Updates

General Update Videos

Here are the latest updates from Pastor Roger!

What’s Happening at ALL OF OUR CAMPUSES

When we group up where the gospel is being preached, life change happens. It is the job of our staff to oversee all of it. Each weekend we have eight services, five in English, one in Chinese and two in Spanish. If you attend one worship service per weekend you have exposure to one eighth of the people of the church. Our children, youth, and adults are blessed with a church staff that works to serve Christ and serve others. The gospel is being proclaimed in many ways, and Jesus Christ is being exalted in all the CityRise campuses.

We’re so blessed to have 12 pastors who can preach on any given Sunday. Very few church congregations have the luxury of hearing the message of Christ proclaimed by so many talented pastors. When I’m giving these guys the ball they take it and go. These men have been called, gifted and trained up to proclaim the gospel. When that happens, life change is happening, and we are seeing people come to the Lord and be baptized. A lot of families started watching us online during the pandemic and what we have seen is that our service broadcast has become the new front door to the church. Some of these families have been baptized and now worship here in person. God is moving and bringing these folks from watching online to experiencing and participating on our campuses and in our small groups.

8 services
12 teaching pastors

What’s Happening at WEST UNIVERSITY CAMPUS

At our West University campus we have seen an overall increase in our weekly worship attendance as well as in the excitement in the room! In the first quarter of 2022, we have averaged 443 in weekly worship attendance compared to an overall average of 349 in 2021!

In addition, we have seen an increase in our Sunday morning community group attendance. In the first quarter of 2022, we averaged 376 in weekly attendance compared to our 2021 average of 327. More importantly we have seen a renewed energy and enthusiasm for our community groups and have witnessed real relationships being fostered!

In the first quarter of 2022 we have had the blessing of 5 baptisms at West U, compared to only 3 in the first quarter of 2021. One sweet moment happened just recently when we baptized a sweet 78 year old woman. She first attended West U with a neighbor who had invited her. She then connected into a community group, where she found love and acceptance. After attending throughout Fight for It, she felt compelled to make a public profession of faith and follow up with a believer’s baptism, which she did with her community group cheering her on.

We have had 21 new members join West U this year. In all of 2021 we had only 49 new members. So in the first quarter of the year we have almost had half of the total number of new members for all of 2021!

We added 21 new “off campus” groups during Fight for It, and we have six of those groups continuing to meet, adding one new group for 30 Days To Easter!

What’s Happening at our cRosspoint bellaire

God has been so faithful to Crosspoint Church – Bellaire. The resiliency of this campus has come to the forefront as the COVID pandemic arrived. Like most of the world we experienced a pivot for a while with our worship services, community groups and ministries in general. We couldn’t predict how we would come back from such a unique experience. But in a very difficult season our campus has shined, and God gets all the glory for doing more than we could ask or imagine. In fact, in many ways, the past few years have served as a catalyst for growth, development and reconnecting to Jesus at Crosspoint. Here are a few highlights:

SMALL GROUPS

We have seen the addition of several new groups at our campus and a new fervor for community. We have increased our community groups to 19.

More than 5 Off-Campus groups have formed and are helping people connect to community and to Christ.

ONLINE GROUPS

Wes and Allison Hart felt the Lord speak to them about stepping out to form a community group for people who needed to harness technology and zoom. That group is consistent and strong and recently watched one of their group members celebrate the dedication of their first child!

YOUTH MINISTRY

It’s been fun to watch Sam and Jenny Dagley step into leadership to help our parents of middle/high school students with a new community group called 612.

SERVE SUMMIT

We hosted Serve Summit in Fall of 2021, bringing all three campuses together for a party to inspire, celebrate and recruit new volunteers for every CityRise campus. It was a huge success and went a long way to kick-off incredible ministry in all of our locations.

NEW PODCAST

We started a new Family-Centric podcast hosted by Jennifer Dennis and Justin Kellough called, “The Almost Amazing Dinner Party.” Each week this podcast features our hosts and guests who help families in a variety of ways to connect to Jesus and help them live out their faith in Christ as life comes in a variety of shapes and sizes.

