Inspiring Internationals

International Ministry at Crosspoint Church has been growing and thriving thanks to God's extravagant grace!  Events like weekly International Women's Craft Time, Christianity Explored, Football parties and Chai stands have given church members opportunities to build individual relationships with international students.  There has also been many opportunities for international students to hear about Jesus and His precious gospel!


Monday and Tuesday of this week was a beautiful time in the mountains at Camp McCall with nationalities from all over the world!  Iranians, Uzbekistanis, Indians, Chinese, Brazilians, Germans and Americans attended.  This event was hosted by the International Student Association of Clemson University but several Generation-Link staff and Christian college students were able to attend as well.


While hiking, skeet shooting, swinging, eating camp food, bunking down in cabins, and ziplining, we were able to build relationships with these students, hear their life stories, and share our faith!  We are very thankful for a couple of days to get away and share life with men and women from such diverse cultures.

Praise the Lord for opening up doors and hearts.  Many students are interested in learning more about Him!  Pray that He will continue to soften hearts and minds to Himself.  Pray for our International Student Bonfire Bash this Friday night, that relationships between Crosspointers and Internationals will develop and continue to grow after this weekend.  If you would like to come, meet us in the Victoria Square parking lot at 7pm to ride out to the Dillman's farm.


Want to get involved with International students in Clemson?  Contact Emily Kurtz (ekurtz@generation-link.org).  We would love to get you involved!  


Written by Emily Kurtz

Fall Getaway and Christian Leadership

Fall is the season of harvest.  We have been able to see God move in big ways already this semester.  A few weeks ago we ventured to Camp McCall with college, high school, and middle school students for Fall Getaway.  It was a great time of worship, sound biblical teaching, and community.  My favorite aspect was perhaps the first partnership between Crosspoint Church’s college and youth ministries for Fall Getaway.  It was such a beautiful picture of the church. Different walks of life were present and interacting with one another.  Yet the common denominator is Christ.  I look back on when I was in middle school and remember how having the Godly example of older students was such a motivation. 

 

I hope our younger students came back feeling encouraged and empowered to hit their schools with the gospel.  We can celebrate in seeing God work in the lives of the students as a result of the weekend.  One student came back saying, “For the first time, I trusted in Jesus.”  Praise be to Him.

            Another highlight of the fall semester for our team has taken place in the classroom.  On Tuesday mornings we meet for seminary training led by our pastors and other leaders in the church.  We are studying the principles of Christian leadership.  Most of our discussion is focused on figures in Scripture who provide great examples of biblical leadership.  So far we have looked at Hezekiah, who returned the focus and priority of Israel to God, Jeremiah, who led in spite of his self proclaimed inadequacy, David, who turned to God amidst trials and suffering, and Paul, who gained the respect of those who were imprisoning him by standing firm in times of fear.  This class has been both encouraging and challenging.  We are all leaders in some capacity at Crosspoint, and will most likely continue to lead in other areas of life in the future. I am looking forward to being challenged and stretched further in my understanding of what it means to be a leader.

Written by Will Jackson

Iron Sharpens Iron...

One of the key aspects of Generation LINK is the emphasis on building a gospel community, and one of the ways that this is done is through the G-LINK staff members living together.

When considering how to describe the ‘organized chaos’ that is the GLINK guys’ house, I had difficulty deciding where to begin, so I’ll start with the fun, social stuff.  There are the bonfires with friends down by the train tracks, the afternoons reading and napping on our 21-foot long couch, playing video games and watching “Band of Brothers,” and even late-night water balloon wars with our landlord!  A few others that come to mind are wrestling matches, a saxophone that functions as a morning alarm, late-night renditions of “Grease,” and many more.

From a different perspective, God has gifted each of us in unique ways, and each is able to put his gifts to use in different ways in ministry.  It is clearly evident in just looking at the six of us (who represent but a small fraction of the family at Crosspoint) that the church is a body of many parts, none greater or lesser than another and all needed for the church to work properly.  Just as we are gifted differently, we also have different struggles, and so we are able to challenge and pray with one another to see victory over sin through accountability. I am constantly reminded in my time living with the other guys that however different we may be, we are all united through the blood of Christ and are brothers laboring side by side to see the gospel reach the nations.   It is such a blessing to do life together with them!

Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.  Proverbs 27:17

Written by Andrew Gunter

Clemson Scavenged and Crosspoint Discovered

Sunday, September 18th was our first Discovering Crosspoint of the Fall semester, and it was a huge success. God is blessing our fellowship tremendously with numerous individuals from every walk of life who are excited about pursuing the mission of God locally and globally as a part of the Crosspoint body of believers. With approximately fifty attendees at the two-session event Sunday, the Crosspoint pastors (Ken, Jeremy and Jason) led the group through sessions that included Crosspoint’s History, Crosspoint’s Doctrinal Beliefs, and even Crosspoint’s Church Structure.

GLINK staff with Pastor Ken during scavenger hunt

During Discovering Crosspoint, attendees hear a biblical presentation of what Christians believe from Scripture, how, historically and practically, Crosspoint has been structured as a church, and why it is important to intentionally and faithfully join together with other believers in a church. Although we would love for everyone who goes through Discovering Crosspoint to become a member of Crosspoint Church, we recognize that God may have something else planned for some of the attendees. So whether or not they end up joining with us, we encourage every one of them to find a biblical, local church that they can join and serve in and through, because we believe that God has called us to pursue him and his mission while in intentional Christian community.

