Our Story
In every little town in America, there is a building where a church used to meet. It was a place that had hopes of changing themselves, the community and the world, but somewhere along the way, that little church lost its way, and with it, the opportunity to impact the world around it.
But, it’s not just churches.
In small towns everywhere, there are shuttered doors and windows of businesses, civic centers, schools and organizations of every kind that could still be changing the world, but something is missing.
What if there was a church that believed in these small places. A church that remembered its calling to care for those outside its walls. A church that passionately believed that the best thing they could do for their community was help create a better community.
CrossPoint Church hopes to be that kind of church, one that makes a difference in every community where it exists. And, as an expanding rural network of churches, CrossPoint sees itself in the role of being a catalyst for engaging and strengthening rural communities from the people on up.
As a neighborhood church with more than 50 years of community service that began expanding into a rural network in 2006, CrossPoint Church is a network of people committed to improving the communities and lives of rural places.
And that commitment is more than just words.
It’s seen at the personal level in people like Ryan Booth, who attended services as a teenager with a storied past and legal issues as a young man. But, through several years of community involvement and leadership development ranging from one-on-one mentoring to inclusion on a church planting team, Ryan now pastors CrossPoint Salina and regularly reproduces the life-changing work he experienced in others.
For example, you just have to look down the road in Lindsborg, Ks, for the name of Joel Beckner to see the example of lives transforming lives. After spending a year learning from and with Ryan in Salina, Joel has now moved to this new rural community to establish the same kind of work he witnessed with Ryan. Joel is now reproducing that model in Lindsborg where he is raising a family, building a church, and impacting a community to which he has devoted his life.
And the commitment of CrossPoint Church to strengthening communities can be seen at the small group level as well. The church stopped offering traditional Sunday school in the early 2000s and established a network of in-home gatherings.
The purpose was to teach community, train in community-driven benevolence and care, and mobilize small groups for missional work. Each group adopts a mission to make their community a better place and then works together to make it happen.
CrossPoint Grow Groups are aiding in school classrooms, supporting first responders, engaging in home and lawn care for the elderly, providing for and supporting single parents; the list is endless! The creativity of CrossPoint Church Grow Groups reaching places they have identified is a precious tool in the box of community engagement.
And the commitment of CrossPoint Church to strengthening communities can be seen at the network level. Whether it is CrossPoint Hutchinson adopting Faris Elementary School by providing meals and support for teachers, hosting events and even meeting needs identified by school administrators. This low-income school sees students who desperately need new shoes or shoes that fit. For the last two years, every student has received a custom pair of shoes for Christmas: sized to them, in the color and style they choose. Additionally, they received hats, mittens, socks and other valuable cold-weather items. It was heart-wrenching to see children refuse to take a recess on the unboxing day because they did not want their new shoes to get dirty.
Or, maybe the commitment of CrossPoint Church to strengthening communities can be seen at CrossPoint Hays, where Pastor Micah Sanderson and Cross Point Church members received the 2021 KHSA Excellence in Community Service for their continual work with Early Childhood Connections (ECC). In the words of ECC, “We are very fortunate to have them as our neighbors! Thank you for all you do to support the program, the staff and the children!”
Making a difference takes more than a desire; it takes a plan. CrossPoint Church and the Harvester Foundation have the desire, and they have been working on a plan for nearly two decades. In that time, they have strengthened and developed 14 different communities from the individual level to the small group level and onto the network level.
We desire to take this impact further by continuing to change lives, mobilize community involvement, and strengthen existing community pieces and places.
How will history remember CrossPoint Church and the Harvester Foundation?
We believe in rural communities and we believe the rural church can exponentially grow the potential of the people, families and businesses in those communities. We are working to establish a legacy of communities who believe they are better because we are there.
Will you make that kind of impact with us?