Cross Training 2024

"Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:19–20)

An introduction to who we are, what we believe, and how to find life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus.

Where This Class Came From

We first put this content together in 2016, and it serves as the introductory class to our discipleship program here at the church. It's also an introduction to our church—who we are, what we believe, and what we're all about. We started our School of Discipleship back up in 2017 and ran classes in 2017 and 2018, had some planned material in 2020, and then everything went a little crazy that year, as you all remember. We've been rebuilding over the last several years, and we're happy to be doing our Cross Training class again. It's a one-session class that introduces you to the church and gives you next steps for getting involved.

The History of Cross Connection Church

Cross Connection Church was planted as Christian Chapel of Escondido on July 4th, 1981, in Felicita Park. I wasn't there—I was one year old at the time. Pastor Pat Kenny was sent down from North LA, where he was part of Christian Chapel of Walnut, to pastor a small group of people who had been meeting in a home. After that first meeting in the park, they met regularly at Conway Elementary School until the church began to grow.

In 1985, the church in North LA dissolved, so Pat looked for a group of churches to connect with. He affiliated with Calvary Chapel, which had begun under Chuck Smith in Santa Ana, California. Calvary Chapel is a remarkable work of God that started in the 1960s, and by about the year 2000 it had grown from one church to a family of roughly 1,500 churches, with global impact and a nationwide radio station, Calvary Satellite Network. So Christian Chapel became Calvary Chapel of Escondido.

A few years later, in the early 1990s, my family started attending this church when I was about 11. I grew up through the children's and youth ministries here. We moved into this facility in 1994 and have been here ever since. I came on staff as a pastoral intern in 1999, originally to handle technical things—computers, websites, graphic design—but soon I was asked to teach the junior high ministry, and I did that for several years before becoming an associate pastor.

From Germany to the Pastorate

In 2004, I moved to Germany for a year to teach at a small international Bible school in Northwest Germany. It was overseen by Pastor David Guzik, who has a website called enduringword.com with excellent Bible commentary and resources. More than half the students were from the US, connected to Calvary Chapel Bible College in Murrieta, but we also had students from Germany, Switzerland, Brazil, and the Netherlands.

When I returned in 2005, I worked at our coffee shop in Escondido on Grand Avenue called His Place while teaching at Calvary Chapel Bible College in Murrieta. I came back on staff here in 2006 as an associate pastor. I met my wife, Andrea, while working at the coffee shop—she came in to do a Bible study with a friend, and I saw her name on her credit card and invited her to dinner. We were married about six months later. She's a nurse practitioner, and we have four kids: Ethan (15), Addison (14), Evangeline (almost 13), and Elliot (almost 12).

In April 2008, 16 years ago this month, Pat Kenny handed the church off to me after serving here for 27 years. He still serves in ministry, helping other churches through leadership transitions, which are never easy. In 2011, our board decided to change the name from Calvary Chapel of Escondido to Cross Connection Church, because we sensed God wanted to expand our reach and connect with other ministries committed to the Great Commission—Jesus' command to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. We have no problem partnering with other Christian groups committed to that mission. We remain connected to Calvary Chapel.

In 2014, we entered a dual alignment with the Southern Baptist Convention, because their theological positions are very similar to ours and they are deeply committed to the Great Commission and missions. Through that connection, when you support our church financially, you support over 4,000 full-time missionaries worldwide, hundreds of new churches planted each year, and disaster relief. Those American Red Cross food trucks you may have seen are actually owned by the Southern Baptist Convention. We have people in our church, including a chaplain named Nick, who are dispatched to help with disaster relief through that connection.

Life in Connection with God, One Another, and the World

Almost every time you're here, you'll hear us mention "life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus." We exist to help people find and live that life. This is deeply tied to the Great Commission.

There's a commission from Christ to His followers in each of the four Gospels and in Acts. Matthew 28 is the first: "Go and make disciples of all nations." Mark 16: "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." Luke 24: this message of repentance should be preached to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. John: "As the Father has sent me, I also send you." And Acts 1: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth." Our saying divides into three areas—God, one another, and the world—and those are the headings we'll work through today.