ANSWERED PRAYER

A family in our church who has struggled with infertility for so long, with so many hiccups, welcomed their first child, healthy and strong, and this child was recently dedicated at our Crosspoint Church – Bellaire Campus.

We recently launched a new campus in Missouri City, and we’ve seen some amazing results already. From January 2021 to January 2022, we grew from 25 adults to 75 adults each Sunday in worship. We went from 25 in weeknight groups to 65. We have baptized 11 people in the past 15 months, and after launching the campus with 30 children and five youth, we now frequently have 35 children and 15 youth in attendance. That’s how God has grown us wide.

But He has grown us deep too. We’ve seen couples come to faith, get baptized and then host a community group weekly in their home. One woman, who first came to the church for free groceries, is now serving with us in multiple ministries. Another family we met going door-to-door were living apart from each other, but now God has helped them to reconcile in their marriage. Both of them now have professed faith in Christ, along with their twelve-year-old daughter, and they’ve all been baptized recently!

CityRise Missouri City has opened ministry rooms in two local middle schools. We have ten people learning English as a second language, and another ten getting their GED. Thanks to our basketball court, we regularly see about 20 neighborhood kids come to play. Finally, our free medical clinic is connecting with the maximum number of patients for our capacity. God is so good on and around the Missourity City campus!

New Campus MISSOURI CITY

What’s Happening at our Spanish Services

Iglesia Crosspoint Bellaire

There is a large Hispanic community within a mile of our location, so at Iglesia Crosspoint Bellaire, Pastor Rick Vasquez and his Spanish-speaking congregation have an opportunity to minister to them and send them out with the love of Jesus. We offer:

  • Bible classes
  • Parenting classes for those needing it for court or immigration purposes
  • Free Love and Respect classes
  • ESL classes for the community
  • Youth group
  • Men’s group
  • Women’s group
  • Cafe con Maribel
  • Kids’ Ministry

We have had a steady stream of individuals joining ICB as members in the past 90 days. In the last week alone we had 5 new members join! We had a spontaneous baptism last month and are preparing to baptize more for our Easter service. In the last six weeks, we have had a total of 123 professions of faith. There are way too many stories of God’s provision at ICB to tell here!

CityRise Emmanuel At Missouri City

With our 2021 addition of First Baptist Church Missouri City into our network, we embraced long-time pastor Justo Robinson and the Emmanuel Baptist Church congregation who were already worshiping there. Justo’s dedication and diligent pastoral leadership there for over three decades produced a mature congregation of Spanish-speaking peoples who love to serve and study God’s Word. They are instrumental in the function of the Casa El Buen Samaritano clinic, weekly food distribution, Spanish as a Second Language and much, much more. We praise God for Justo’s leadership and humility and how he brought our church families together under the CityRise umbrella to jointly lift our city and the world by generously giving the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Bobby’s Story

My name is Bobby, and I’m 83 years old. I’ve had the privilege of being a member of this church for 53 years, and I was the treasurer for 32 years. I’ve encountered many blessings over that time and seen God provide in wonderful ways that showed us where He wanted us to go.

One instance of this was early in Pastor Barry’s ministry when we were remodeling our sanctuary. We got to the point where we were short $65,000 to finish the project for the year. We discussed six members that we could maybe ask to help make up the difference, and we decided on that Thursday that we would go home and pray about it. By the weekend, if we still needed help, we’d consider asking them for it.

Sunday came around, and I was going across the muddy street to the church, and one of the couples on our list was over there waiting for me out front. They said they had $10,000 to give us and asked if and where we needed it. I told them about our situation, and they were happy to give it.
That same night, I got a call from another member saying basically the same thing. He had $10,000 to give and wanted to see if we needed it. I told him the same story and he said he’d go and try to find another $10,000, which he did. The next morning, a third member on that list called and said he had $20,000 to give and someone who was not even on the list called Pastor Barry to offer $17,000.

The short version is that by Wednesday, we had $65,250 without asking for a cent. When that story got around, even more people gave. What that meant to me was the Lord was working with this church to see that it kept going, because He had bigger and bigger things for us to do in the future. He certainly did do bigger and bigger things, and I know that He is only just beginning to bless and use CityRise.

 

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