An Important Message from Crossroads Church

Jesus, that's our prayer. Wherever you're going, you can count us in. Whatever it costs us, you can count us in. If it costs us our comfort, you can count us in. If it costs us our pride, you can count us in. If it costs us sitting comfortably inside spaces where we're safe, if it costs us going outside these walls and serving people in your name, God counts us in. You're worth it, and we love you. Amen. Amen. Well, hey, say hey to somebody around you and have a seat. If you're brand new, you're listening to that song, and you're like, that song is crazy. Your people are nuts. Whatever it costs me, count me in. You're nuts. I just want to say to you, if that's where you're at, whatever you think about God, whatever you think about church, man, we are just glad that you are here today. I think you're going to hear about a God who is worth everything. That's what my hope and prayer is for you. If you're part of Crossroads, you received an e-mail a few days ago updating you about an investigation that has been going on. If you're like, I didn't get an e-mail, well, check your junk mail and start reading our e-mails from now on. You can also find all that information at crossroads.net slash updates. For more on that situation, please kindly welcome Kirk Perry, representing our board of spiritual directors.

Hello, Crossroads. First of all, on behalf of the board, I want to thank each and every one of you for the prayers and the patience over this last six weeks, because we have definitely needed both of those things. For the community member that brought this issue forward, and for the countless others that have served in this process for the last six weeks, we're grateful and thankful for that. Kyle mentioned where to find the information on the e-mail. I'm not going to drain the whole e-mail. In fact, you can read it and get as much detail as you want, but I wanted to provide some perspective before you hear from BT and the board's standpoint. This board has been around since we founded the church 30 years ago, and the board members serve for you. In the last six weeks, in addition to full-time day jobs, in addition to family obligations and other obligations, the board has taken on a part-time role in order to land this very complicated plane of truth and grace, with truth and grace, I should say. And I can tell you for me personally, this has been excruciatingly difficult. If you've ever heard me speak from stage before and know anything about my life, there's some personal and professional things that have been quite challenging that I have gone through. But I'll tell you, this is right at the top of that list. And I know it's the same for a lot of our board members. But what's unique about this place, and what's unique about our faith, is Jesus has called us to be full of two things equally, truth and grace. Truth and grace. We as a board have tried to make room and have made room for the Holy Spirit so we hear what he is prompting us to do.

And so we as a board ask for grace because we are imperfect people trying to make the best decision that we possibly can. We all want what is best for this church, for our staff, and for Brian. And we love all of these equally. And no matter what we decided to do, no one is really happy with it. I just want to share a couple samples of what we hear. A lot of emails have come in to the board throughout this process. And I'll share with you just so you get a feel for some of the things we've been navigating. There is one group that I would refer to as the free BT group. Telling us how woke we are and what a sham of a process this is. And I would ask this group to think about what God has called us to be in truth. There's another group that I would refer to as the fire BT group. And this group is waiting for us to make the decision that they tell us should happen. And I would respectfully ask this group to love the grace that Jesus has called us to. Because without that grace, Moses, King David, Paul, many others are heroes of the Bible who are all flawed people. None of them would be the forefathers of our faith if we didn't have both truth and grace. And we have lived in this tension as a board, trying to find that balance between these two things for the last six weeks. And we are different, different as a church. We're so unique. We are a place for people that have given up on church but haven't given up on God. We are a place that will do anything short of sin to draw people nearer to God. We are different. And we are a church that has an opportunity

in a divided and divisive world to show what unity looks like with truth and grace. We are different. We are crossroads. We are crossroads. While we have a long, hard way to go, this is the first step. Today is the first step on that. God wastes nothing. God wastes nothing. We will come through this better and stronger than we were when we came into this. We will. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, the ultimate measure of a man is not when he stands in comfort and convenience. It's where he stands in moments of controversy and challenge. We have the chance today to show the world that while we live in it, we are not of it. We are unique because we have the chance to be unified. Doesn't mean we agree on everything. We have the chance to be unified in both truth and grace. And we can go forward in love. And on that note, I'd like to welcome up Brian to give us his perspective. Thank you. Thank you, but please don't. Thank you, but thank you, please don't. Not thank you, but just not appropriate