Created for Connection with God

"The Lord formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." (Genesis 2:7)

The creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 make clear that God created mankind to be connected to Him. In Genesis 1, God says, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness," and that relational theme carries through all 66 books of the Bible. Even non-Christian, secular atheists recognize what's called the religious impulse in human beings. Why does it exist? Because of the purpose for which we were made—God made us to be connected to Him, and even before we find Him we still desire that connection.

But the story gets complicated in Genesis 3. Paul recaps it in Romans 5:

"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin... so death spread to all men... much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to many."

God had commanded Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, warning that in the day they ate of it they would surely die. They disobeyed. Sin is disobedience to God's command, and through sin, death entered the world and reigned. All the pain, suffering, death, and war we see in the world trace back to Genesis 3. Man sinned, resulting in separation from God—but in Christ, God has made reconnection possible.

Reconciled Through Jesus

"While we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly... But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5)

To reconcile means to restore two parties who are in conflict. Through sin we became enemies of God; through Christ, that friendship is restored. We celebrated this on Good Friday—Jesus dying in our place, taking the penalty for our sins, and through His death, burial, and resurrection reconnecting us to God.

One passage I love as the foundation for our vision is Ephesians 2:

"For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation... so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross... Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God."

It is in and through what Jesus did on the cross that we can experience life in connection with God, which I am convinced is the very abundant life Jesus spoke of in John 10: "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." There's no way to experience the fullness of that life apart from relationship with Him. As Augustine said, our soul is restless until it finds its rest in God.

That's why, anywhere you see our saying—on the bulletin, the slides, the website—"life" and "through Jesus" appear in orange. This abundant life is only found through Jesus. He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me." His statements are exclusive, and we believe that life is truly found in Him alone.

How We Receive That Life

By sending His Son, God made restoration of our connection possible. By His death on the cross, Jesus paid the penalty for our sins, removed the separation, and adopted us into His family as sons and daughters. Paul writes in Colossians 1: "For He rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins... He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death."

How do we experience it? We accept the free gift of eternal life by believing Christ died for us and trusting in Him alone. Paul says in Romans 10, "If you believe in your heart that God raised Christ from the dead and confess with your mouth that He is Lord, you shall be saved." And Ephesians 2: "By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." One of the last things Jesus said on the cross was, "It is finished"—the debt for our sin paid in full. This is the core of the gospel the church has proclaimed for 2,000 years.

Maintaining Connection with God

Once you receive that life, what then? We maintain and strengthen our connection with God through a number of things. Here are six.

Worship. Colossians 3 speaks of "singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your heart to God." When we gather and sing, it may seem strange to a first-time visitor, but we're convinced from Scripture and experience that as we praise Him, God draws near. The Bible says God inhabits the praises of His people. We worship Him in song, in our giving, and in our attention as we study His Word.

Prayer. Prayer is simply talking to God. You have direct access to the Creator of heaven and earth, who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. He hears and answers prayers—sometimes with a yes, sometimes a no, sometimes a wait. Colossians 4 says, "Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving."

The Scriptures. We highly value the teaching of the Bible. God has revealed His nature and His will through the 66 books of Scripture—what He is like and what He likes. Hebrews 4 says, "The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword." I want to instill in our people a regular, daily diet of the Bible. I taught a six-week class on how to study the Bible, available on our YouTube channel and on RightNow Media, and we'll offer it again.

Generosity. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians about the Macedonian churches whose deep poverty overflowed in liberality. Jesus said in Acts 20:35, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Through generosity we mirror our giving God and connect with Him as we share with and care for others.

Communion. We partake of the bread and the cup, remembering Jesus' body broken for us and His blood shed for us. Paul records in 1 Corinthians 11 that Jesus said, "This is my body, which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of me," and, "As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim my death until I come." We view these elements as symbolic, pointing to Christ. Different churches practice communion at different intervals; we partake every seven weeks—not for any biblical reason, but as our tradition.

