Church Review - Crossroads Christian Church

Crossroads Christian Church
6450 S Highway 360
Arlington, TX 76015
(817) 557-2277
www.crossroadschristian.net

This is going to be a slightly different kind of review. I visited this church twice: once on a Wednesday right before Easter, and again today. I didn't stay for the service today, but I did drop in on their singles group. So this review is going to be a composite of two visits.

Crossroads Christian Church is big. It's huge! If it's not a megachurch, it is verging on being so. CCC has a lot of land. I don't know how much but there is a large main building, several smaller buildings, and a new sports complex going in. There are several parking lots and some considerable driveways that are verging on roads in their own rights. The traffic is bad enough that the city of Grand Prairie sends officers for traffic control.

The first thing I noticed about this church was their website. It is very modern, quite complete, and updated often. But it's the content that interested me. First, they emphasize that their entire facility is completely paid for, and the church is debt free. In fact the website goes out of its way to proclaim their debt freedom. Second, they advertise multiple singles groups. There's a group for highschool, college, 25 to early 30s, and on up from there. Of course, being 31, I'm interested in the 25-early 30s.

Turning in to their facility, it is obvious that this church has a lot of money. And I mean A LOT. Probably several million. There is a fountain between a divided driveway as one turns into the church property from the highway. The main building is two stories. It has a central sanctuary, a big chappel/common area, several foyers (one at each corner of the building), a fountain in the main foyer, a large train set for the kids, and a bookstore right up front.

Shops in church catch my immediate attention, and I always wonder about churches that operate businesses on their property. I don't see how a church can square operating its own business with Christ chasing out the money changers from the temple. On the Wednesday I was there, I took a stroll around that shop. The first thing I noticed is that, right up front, they have a centrally located kiosk where they are selling several books that the pastor has written, along with some other books by two other authors. Together, all three authors (the pastor and the other two, whom I forget) are concerned with one thing: money and Christianity. Among the titles I noticed were: being debt free, being wealthy and a Christian, and giving to the church. In other words: MONEY.

I must say, CCC reeks of money. Today, when I got there and walked around, I noticed that in each foyer was a registration station, manned by at least two and sometimes three people, taking down information for church records, and printing out a specially made label with the person's name and sometimes class or classes they were going to. Being a software engineer, I know that a system like that usually concerns a central database, special printers and media for those printers. Development probably ran upwards of $100k, and it probably costs in excess of $5k per Sunday to run it. These are, what are called, WAGs in the software business, but seeing it is no less than impressive. It's also a little scary and foreboding.

Two more things that I noticed also fall into the category of scary and foreboding. At the Wednesday night service I noticed armed police officers patrolling inside the church building. It made me glad that I'm a CHL holder, but it also made me think that I should be armed if I come to this church. This morning when I was sitting in the classroom, I noticed that there was a security camera in the classroom. I can only conclude that there are some security issues or some paranoia running around this church.

The singles group had about twenty bodies in it including myself. About the only good thing I can say about it is that it's large. The teaching was dismal as was the interaction. It was dismal for two reasons. The teacher based his lesson on a bunch of premises that are easily debatable (and by no means settled), and the other students had no clue about the underlying premises. I was bombarded by so many fallacies in the lesson that about half way through the session, I had completely checked out. When the class let out I beat a hasty retreat to my truck and went home.

I didn't stay for the service, so let me describe the Wednesday night service. The sanctuary has no pews or linked chairs: it has movie theatre-style seating. There is a big stage, a big choir loft, and balconies running around the entire perimeter save for above the stage. There were five high-end digital TV cameras that I noticed, and they were actively used in the service. This church as the typical modern projector/screen combination and eschews hymnals, bulletins and Bibles. The songs were on the line of traditional/modern, so nothing earth-shattering there. The pastor's sermon consisted of speculating on Revelation and the end times. I say speculating because I've heard the same material over and over again for years interpreted in different ways to mean many different things. I checked out pretty quickly and marked it down as unimpressive.

This is another church that is not on my revisit list, but in some ways I wish it was. To have eighteen singles (two were engaged) in the same room is exciting to me, but the baggage that comes with the class is too much, and the church leaves me with way too many question marks to feel comfortable. I don't know where I'll go next, but I guess I get to keep looking.