for what I'm gonna say right now. So let me first say, I am sorry for the complication that I brought to you all in this church. And to be clear, it was me. It was me. This has created tension and confusion. And all of that, all of that is on me. My humor has been out of bounds at times, as has my intensity with some staff members at times. With my humor, as you all know, I like to walk right up the edge. And when you're right at the edge, you fall off sometimes. And I've fallen off the edge. The inappropriate use of a riding crop is just the most obvious example. And I wanna, again, I wanna express my sincerest apologies and regrets to the community member who I offended. Apart from that incident, there's jokes that I've told that have been inappropriate, or at least inappropriate in the setting in which they were told. This is, I believe, what the Bible referred to as coarse jesting. Apart from those things, I've had outbursts that are unbecoming of a godly leader, or unbecoming, especially, this is what hurts me, of a spiritual father to some of his spiritual children. And I really regret that, and that hurts. That hurts me, as I've hurt some others. So I am, I'm asking that you forgive me. I'm asking that you would extend grace to me,

and I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. I also ask, also ask that you extend the board an unbelievable amount of grace, and compassion, and understanding. This has been a horrible, horrible six weeks for them. And again, they didn't do anything to bring that upon themselves. It was me, it was me entirely. It's not of their doing, it's entirely of my doing. They've been thrust into a bad situation, and have done their best to be honorable, and do what's best for the church, instead of maybe what's best for me, or my feelings. One of the things that I've learned about revivals and awakenings, which as you know, that is the thing that I'm most excited about, is that people will say, well, confession of sin is what precedes revivals and awakenings. That's actually. Not true. Confession of sin and repentance is not what precedes an awakening and revival. Confession of sin and repentance is what happens inside of an awakening and revival. And the reason is because when you come to encounter God, you come to encounter Jesus in a fresh and exhilarating way, two things simultaneously happens. One, you are struck by how you fall short and you are struck by your own sinfulness.

And two, you are struck by how good he is. You are struck by how loving he is and his overwhelming grace and repenting and asking forgiveness is normal and you feel safe doing it because you're so close to his presence. This has been the most painful six weeks of my life. And it's been one of the most beautiful six weeks of my life because I've encountered God in ways I haven't before. First time I preach at some point here, I'll probably tell you about at least one of those. But I have experienced him very, very dearly and I will, I'll never regret that. So I'll be doing some adequate repentance and restoration here over the months ahead and doing some other things. I'm going to come back, I'm going to come back not as the old BT, though God's made me who he is, but I'm gonna come back different because God's doing a different thing in me. Richard Rohr, the old Catholic priest says of suffering, he says, once you've suffered, the old paths don't work anymore. Anybody here who's suffered, you know what I'm talking about. Things just are a bit different for us. Romans 5, three to five, we've all looked at during the journey. And just remind us, suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character,

and character produces hope. The next verse is this, and hope does not lead us to shame because God has poured out his love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has given us. That's what the beautiful relationship with Jesus is. No shame, love poured out in us, and the Holy Spirit's pushing us forward. So that's all I have for you today. I'm sorry again for all the chaos. I'm sorry, I'm thankful for your steadfastness and your faithfulness and your friendliness, and I love you all very much. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Would you pray with me, please? God, count us in. Count us in, God. We know that you love us unconditionally, that you chase after us even though we're imperfect, even though that you know we're gonna make mistakes. God, you bring us back to you. As we draw near to you, you draw near to us. God, we're just so thankful for today, for this redemption that we're witnessing, God. We're thankful that you wanna restore the unity of this place through your amazing truth and grace. We're just so thankful for that gift.

We're thankful for the love, the grace, and the mercy that you pour on each one of us every day. God, we love you, and we thank you for loving us, and it's in your son's name I pray, amen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, buddy. All right, love you. You know, 21 years ago I was living 500 miles away from Crossroads in the middle of the Bible Belt, lots of great churches all around me preaching the message of Jesus, but not in a language that I could actually understand. And then my parents found Crossroads, and they would mail me the messages on these things called CDs. They were, you can find them in museums, just. And I would listen to these messages that made sense to me. I heard the message of Jesus in a language that made sense that I understood, and more than that, I saw a church that was committed to take that message outside the walls. It wasn't just like talk, it was walk. It wasn't just listen, it was do something about it. So if you want to know where we go from here, you know what, what happens next? Well, I'll tell you what happens next. What happens next is we do what we've always done. We preach the message of Jesus

in a language you can understand, and we roll up our sleeves and we get to work. That's what we're gonna do. And more on the roll up your sleeves part, I want you to welcome back to stage, back by popular demand, he might make us dance today, I don't know. Jottingo