Baptism. As a church connected to Calvary Chapel and the Southern Baptist Convention, we are Credo Baptist—we believe in believer's baptism. Baptizo means to immerse in water. When a person becomes a Christian, one of their first acts of obedience is to be baptized, identifying with Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. If you grew up in a tradition that practices infant baptism, you didn't have a choice in that—but once you've placed your trust in Christ, we encourage you to obey His command. Our biggest baptism each year is on Pentecost Sunday, May 19th, which is also the birthday of the church. We'll have a barbecue and celebration that day.

Next steps: If you've never trusted Christ for salvation, come talk to me after class today. And if you're a Christian who has never been baptized—as Nacho Libre said, "Why have you not been baptized?"—we'd encourage you to take that step.

Created for Connection with One Another

God created us to live in connection with one another. Genesis 1:27 says God created man in His own image, male and female. Genesis 2:18 says, "It is not good that man should be alone... I will make him a helper comparable to him." This applies not only to the marriage covenant but to relationship in general. You cannot have the abundant life isolated and alone. We saw this proven in 2020, when isolation drove mental health down and anxiety up. God did not make us for that.

Connection was lost on account of sin. In Genesis 3, the eyes of Adam and Eve were opened, they knew they were naked, sewed fig leaves, and hid from God. There's a disconnection from God—"Adam, where are you?"—and a separation from each other. At the end of Genesis 2 they were naked and unashamed, completely joined and vulnerable; then sin brought shame, division, wars, and fights.

But connection is restored by Jesus. Ephesians 2 again: "He Himself is our peace, who has made both one." In the church He joins us back together, and remarkably, this joining crosses ethnic boundaries and socioeconomic classes. God breaks down within the church all the boundaries we create in our minds and cultures.

Deepening Connection with One Another

Six practical ways we experience this connection:

Corporate worship. Singing together as one voice fosters connection. There's been fascinating psychological research showing that people who sing together in choirs even begin to sync up their heartbeats. There's a physiological effect—even if the person next to you can't carry a tune. If you stand next to me, you'll find I often can't.

Bible study and learning together. Romans 15:14: "You yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another." Scripture speaks of iron sharpening iron, and Hebrews of stirring one another up to love and good deeds. As we study together, we challenge each other to grow.

Fellowship. The New Testament church continued in koinonia—communion or fellowship. There are about 40 "one another" commands in the New Testament: love one another, pray for one another, encourage one another, care for one another, comfort one another. In the last 20 years our culture has trended toward people having fewer and fewer friends they can trust and count on, which harms mental and physical health and ages people faster. We need fellowship—our connect groups are simply gatherings to share a meal and care for one another.

One key aspect of fellowship is hospitality—"Be hospitable to one another without complaint" (1 Peter 4:9). This is a lost art in our culture. My wife works in the medical field, and when we invite her doctor and nurse friends over for dinner, they react as if we'd invited them to Mars. As they leave they say, "This was amazing—we've never been invited to someone's house for dinner." That's foreign to me, because I grew up in the church where this is normal, but sharing and hospitality are key.

Prayer. James 5: "Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another." When you pray with someone, it deepens both your relationship with God and with that person. I'm amazed how simply asking, "Can I pray for you?" drops people's guard. And later, when I follow up about what we prayed for, people are surprised and grateful that I remembered.

Service. 1 Peter 4:10: "As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace." When you work alongside someone in a task or event, your connection with that person grows.

Next steps: Consider joining a connect or growth group—they just started last week, and they're a great place to meet people and get into the Scriptures. And if this is your home church, consider serving. On a given weekend we need about 150 people serving in children's ministry, hospitality, security, worship, and tech. You can find areas to serve at ccchurch.com/serve.

Connection with the World

Because of the Fall, the world is disconnected from God and one another. Through Jesus, we have been reunited to God and one another, and then, as ambassadors of God, we have been given the ministry of reconciliation.

