My Eulogy for My Grandpa

My grandpa passed away last Thursday around 7 p.m. I was able to participate in the funeral services and shared the following at his grave site:

To those who didnt know him, he was an ordinary man. Few with words. But to his family he was extraordinary. He didnt need words. His smile was all we needed as kids. Some men in life strive for wealth or fame. All grandpa wanted was his family.

A man who started with nothing, now is a man with wealth untold. No i’m not talking about money. Look around the room, 59 years of marriage, 6 kids, 13 grandkids, 15 great-grandkids. That is a heritage.

Each of us have memories that we hold dear and personal to us. For me I’m proud to be known as Little Leo since we shared a first name.. If I my family will rally like this when I die then I will have considered my life successful.

I’m sure by now most of you have read or heard Bruce’s squirrel hunting adventures (can be seen on my notes in Facebook). I like to think that cause I was his oldest grandson that I was his favorite. The only truth to that was that grandpa had enough love for all of his grandchildren that when we were with him we each felt like his favorite.

I know that today is hard for all of us. It is at times like these i’m glad i have a family like this. But its also at times like this I have faith in a God who knows just how we feel. He knows and shares our pain.

I know this, if we stay together as a family and trust in God, these dark times will pass.

Blog Stagnation

Ok, so I don’t really do anything here anymore but keeping it up to archive previous entries, like the time I got arrested for grand theft auto. The best way to keep up with me is on Twitter or Facebook.

Who knows I may visit here occassionally.

A little Christmas Humor – The tail of why we put the angel at the top of the tree.

A Christmas Story for people having a bad day:

When four of Santa's elves got sick, the trainee elves did not produce toys as fast as the regular ones, and Santa began to feel the Pre-Christmas pressure.

Then Mrs Claus told Santa her Mother was coming to visit, which stressed Santa even more.

When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were about to give birth and two others had jumped the fence and were out, Heaven knows where.

Then when he began to load the sleigh, one of the floorboards cracked, the toy bag fell to the ground and all the toys were scattered.

Frustrated, Santa went in the house for a cup of apple cider and a shot of rum. When he went to the cupboard, he discovered the elves had drank all the cider and hidden the liquor. In his frustration, he accidentally dropped the cider jug, and it broke into hundreds of little glass pieces all over the kitchen floor.. He went to get the broom and found the mice had eaten all the straw off the end of the broom.

Just then the doorbell rang, and irritated Santa marched to the door, yanked it open, and there stood a little angel with a great big Christmas tree.

The angel said very cheerfully, 'Merry Christmas, Santa. Isn't this a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me to stick it?'

 

And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas tree.

 

Christmas Spirit

Quotes worth living

In a chat this afternoon with Jeff Fulton and discussing future office space and what we want to see on a daily basis.  One thing we are thinking about is some quotes worth living by.  Here are just three we came up with.

The Art of Living   

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation.  He hardly knows which is which.

He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing.  To himself he always seems to be doing both.

Disturb us, Lord, when We are too well pleased with ourselves, When our dreams have come true Because we have dreamed too little,When we arrived safely Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when With the abundance of things we possess We have lost our thirst For the waters of life;  Having fallen in love with life, We have ceased to dream of eternity And in our efforts to build a new earth, We have allowed our vision Of the new Heaven to dim. Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas Where storms will show your mastery; Where losing sight of land, We shall find the stars. We ask You to push back The horizons of our hopes; And to push into the future In strength, courage, hope, and love.

-Francis Drake – circa 1577

" The point is, He wants you to know Him: wants to give you Himself. And He and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble — delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life."

-CS Lewis

What a Trip!

