Finally..........

I had my first rehearsal at our new church last night. It was very cool. Especially after the fiasco at our last church. This new church was originally the parent church of Bay Life...... the church we left a little over a year ago. 3 or 4 years ago Bay Life helped launch a new church in southern Hillsborough county called The Point. This new church grew very rapidly. To the point that the septic system of the building they were in could not keep up with the amount of people that were there. A big problem to say the least.

Around this same time a much larger Brandon area church had lost its pastor and was in need of some solid leadership. They got in contact with the folks at The Point and began talking about merging the two churches. This larger church was originally named Calvary Church and is the church that launched Bay Life Church. When the original pastor of Calvary left to become a traveling evangelist, and a new pastor was hired, the church name was changed to Crosstown Community Church. The name comes from the fact that the church property is right next to the Crosstown Expressway. When the two churches merged they adopted the name The Crossing.

The Crossing is, more or less, the parent and child of Bay Life. Weird I know. I should also mention that The Crossing is one of the top twenty-five most growing churches in America.

Sylvia and I have known Greg and Tamara Dumas, the pastor and his wife of The Crossing, for several years now. Since their days at Bay Life. Greg was the singles/20 something pastor and Tamara sang on the praise team with Sylvia. There's good history there. After we left the church in Westchase we decided to check out The Crossing. We were blown away from the moment we drove onto the parking lot. Plus it was great to see old friends that we hadn't seen in a few years. Bay Life sent 50 families to help Greg launch The Point so we lost contact with some folks. After the year we spent driving forty miles to Westchase and not really knowing anyone being greeted with smiles, hand shakes, and hugs was overwhelming. It felt like home.

We did go back to Bay Life a couple of times but it just didn't feel right. The Crossing was it. From the moment Sylvia first heard the band and singers she told me I needed to be playing in that band. I waited almost 2 months before contacting anyone but I finally did audition. Like I said last night was my first rehearsal with them.

We started at 7 pm with just the band. The singers were elsewhere doing a vocal rehearsal. At 8 pm the singers came in and we ran through everything together until about 9:30 pm. The band this coming weekend will consist of two electric guitars, acoustic guitar, bass, keys, drums, and percussion. Now for some cool stuff. Every song is done using a click track. Every band member and every singer is on a wireless in-ear monitor. It's total pro. We worked the whole time we were there with very little down time. It was the polar opposite if the situation I had left a few month earlier. A half an hour, forty-five(if we were lucky)minute rehearsal with a forty-five minute to an hour drive. I now only have to drive 10 minutes.

The best part....... there is no mediocrity! Mediocrity is one of the main reasons we left the church in Westchase. The Crossing is chasing after excellence. My philosophy has always been this. If you are going to do something in the name of God you had better do it to the very best of your ability. Then when you can do that, you try to go beyond and get it even better. God should not be a second thought. Always give your best. Your first fruits if you will. This is what drew us to The Crossing. The desire to give God their best.