As a Christian, I am commissioned to be an ambassador of God with a message and ministry of reconciliation. Commission means to be sent on a mission—Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20, and Acts 1 all send Jesus' disciples on mission. Some of you served in the military and were commissioned to a specific task; as Christians we are commissioned to a specific task: to be ambassadors.

Back in 2000, Billy Graham came to San Diego for a crusade, and I was asked to be a liaison with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. There was a gentleman who had served with Billy for decades—the singer who traveled with him. He told a story about Billy meeting the US ambassador to China for dinner decades earlier. Billy asked him, "Tell me exactly what you do as an ambassador." The man said, "I am here on behalf of America to make friends and influence them." That's what an ambassador is: someone who makes friends with people outside his own kingdom in order to share with them. As Christians, citizens of heaven (Philippians), we make friends with those outside the kingdom of God to share the good news of Christ. We carry a message not of war—"you're done for unless you join my side"—but of reconciliation: I was far from God, and Jesus rescued me out of darkness into His marvelous light.

Commissioned, Called, Sent, Gifted, and Empowered

Those connected to God are commissioned to go—Matthew 28, the Great Commission. This isn't only for missionaries, pastors, or youth ministers; it's for all Christians.

We are called to proclaim—Mark 16, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel." Gospel means good news: Jesus died in my place for my sins so I might have relationship with God. Luke 24: repentance and remission of sins should be proclaimed to all nations.

We are sent on a mission—John 20:21, "As the Father has sent me, I also send you."

Many hear this and think, "I can't possibly do that." But here's how I know you can. Those connected to God are gifted for service. 1 Peter 4:10 says "each one has received a gift." Every single Christian has been given gifts by the Holy Spirit to serve God, whether you realize it or not.

Those connected to God are equipped for ministry. He readies, prepares, empowers, and equips us. My calling is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry—work done not just by me, Pastor Mark, or Pastor Nick, but by the whole church.

And those connected to God are empowered supernaturally—Acts 1:8, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me." He enables us by His Spirit to do the work He's called us to.

Practical Ways to Connect with the World

Prayer. 1 Timothy 2: "Supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men... God our Savior desires all men to be saved." The first step of all evangelism is prayer. About a year ago we had people write down names of one to three people who don't know God and pin them to a large target, then commit to pray for them.

Evangelism. Romans 1:16: "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes." Evangelism is simply proclaiming the good news, the work the church has done for 2,000 years.

Charity. Acts 20:35: "It is more blessed to give than to receive." I've given charitably to people who aren't Christians, and they've asked, "Why are you doing this?" I tell them the Lord has called me to give it. They may think I'm crazy—but as Paul said, I'm a fool for Christ.

Compassion. James 2:8: "If you really fulfill the royal law... You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Simple kindness is so lost in our culture that when you're compassionate, people often look at you like you're from another planet.

Good works. Galatians: "As we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially those of the household of faith." People need to see us extending the love of Christ through compassionate good works.

In Matthew 25, Jesus makes clear we will give an account and be rewarded for how we've served the world. He tells of those who gave water to the thirsty, food to the hungry, and clothes to the naked: "Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to me." When we serve others compassionately, we're doing it unto the Lord, and God will reward that service.

Next Steps

God has gifted you for service—prayerfully consider serving, because as you plug into a team you grow in connection with God and with one another. If you've recently put your faith in Christ, or even if you've been a Christian a long time, share your faith with others, invite a friend or family member to church, or join us for a local outreach.

A specific next step is our discipleship class, Discover the Good News, beginning May 1st on Wednesday nights for five weeks. We'll get to know what the Bible teaches and what Jesus taught in the Gospels. I've taken hundreds of people through this class, and even longtime Christians come away saying, "There's a lot I didn't know." You can sign up at ccchurch.com/sod.

We also have our Pentecost celebration and baptism on May 19th—a great evangelistic opportunity to invite people, with a barbecue, baptism, and birthday cake to celebrate the Lord. And our growth groups are a great place to connect; the websites for Discover the Good News, joining a team, and growth groups are all listed on your sheet. Those are some specific next steps you can take after being part of this class.