Also last week, the Generation LINK staff was able to take a much-needed break from the busyness of life and spent a fun evening together on a surprise scavenger hunt. The staff was divided into teams, and each team was sent on a search to find different locations around Clemson. At each location, rather than finding a particular item, the teams were instructed to take several pictures documenting their escapades. Some of the highlights of these escapades included taking pictures that depicted the essence of fall, taking personality pictures based on the personality of each member of the group, taking pictures with feet off of the ground, and, my personal favorite, taking awkward pictures. Everyone enjoyed the time getting to know each other and having fun, and the best part is that several awesome pictures were taken throughout the course of the night (if you have Facebook and are friends with any of the Generation LINK staff, then you may see some of these pictures in the coming weeks).

Written by Bailey Pearson. Photograph courtesy of Caroline Cole.

Starting Point and College Lake Day

It is always a great time to see the college students rolling back into Clemson for the fall.  They are full of energy and excitement.  Each year we have the privilege to see college students desire to grow and mature in their walk with the Lord, and we get to them commit to the body of the church.

We recently had our Starting Point meeting.  This is a chance for college students to learn about our Connecting Point Groups (CP groups).  Our CP groups provide our church body an opportunity to live life together seeking intimacy with God, fellowship among believers, and influence with those who are in the community.  We have more servants equipped to lead CP groups this year than ever before!  It is great to see God provide!  We have groups for freshmen men and women, sophomore men and women, upperclassmen co-eds and men's and women's, international men's and women's.  We have also have small groups for the Bridge Program at Clemson and Southern Wesleyan University.

College Lake Day

Our Starting Point meeting consisted of 200 attendees.  All of our CP leaders attended, providing college students with a chance to meet the leaders, learn what CP groups are all about, and let us know if they desired to connect with a certain group.  Praise God that He uses the Holy Spirit in Crosspoint Church to continue to make disciples and use us to mature his children into the likeness of Jesus!

We also had a college lake day.  This was a great time of fellowship and assimilation of new college students into the life of Crosspoint.  The Welborns' Adult CP Group graced us by cooking some excellent hot dogs and burgers and providing us with sides and snacks.  We ate, played volleyball, threw frisbee, played corn hole, partook in the legendary battle melon game, and enjoyed each others' company.

What a blessing it is to see college students who could be different in every way find unity in Christ and be a part of the body of Crosspoint Church.

Posted by Heath Fulmer

First Week Events

This is an exciting time of the year for the Crosspoint Fellowship as ministries are kicking off for the fall and small groups are starting to meet. The arrival of freshmen and college students is another highlight as we seek to reach Clemson University and the community with the gospel. We host several events the first week of school in hopes of meeting many new freshmen and reconnecting with students.

On Monday, Clemson holds an Organization Fair and a Welcome Back Festival downtown for students. Several members of our college leadership team set up a tent along with other organizations to pass out freeze-pops and invite students to Crosspoint.  Following these events, we gathered in the Union Loggia on campus for an ice cream social.

Tuesday night was a Summer Missions Night where members of our college ministry gathered to share stories of the Lord's faithfulness as they served in missions this summer. Several students shared about their experiences with our Summer LINK programs in Myrtle Beach, Clemson, and India, and others shared about trips to Kenya, Uganda or working with local missions. It was so encouraging to hear how the Lord worked in the lives of our college students and to hear our college pastor, Jeremy Chasteen, cast vision for being intentional as we live misionally here at Clemson. On Wednesday Night we met at the intramural fields for some competitive and not-so-competitive games of Ultimate Frisbee. We also had groups play football, soccer, and volleyball.

Friday night we met at Crosspoiont for coffee and trivia. Students formed teams and competed for prizes and enjoyed coffee, dessert, and fellowship. All the events of the week culminated in Sunday's Starting Point event after the service. Approximately 270 students joined us for lunch and to find out more about the small group Bible studies that meet throughout the week.

Although it was quite a busy time, this was a great week to be intentional with meeting students. We hope that students who attended these events had a great time, but we have an even greater hope that relationships were built with these students. Our desire is that they might see Crosspoint Church as a home-away-from-home and a church to get plugged into during their time at Clemson. Crosspoint desires to be a church that proclaims the gospel to the campus and community and disciples students as they grow in their walks with the Lord. It's going to be an exciting year as the Lord works in the lives of college students!

Post by Kimberly Sherman. Photos courtesy of J. B. Winchester.

Generation LINK Christian Leadership Class Kicks Off!

GLINK staff at summer 2011 GCEN class in Myrtle Beach

In partnership with Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Generation LINK is a part of the Great Commission Network (GCEN). As a member of the GCEN, Generation LINK is approved to teach 18 hours of seminary credit. We are in the fourth year of this partnership as we desire to equip the next generation of leaders serving in churches and in the marketplace all over the world.

This week, Generation LINK launched a seminary class called “Christian Leadership” and there were 25 students who attended the class. During this course, we will examine Biblical leadership, evaluate current models of Christian leadership, and learn how to implement Christian leadership within the context of the church. Our pastors, staff, and Christian leaders from the community will help facilitate the lecture portion of this class.

Published by Jenna Wayment