I just spent the last few days meeting all kinds of new people and even saw some old friends I haven’t seen in years.  I was at Church Multiplication Network event, Multiplicity08.  I’m just amazed at what God has allowed me to be a part of.  I heard all kinds of stories of people that are going to where others need help.  Some are bridges of compassion, others bringing hope to the hopeless, helping moms all over and hundreds more.   I don’t know where to start…

I think I’ll start with a guy by the name of Jay Covert.  Jay is reaching the community of East St. Louis.  If you are familiar with the St. Louis area, you know that East St. Louis is a place you avoid and hope to never find yourself after dark.  Talk about a community of lost and hurting people.  Jay has spent the last four years there making a real difference.  He takes flowers and chocolates to the prostitutes, has relationships with the drug dealers on the corners and is on a first name basis with the mayor.  He’s even used the mayor’s office as his own a time or two.

Friday morning I met with Alexandra Kuykendall from MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) where their slogan is “Better Moms make a Better World.”  They have about 4,000 groups nationwide with over 100,000 moms involved.  They have now begun mobilizing those moms to reach their community.  She tells of a group that has started reaching out to moms in a low-income housing teaching them life skills and building relationships.  They have another group that is in a half-way house doing the same thing only the government mandates the women to go to these groups. 

Last night I had the chance to meet J.R. Mahon.  If you don’t know the story of XXX Church and the ministry they have the porn industry you really need to check out what they are doing.   JR Was the architect behind that and has now branched out and is starting hollywoodpastor.com where he is reaching that community and discipling writers, editors, and actors/actresses.  Talk about an ignored group of people from the Christian community.

These three people are great examples of multilplying the church and not just by building buildings but truly building bridges to those who don’t have the love of Christ. 

I also heard from our keynote speakers Dave Ferguson, Alan Hirsch, Bob Roberts Jr, Dave Mills, Daniel De Leon, Dave Olson and George Wood.  All men with great passion for multiplying the church and seeing people loved with God’s love.

I challenge you today what are you doing to build bridges to the hurt and lost world?

Thanks for Praying

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for praying.  Facebook and twitter made it able to get people all over the country praying with just a few words typed on my phone.

My dad is expected to continue to recover.  There was major progress yesterday.  He was forming complete sentences and began physical therapy.  He still has a ways to go but God is faithful and i know he has heard our prayers.

Again thank you to all my friends.

Update on my dad

First thank you to everyone praying. I want ask you to continue to pray. My dad suffered a stroke yesterday. He has little to no use on his left side and is finding it difficult to formulate completet thoughts. The doctors say with some physical therapy he should be able to recover most of his motion.

This was a big scare as it was completly unexpected. Please continue to pray. It’s been a scary night and hard to see my childhood hero like this, but God is faithful.

Again your prayers have been felt, thank you.

Video fun with Levi & Lincoln

lincoln in bouncer from Leo Crosby on Vimeo.

Untitled from Leo Crosby on Vimeo.

Changes – God’s Timing

It has been a while since I updated last and most of you who follow me on twitter know that I have recently changed jobs. My previous employer basically asked me to move to Colorado or step down my leadership role.  While I loved what I was doing, I began to pray what for what God had in store for me.  The next day I made literally one phone call to a friend and inquired about a job. 

In a time frame that only God could orchestrate (14 days from start to finish) God transitioned me to a role with the Church Multiplication Network (CMN) as the Director of Marketing and Communications.  What I love about this role is that God has placed me in a position to help shape and change the future of my denomination, The Assemblies of God. 

CMN is building bridges to the unreached.  It’s not your  typical doing things they way it has always been done.  Its not just church planting.  It is literally church multiplication.   The goal is to multiply by 500 churches a year in the next five years.  That may mean compassion bridges, demographic bridges, sociographic bridges or whatever God leads the multipliers (planters) to do.

I’m excited about what the future holds and will be sure to update here what is going on.  For now here is what has happened with the few churches we have helped fund:

Church planting projects that have received CMN Matching Funds: 29

CMN Matching Funds Churches that have launched: 18

Personal contacts with unchurched individuals: 40,806

Persons baptized in water: 154

Persons who have made a confession of faith: 692

Average Number of people per church attending weekly: 72

Amount given to missions by Matching Funds Churches: $147,494.66

Amount paid-forward by Matching Fund Churches to start new churches: $65,669.26