for something that resembles a rally. This time will include radical worship and relevant teaching and equip this generation to boldly live out their faith. We believe this move will greatly benefit families with children at various grade levels. 

There will be ministry available for infants through high school aged children all taking place during the 6pm service at various locations on our campus. These changes are part of a larger, strategic ministry plan that is detailed below.

Our Big Four

1. Sunday Night Emerge/JV: Students will continue to encounter God through Relevant teaching, radical worship, and community.

2. Life Groups: This change allows us the capacity to launch groups for students all over the city. Here students will be cared for, challenged to grow, and parents will have the opportunity to play a part.

3. Schools: We will continue impacting our schools by raising up and equipping students to lead. We will not only have a student led and driven ministry but we will push them to make a difference on their campus.

4. Parents: We will now have the energy to build the bridge between the student and the parent and offer parents the tools and resources needed to raise up incredible kids. We want to see spiritual fathers and mothers arise and awaken in our ministry.

What can I do? 

Today, we would like you to prayerfully consider being a part of our student ministry in a few different ways. You can choose the option that works best for you.

1. Become a prayer team member. Each month you will receive an update about all that’s going on within emerge and you will have the opportunity to pray and fast for our students and our team.

2. Partner with us by becoming a Host Home. We are looking for host homes for all of our off campus life groups.

3. Volunteer. We would love nothing more than your time! We know it’s the most precious commodity for this generation. We are looking for spiritual mothers and fathers in all kinds of different areas. From greeters to worship to life groups to special events.

4. Attend. We are going to begin providing different tools, resources, parenting workshops, and more. Your job is to attend. Get involved in understanding your student and learn some key ways to leverage your influence. Parents are still the #1 influencer in student’s lives

Click on this link to GO! http://www.crossingonline.org/serve1

Thank you for all the questions, please keep them coming in. We will continue to update this page with answers. If a question you have isn't on this page, please send me an email at tfox@crossingonline.org and we will get it posted. 

Thanks again for all your help and support as we move forward. 

FAQ’S

Question: Are First Wednesdays going away?
Answer: Absolutely not. We will continue to have First Wednesday services on the first Wednesday of each month. Students will be highly encouraged to attend with their families and life groups. First Wednesday's are an awesome opportunity for inter-generational worship.

Question: Are Emerge (high school) and Emerge JV (middle school) going to be combined with the 6:00 PM adult worship service?
Answer: No. The Emerge service will continue taking place in the Next Gen Center.

Question: What's going to happen to the video venue?
Answer: Pastor Greg will preach live 3 out of the 4 services - those services will be announced soon.

Question: What grades are Emerge and Emerge JV now?
Answer: Beginning on February 12th Emerge will be for students in the 6th-12th grades. The rally, “united” on Sunday nights at 6:00, will be a high powered encounter with Jesus. They will experience passionate worship, vision implementation, and a challenge to live holy lives. Our messages will be geared to raise up a generation of world changers that have an invasion mentality, instead of a fortress mentality. We will not build high walls to keep the world out, we will build disciples that will march onto their campuses to take them for Christ through prayer, fasting, blessing and serving.

Question: Why the change in grades for our student ministries?
Answer: After several months of research into youth culture and existing ministries around the country we feel it’s the most effective way to equip this generation of students.

Question: What if I don’t want my 6th grader in with Highschoolers?
Answer: We understand that parents have different views of where their children are socially, mentally, physically and spiritually. So we are creating what we call BRIDGE YEARS. If you feel like your 6th grader isn’t ready to be in Emerge, you can choose to keep them in Crossing Kids for another year. In the same way, some parents may feel their 5th grader is ready for the challenges of being with older students and they can choose to have their child move up a year early. This will apply for all bridge years. 5th, 6th, and 12th.

Question: What will life groups look like for Emerge?
Answer: We will be launching several new groups in the month of January off campus in homes. There will be various groups in each area (North, South, East, West) where students can choose to get connected. There will be variety of groups offered. (Co-ed, guys, girls, devo groups, curriculum based groups, sermon based groups, etc) These groups will meet between Monday and Saturday each week.

