GREETINGS IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST! Two years ago I returned to my home state of Utah after spending nearly 7 years at seminary in Louisville Kentucky. In August of 2014, Crossroads Church in Sandy Utah called me to be their lead pastor. During the last two years, God has blessed Crossroads Church beyond our ability to express. Our membership has more than doubled since August of 2014! We have witnessed people discover the life transforming power of the gospel and grow in their spiritual walk with Chirst. Since coming to Crossroads, my goal has never been to grow the church because I have no power to do so. My desire has always been to faithfully proclaim the gospel from every page of Scripture. God has immensely blessed the preaching of His Word in a state that remains in spiritual darkness. OUR CONTEXT Utah is known for Mormonism. What many people do not realize, however, is just how strong Mormonism s influence is in Utah. Of the 2.4 million people living in the Salt Lake Metro area only 2.2% are evangelical. This means that Salt Lake Metro is an unreached population. The false teachings of Mormonism have created a spiritual wasteland. Legalism has produced one of the most psychologically depressed societies in the country. Suicide rates in Utah are among the highest in the nation. The Internet has given people access to the truth about Mormonism and many people have decided to leave the LDS religion. Sadly, many of these ex-mormons are not turning to the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead, they turn to atheism because they think all religions must be a lie. As sad as these realities are, at Crossroads Church we believe the gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to penetrate the darkness of our city and our state. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation and we believe God s power will prevail by transforming the lives of people in desperate need of God s grace. We are asking you and your church to consider partnering with us in the gospel as we seek to advance God s mission to our city, our state, and to the ends of the earth.
OPPORTUNITIES Our needs are great but our God is greater. Crossroads Church owns a two-acre property off of a busy street in Sandy city. God has blessed us to own this property and our building completely debt free. Our church building is an old house that has been modified to suit the needs of our ministry. Our auditorium is an extension of the house s 3-car garage. We are quickly outgrowing this space. We have crammed 196 chairs into our auditorium, but with gatherings upwards of 120 140 people on Sunday mornings, we are already feeling the need for more space. Furthermore, God has blessed us with many new families and many young children that need adequate classroom and nursery space. We do not believe our current housechurch building can accommodate our longterm goals. Our vision for ministry has never been about buildings. Our vision focuses on preaching the gospel, making disciples, and proclaiming Christ from all of Scripture. Nevertheless, as God continues to bless the ministry of Crossroads, we need to plan for the future. In an effort to steward our property well for years of fruitful ministry, we believe that we need to build a new auditorium and create additional parking on our property. We believe that God is going to allow us to have a space large enough for our people to gather together as one church to worship God in spirit and in truth. We need classroom space adequate enough to assemble our children to teach them the oracles of God. We desire our building to be a place where the saints can gather to be equipped for the work of the ministry. Our prayer is that Crossroads Church would raise up missionaries, church planters, and pastors to help spread the gospel throughout Salt Lake Metro and beyond.
Partnership We are asking for your help. First, please pray for us and for our state. Pray that God would transform Utah with the power of his gospel. Pray that God would deliver people from the stronghold of Mormonism. Pray for Crossroads Church as we seek to faithfully minister to our people and to the lost. Second, please prayerfully consider partnering with us financially. Buildings and parking lots cost money, but our God is able to do more than we could ever ask or imagine. Our goal is to raise $1.25 million dollars in order to give our property an overhaul that will endure into the future. This seems like so much to ask, but nothing is impossible for God. We have no intention of going into debt to accomplish these projects. God has enabled us to be debt free and we plan on staying that way. You can see how the funds will be allocated and how you can give to specific needs below. This is a monumental task, but we believe that God is going to move the hearts of his people to help Crossroads Church establish a long-term, healthy, thriving local church ministry in this dark place. As you can see from some of the pictures in this booklet, we are not sitting idle and waiting on others to do the work for us. We have already begun some significant renovations to our current building. If you would like to give a financial gift, you can do so online at www.jesusandlife. com or by contacting Matthew Emadi at memadi@jesusandlife.com.
Growth Why is Crossroads Church pursuing this renovation and building project? At Crossroads Church, we recognize that healthy church growth is not primarily numerical; it is spiritual. Our desire is first and foremost to see people grow spiritually in their walk with Christ. Numerical growth is not necessarily indicative of a church s health. Nevertheless, God has been pleased to grow Crossroads Church numerically over the past two years. As the chart below indicates, if our current trend continues, we will quickly run out of space. As I mentioned above, our membership has doubled in just 2 years. Our growth has included many young families with small children. Our classroom space needs to be renovated to accommodate the number of babies, toddlers, and elementary age children coming to our church. Our goal is to have adequately sized classrooms for nursery, toddler class, preschool-kindergarten class, and elementary, youth, and adult discipleship classes. Our bathrooms space is barely adequate to support our Sunday morning gatherings. Our current men s restroom is a single occupancy restroom. We believe that we are at a place where we need to plan for the future and planning for the future means we must think about building and renovation. But buildings are not our only plan for accommodating growth. We have a strong desire to raise up leaders and send some of our families out from amongst us to go plant churches in other parts of the Salt Lake Valley and around the world. Our prayer is that Crossroads would become a church planting church for many generations to come. Furthermore, Pastor Matthew Emadi will be working with the North American Mission Board in their Multiply Church Planter Training program. Pastor Matthew will be actively involved in training Utah church planters to equip them for gospel ministry in their specific context.
