A Brief History of Crossroads Church
Presented at the February 2024 Wisconsin Classis Meeting by Bette L
To God be The Glory for the things he has done at Crossroads over more than 60 years. That is what I am thinking, as I recall memories of my life at Crossroads.
My life, as part of the family of God, began in 1961 at Madison Christian Reformed Church. My husband Bernie, as some of you know, passed away in December of this past year. He joined Madison CRC in 1959 as a student at the U.W. We soon began to realize how blessed we were to be a part of the community of believers. We were a very close-knit family. When someone needed to have help with building a garage, which we did, our church family showed up to help. We had tremendous fun times at church campouts. Madison CRC became a church as a result of the vision and love for the Lord, by Jerry and Pearl N. They worked diligently to make that happen and, to keep it going, they invited people who were new to the church to their home many Sundays for dinner after church. Jerry was the administrator of the Oregon Prison Farm, and he would have the Madison CRC baseball team come out to the farm with our families, to play baseball with the men who worked at the farm. All of this happened through the working of the Holy Spirit and His love for his people.
In or around 1992, we moved to our present building, and we changed the name to Crossroads, a ministry of the CRC. The memories I have here in our present building are many. The Lord showed us many times how he was working to fulfill His will at Crossroads. We had a very active group of volunteers, whom the Lord gifted with spiritual gifts that enabled us to have Sunday School and Vacation Bible School, which included not only the children of members but many children from the neighborhood. One of the students in Sunday School, Heero H, is today a missionary in Ukraine in the midst of the war. He and his family and his family of God in Ukraine, are often in our prayers. At one point, I am told, we had close to 200 people in our congregation when Pastor Larry V was our pastor. At that time, God provided us with gifted people to enable us to have a choir with Roger D as our director. We enjoyed tremendously giving Cantatas that brought many family, friends and people from the community. We also were blessed to have the Bethel Bible Series. Pastor Tom H and Mary V taught the course to us. I will always remember the theme, “Blessed to be a Blessing”.
At the Madison CRC, we started the Coffee Break Ministry with the Lord’s help. Because of the Holy Spirit’s working, it grew in numbers so that, at one time, we had more women and children from the community than from our church. We were so blessed to study the Bible with some of the Coffee Break lessons written by Sylvia B from Geneva Church, and we thank you Sylvia for that. It was my honor to be a Little Lambs teacher, and I must say, even though I taught them about how much Jesus loved them. they taught me about faith. They were so eager to believe all that they learned about Jesus, with no questions asked.
I could go on and on about how we saw the Lord working at Crossroads as I recall the memories, but one thing I know for sure, as we are on this journey with him, is that He is Lord and He will continue to be faithful and will fulfill His will for Crossroads. We grieve with HOPE in the Lord, our loving faithful, eternal God. Thank you Lord for what you are going to do at Crossroads.