Question: What is the difference between  Life group and a 'gender specific group in area zones'?
Answer: All middle school life groups in each area will have gender specific groups. That is, they will be for boys or girls. We will also try hard to keep ages close as well, depending on how many host homes are in each area. For High school there will be both gender specific and co-ed groups that students can choose from. Every group is called a life group. 

Question: What areas are there?
Answer: Currently we have three areas. North (Armwood, Plant City, Plant, Blake, Brandon, Strawberry Crest), South (Riverview, Eastbay, Riverview, Lennard) and East (Bloomingdale, Newsome, Durant, Newpoint). Although we will break groups out into area zones, students may choose to attend any group they like. New students that attend Emerge will have the opportunity to see all groups available as well, and of course in our experience choose the one where they live close to and their friends attend. ***Middle school life groups will be created in these areas as well according to what HS they typically feed into. For example: Randall and Barington feed into Newsome, so middle school groups in that area will be in the "east zone". 

Question: Will there be any groups on campus?

Answer: We will not have any "life groups" on campus, but we will be offering some classes as electives throughout the school year during the 4:00 PM service for both High School and Middle Schoolers. This will be called Emerge U. A list of classes will be available soon and the dates, etc..

Question: When do students hang out now?

Answer: The doors to the student center will open at 5:00 PM on Sunday’s for students to continue hanging out, café, basketball, etc. The doors will close at 8:00 P.M. on Sunday nights. There will be other times when scheduled events will take place throughout the school year.

Question: What about our college students?
Answer: We are so excited to announce that with this change, we will now be able to launch a college and young adult ministry. Sub30 is the new ministry. We are in the process of starting Life groups, and will be launching a service geared for them in February. It is our prayer that we will not lose our 18+ as they transition out of HS.

Question: I am currently a JV life group leader, how does my role change?
Answer: As we get closer to January we will be assembling groups in area zones for students in middle school to get connected to. We would love if our current leaders could get connected and lead some of these groups. These groups will be gender specific. If one of those groups is not an option for you, then we have several other positions available within our student ministry. One example, is becoming a teacher/facilitator for Emerge U on Sunday's during the 4:00 service.

Question: What happens to our current JV life groups?
Answer: All of our current groups will stop on January 14th. We will have a big night celebrating what God has done through the ministry of JV. During this night we will also cast vision for the Group Link that will take place January 28th at JV. This will be every student’s chance to check out all the available groups and get plugged in. Parents are welcome on this big night!

Question: What is the structure of oversight for Emerge LifeGroups?
Answer: The Crossing Church has a well established and effective structure in place that promotes healthy LifeGroups. In Emerge, we will structure our LifeGroup ministry to model that of the overall church.. We currently have two student Pastors that will oversee everything that takes place in Emerge. The Regional shepherds will build relationships and pour into our Community Leaders and the Life Group Leaders. The Community leaders will model, coach, serve, train, and equip our life group leaders. The role of the life group leader will be to care for their life group members and provide direction for the student leaders.

Our structure looks like this:

There will be many layers of care and accountability built into our Emerge LifeGroups. Each group will have a Host or Host couple that opens their home up for weekly LifeGroup meetings. Each group will have an adult leader, at least two student leaders, and quite possible apprentice leaders that are in training. With in the group, students will have opportunities to take on leadership roles as the Fellowship Coordinators and Go Coordinators (serving in our community).

All roles, and homes will go through a back ground check and a screening process.

Question: What kind of training is involved for our leaders?

Answer: On January 8th we will have a 4 hour training (9-1) which will we cover all the nuts and bolts of life group ministry. After that, our Community Leaders will receive additional training at our church’s Crosstraining that begins January 22nd. From that point, Community Leaders will meet bi-weekly to discuss how we can better equip our LifeGroup Leaders and better facilitate our LifeGroup ministry. Community Leaders will provide on-going care, oversight, prayer and training for the LifeGroup Leaders each week.

In addition to that, all Emerge leaders are asked to attend the monthly Ignite training.

Question: What about teaching/curriculum in LifeGroups?