Trend
Stories of Dean & Debbie Augustine Dean and Debbie were both members of the Mormon Church at one point in their lives. But God graciously saved them out of Mormonism and eventually led them to each other. As new Christians, Dean and Debbie struggled to find a healthy church in Utah. In fact, they did not even know how to discern a healthy church from an unhealthy one. Early in their Christian walk, they belonged to churches that promoted the prosperity gospel. As Dean and Debbie continued to study the Bible, they began to realize the false teachings of the prosperity gospel. They knew they needed to find a church that placed a priority on biblical truth, sound doctrine, and the personal holiness of its members. In 2014, God led Dean and Debbie to Crossroads Church. Now they happily express that they have grown more in their discipleship in the last two years at Crossroads than any other season of their Christian lives. For the first time, Dean and Debbie are part of a church committed to expository preaching. They continue to be faithful members of Crossroads and serve the church in many capacities, including the oversight of our Prayer Life ministry.
Our Members Daniel & Kalin Davidson The Davidson family began attending Crossroads in early 2016. Daniel and Kalin Davidson grew up in the LDS church and were practicing Mormons for most of their lives. After they got married, they began questioning the beliefs and practices of the LDS religion. They eventually came to the conviction that the teachings of Mormonism are false and unbiblical. During this time they discovered Crossroads Church and began attending our gathered worship services on a regular basis. We plugged them into a discipleship class where they studied the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith and the gospel message in all its fullness. After several months, Daniel and Kalin made a public profession of faith in Jesus Christ and were baptized at Crossroads Church on September 25, 2016. They are faithful members of Crossroads and we praise God for what He has done in their lives.
Crossroads Crossroads Church exists to bring glory to God by making disciples of Jesus Christ to love God, love others, and serve the world. Every week we gather as a church on the Lord s Day to engage in God-centered, Christ-exalting, Holy Spirit-empowered worship. We believe the word of God is the central to our gathered worship experience. In our services we read the Bible, pray the Bible, sing the Bible, see the Bible in the ordinances, and preach the Bible so that we might be transformed by the Word of God to worship God in Spirit and in truth. The overflow of our worship spills into our daily lives and the ministries of our church. DISCIPLESHIP CLASSES The Discipleship Classes (Sunday School) at Crossroads Church exist to help our people love God with all of their minds so that they may be more like Jesus Christ in their daily life. Our goal is that each class would be an intellectually rich learning experience for our participants so that they might become more effective and faithful disciples of Jesus. These classes cover topics such as theology, biblical studies, Christian living, spiritual disciplines and more. COMMUNITY GROUPS Many of our members meet regularly in each other s homes to encourage one another through prayer, Bible study, and fellowship. PRAYER LIFE The mission of Prayer Life is to pray fervently for the ministries of our church, the individual needs of our members, the persecuted church, and the advancement of the gospel in our community and around the world. We believe that God will build his church and advance his kingdom through the prayers of his children. Our desire is to experience God s power and presence by boldly approaching his throne of grace through our mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ.
at a Glance FAMILY DISCIPLESHIP Our children and youth ministry exists to partner with parents in the spiritual growth and upbringing of youth by teaching them God s word so that they will set their hope in God. It is our belief that God has ordained and empowered parents to be the primary spiritual leaders of their children (Deut 6:4 9; Eph 6:1 4; Prov 22:6; 1 Tim 5:8). Our desire is to join parents in the joyful and challenging responsibility of raising a generation of youth that would set their hope in God (Ps 78:5 7). MEN AND WOMEN Part of our discipleship strategy is to equip men to exemplify the characteristics of biblical manhood in all areas of life in order to magnify the glory of God. Our desire is to challenge men towards godliness in their respective roles as leaders, husbands, fathers, and role models. Similarly, we aim to bring glory to God by helping women grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Following a Titus 2 model, our desire is to see women embrace Biblical womanhood while cultivating meaningful relationships with other women. MISSIONS Crossroads Church supports missionaries around the world and missions organizations like the IMB. We are also committed supporting the work of church planting by assisting church plants and training church planters and leaders to help establish healthy churches in the Salt Lake valley, Utah, and around the world for the glory of Jesus Christ. As a part of our church multiplication strategy, we work with the North American Mission Board to serve church planters in the Send Salt Lake program. We are working towards planting our first church out of Crossroads with a NAMB approved church planter.
Cost Breakdown PHASE 1: Renovate Existing Building $50,000 We are working hard to renovate our existing building to accommodate growth. We are remodeling the basement and children s ministry wing to increase the efficiency and capacity of nursery and classroom space. We also plan to add a men s and women s bathroom to give us an adequate number of bathrooms. Finally, we hope to add a small playground on the south side of our property to provide children with a safe place to play. Once the new auditorium is built, this building will continue to serve as classroom space for children and adult discipleship and a fellowship hall for our congregation. PHASE 2: First Parking Addition $90,000 Our current property has an undeveloped field that needs to be turned into parking space to provide adequate space for parking. About 27 parking stalls will be added with this new parking lot. PHASE 3: New Auditorium $1 million Phase 3 will involve the construction of a new sanctuary. The sanctuary will be able to hold up to 400 people and include a foyer area with bathrooms. PHASE 4: Final Parking Addition $120,000 The final parking addition will complete the master plan. Roughly 40 parking spots will be added and the driving lanes encircling the building will be complete. CONTRIBUTIONS If you would like to contribute specifically to any of these phases or to give a general gift to the overall project, you may do so online at www.jesusandlife.com or by contacting memadi@jesusandlife.com If you visit our website, you will have the option of making a one-time gift or a recurring gift. You may also send checks to: Crossroads Church 166 E 10600 S Sandy, UT 84070