I'm in Missouri this week, all week. It looks like I'm heading to Minneapolis next week for a few days at least.

I've been thinking a lot about the church over the past two days. It started with an interesting conversation I had with Nate and Madeline. It was Sunday morning and we were getting ready for church, and we started talking about why we love Crossroads and how it's part of the overall church that Jesus called the his bride. We talked about how our church was made up of people that are different colors, sizes and ages and how our church loves people so well - all of this being what makes the bride beautiful. Later that day at church we had our intergenerational service, where it's adults and kids together, doing worship. It was especially unique today because we were in the commons area of the high school and had church "in the round" as opposed to facing the stage in the auditorium. As you looked around, all you saw was this huge group of people - people in different places on their spiritual journey, in their lives - babies, teenagers, adults - all colors, from mobile homes to million dollar homes. What an awesome picture of the chuch. This morning on the plane, I was continuing to read through ROTH and was reading on the transformation of the social dimension of our lives, specifically on the church's role in this transformation. He proceeds to define the characteristics of the church, based on Romans 12:1-21. The list includes 22 characteristics, such as "Letting love be completely real, Rejoicing in hope, Living in harmony with each other, Not being haughty and beging devoted to prayer. I sat there astonished as I read through this list, because of how they were such core characteristics of our church. Crossroads isn't perfect, but I think we are moving closer and closer to what the church is supposed to be to this world.