A letter from lead pastor Nic Gibson.
Choosing to increase and not decrease is a choice.
As your lead pastor, I have continued to look to the horizon of our path together, contemplating what we should do next in seeking to lift up Jesus, to make disciples, and to increase and not decrease in this city.
As God has given an increase to our flock, we have an obligation to rejoice and make room for his people, and to continue the works of making disciples (Matthew 28) by equipping the saints (Ephesians 4) until everyone is perfect in Christ (Colossians 1) so that his lambs would be protected and fed (John 21).
As we have sought to make disciples by building the church, we have sought 1) to be a teaching church, 2) to be part of something bigger, and 3) to disciple our offspring, not just our neighbors, while "in exile". This has led to a vision to merge these three initiatives when possible in order to maximize our growth and impact in God’s kingdom:
- Plant effective churches under our leadership. We want to plant prevailing churches that can be teaching churches in order to, in part, scale up our ministry as long as it seems effective.
- Host partnering churches God is using. We want to partner with Gospel believing churches that God is using to reach people different from those we are reaching.
- Increase the impact of Christian education. We want to steward our church facilities the other 85% of the week by using them to disciple children through Christian education and discipleship.
As I have prayed about and contemplated these things over the past five years, I believe that our stewardship points to planting a church on the east side that is a hub of ministry life.
Undoubtedly, there are still a lot of unknowns in this process. There are lots of contingencies and questions, however, based on what we know now, it is the recommendation of myself and the elder board that as a congregation we vote to receive and initiate ministry in the Crossroads building.
Crossroads Events.
There will be a number of events between now and Nov 17 in order to help High Point Church members be as prepared as possible to vote on the Crossroads building. Open house events are primarily a chance to visit the space and look around. Town hall events will include discussions and Q&A time with pastors and elders; they are the space for you to bring your questions, comments, and concerns. The town hall meetings will not be livestreamed, but they will be recorded, and a link to the recordings will be made available on this page after each town hall is finished. Prayer meetings are a chance to come together and ask God to guide us as a church as we make these decisions. Below is a full schedule of these events:
Sunday, October 13 from 12:30pm–4pm
- Open house at Crossroads Church, 3815 S Dutch Mill Rd
Saturday, October 19 from 9am–12pm
- Open house at 9am Crossroads Church, 3815 S Dutch Mill Rd
- Town hall from 10am–12pm at Crossroads Church
Sunday, november 3 from 6:30–8:30pm
- Town Hall at High Point Church in the Micah Center
- Please park in the back parking lot by the East Lawn and enter the building from those doors (door 11).
Sunday, November 10 from 6:30–7:30pm
- Prayer meeting at Crossroads Church, 3815 S Dutch Mill Rd
Sunday, november 17 at 6:30pm
- Congregational meeting and vote at High Point Church
- Childcare for ages 0-5th grade until 8:30pm
At the congregational meeting, High Point Church members will vote on the motion to accept the Crossroads property and initiate ministry there. The Congregational Meeting will be livestreamed via Zoom, where members can also vote remotely. A meeting agenda and a meeting zoom link will be sent to members on November 10 after services via email. Anyone is welcome to attend the meeting, but only members can vote.
Apart from these events, we invite you to attend of the worship services at Crossroads. Their services are held at 9am on Sunday mornings at 3815 S Dutch Mill Rd.