In life God has used numerous people and numerous events to reveal himself to me. I have been blessed with Godly parents who taught me about Jesus from a very early age, I had the best youth pastor on the planet when I was in middle school, I had a great FCA huddle leader in High School, and went to college with some guys that are now in my opinion some of the best Christian leaders and pastors in the Country. Among all that God also provided me with an opportunity to spend three summers working Crosspoint Christian Sports camp.
Crosspoint has been a ministry out of Lifeway for 24 years, using the medium of sports to engage kids 4th-8th grade with the Gospel. There was nothing like loading up a full sized Budget truck with equipment and two vans with college students, hitting the road for 10 weeks of ministry.
It has been 10 years since my first summer with Crosspoint and I still miss it. Not a summer has passed where I haven’t remembered those three summers I spent ministering to kids.
If your not familiar with the Crosspoint format on the final day of sport times we would have GAMEDAY. It is what you built up to all week long. Today will be, as I understand it, the final Crosspoint Gameday. Lifeway has made the decision to no longer offer Crosspoint. They instead will move the sports tracks into their Centri-Kid camps. I know that Centri-Kid camps may still end the week with a “gameday,” but Gameday, Crosspoint style will cease to exist.
Please don’t get me wrong, I have taken kids to Centri-Kid and it is a great camp. They have their own traditions, such as OMC, that are a blast and kids love what they are doing. Centri-Kid camps have grown in some incredible ways, and I’m sure the folks in the office are doing what is best, but as a former Crosspoint staffer it is a sad day.
I know that you probably don’t care, but I thought I would give some of my “Highlights” (99 theme) of my short Crosspoint career, both spiritual and random.
Spiritual:
3.) Seeing former campers walking with the Lord. This week I had lunch with a director I had as camper in 2002. Taking kids to camp over the years I have been reunited with numerous former campers that were current staff.
2.) Cumberland University 99 — week k 2 — The first time I got to lead a kid to Christ at camp. I remember I was so pumped that night.
1.) Bluefield College 2000 — our first week at Bluefield God moved in an incredible way. We saw tons of kids give their lives to Jesus that week. I remember trying to fight back tears as we saw a young girl come forward who earlier in the week, finally opened up about an abusive situation at home.
Random ( I know I will forget some things, I haven’t really done any brainstorming to come up with these)
3.) Riding in the Budget truck with the windows down and all of a sudden hundreds of bees were in the cab. We had to pull of the road and compose ourselves and kill a few bees.
2.) Going to the wrestling match at the National Guard Armory. We got to get in the ring at the end and I climb to the top rope (lifelong dream).
1.) Trey — Kid named Trey who came to me crying one day because he got his hat stuck on his head, just one of many funny things that happened to that kid. At the end of the week he forgot his nametag and I still have it 10 years later.
I hope my CP friends and formers staffers enjoyed reading and will share their memories.
matt