Answer: There will be a variety of curriculum options for our Emerge LifeGroups and leaders are encouraged to vary the curriculum to best meet the needs of the students in their group. Options include: Life Journal studies, Sermon based studies, and approved book or video series. All curriculum used will be pre-approved by our Student Pastors and coordinated through our Community Leaders.

Question: Incidents, injuries, liability?

Answer: Every Host, and their family who will be opening their home will go through a background check, home visit, and interview before being approved. Everyone also in the home above the age of 18 will also be required to go through a background check. As in all student ministry events, services, any incidents or injuries will be reported using our incident report forms and reported to the community life group leader. At no time will leaders be permitted to be at a home, or in a car with any student without another leader present.

Question: I am interested in being a Host Home, what do I do?

Answer: That is AWESOME! We have a process that begins with the volunteer application. Once you and everyone in your household over the age of 18 completes one and is background checked approved, we will send the information to get the ball rolling. Each host home goes through a questionnaire, a home visit and interview with one of our pastors before beginning a life group. You can select the serve link to your left or shoot us an email at tfox@crossingonline.org, or even give us a call. 813-626-0783. 

Question: Will there be food?
Answer: We will continue to open the cafe and offer the items we do currently on Sunday's during our hang time and service. Things like corn dogs, pizza, nachos, pretzels, and of course candy can be purchased by students. At the Life Group's each host home will have a coordinator who assists in providing light refreshments before life group time gets started. 

Question: Why Life Groups?
Answer: A Life group meets together on a regular basis for the following purposes: Praise and worship, prayer, Bible study/exploring God’s word, and building community and relationships. We also believe these are great ways to invite new friends and share our faith. The goal of life groups are to lead students into a growing relationship with Christ. They will also be encouraged to fulfill the great commission, which commands us to Go and make disciples.

The scriptural foundation can be found in:

Exodus 18:13-27 The Jethro Principle
“But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.”

Acts 2:46; Acts 20:20 The beginning of the Church
“Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts”

“You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house”

Top 7 Reasons

1. Doing LifeGroups in homes follows the model of the early church. The early church was incredibly fruitful and effective. Thousands of people came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, discovered how to live more like Christ and many additional needs were met.

Acts 2:43-47
New International Version (NIV)
43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Acts 5:42
New International Version (NIV)
42 Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.

Acts 20:20
New International Version (NIV)
20 You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house.

2. Doing LifeGroups in homes allows our ministry to strengthen our partnership with parents and families. Many more individuals will be empowered to “be the church” as they utilize their spiritual gifts of hospitality, administration, and leadership.

Ephesians 4:15-16
New Living Translation (NLT)
15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. 16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

3. Doing LifeGroups in homes removes all potential growth barriers in regards to space and budget. Our goal is always to reach more and more students in this generation with the Gospel. As we grow numerically, we will not be able to accommodate all groups on campus. To do so would require additional meeting space. Additional meeting space requires capital.

4. Doing LifeGroups in homes is by nature more evangelistic and helps us to fulfill the Great Commission. There are some individuals who might never feel comfortable coming to church for service or even an event, but they would feel comfortable meeting at someone’s home with friends from their school or neighborhood. The church cannot stay contained within the walls of its buildings. To fulfill the Great Commission we must “GO”.

Matthew 28:16-20
New Living Translation (NLT)
16 Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him—but some of them doubted! 18 Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations,[a] baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

5. Doing LIfeGroups in homes builds community in an environment that is safe, friendly, and comfortable for students. Being in a more relaxed environment will allow students to open up more freely and form more authentic friendships. When LifeGroups meet in homes, it feels like family.

6. Doing LIfeGroups in homes sends a clear message that our Christian walk is not just something we do Sundays at church. We are ambassadors of Christ in our homes, in our schools, and in our communities. After we gather at church for corporate worship and sound Biblical teaching, we make every effort to live that out in our daily lives.

James 1:22-24
The Message (MSG)
22-24Don't fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don't act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.

7. Doing LIfeGroups in homes keeps ministry local and cuts down on the commute students must make to participate. We believe this will make LifeGroup more do-able for families who live greater distance from our church campus and enable more students to participate.

Interested in a LifeGroup? Check out all the available groups now online.

http://www.crossingonline.org/life-groups