When Bethany Comes to Crossings

By Rob Turner

God works in space and time. In other words, he works in real places. The Garden of Eden, the mountain of Abraham’s sacrifice, the defeat of 850 false prophets on Mt. Carmel, and the valley of Elah (where a giant once fell very, very hard) were specific places God moved in redemptive history. I know two other places where the Lord has and continues to do great things—3083 Cedarmore Road and 3043 Beal Road in Central and Western Kentucky. You may know them as J-Creek and Cedarmore, the camps of Crossings Ministries.  

Personally, the ministry of Crossings is woven into the fabric of my life. I met and served with a girl who became my wife over thirty years ago, and I have preached multiple times at Crossings since its first year. To me, Crossings is a modern-day Bethany.

Bethany stood about two miles from Jerusalem and served as a place of ministry, respite, and friendship. Speaking of friendship, Bethany was the hometown of three close friends of Jesus: Martha, Mary, and Lazarus (John 12:1–3). These friends of Jesus provide at least three ways God moves in this place we call Crossings.

The Work at Crossings

When Martha appears in Scripture, especially in Luke 10:38-42, she is working. She even gets frustrated at Jesus for not compelling Mary to help her work around the house. Every Crossings staffer can attest that lots of work goes into camp. It’s hot work. Summers at the camp properties can even rival the sun’s surface temperature. This presents an almost comical presence of water bottles, which I am not sure are cleaned every night. Tan lines from sunglasses and Chacos appear and don’t quite go away until Christmas. And the sweating . . . the unbelievable amount of sweating. Combine that sweat with the heat, and you have a cloud of smells that could possibly cure (or create) many diseases.

It’s hard work, and many Crossings staffers will say, “It’s the hardest summer you’ll ever love.” To get up at an early hour and to be “on” for students and adults is not easy. The pivots made during a typical day at camp are unreal: morning devotions, morning celebration, Bible study, and recreation. These are intertwined with showers, meals, and really trying hard to stay awake during the nightly sermon. Getting up even earlier, preparing food, and cleaning while the lights and screams of excitement occur in another building is nothing less than being a servant. And that’s hard work.

Still, the most challenging work isn’t the physical. It’s the emotional and spiritual toll that really gets you. Like comforting a weeping student who tells you he just learned his parents are divorcing. Or the popular cheerleader who shares for the first time about her anorexia. It’s learning that the student you had last summer passed away before camp this summer. It’s also the student who came to camp hating God and leaves camp in the same condition. Or maybe it’s hearing about your teammate’s wonderful week in her Bible study, while the students you had could not have cared less. It’s the thinking that you came to camp to “serve the Lord,” but realizing that the Lord wanted to do a work in you. That’s the real work. But the joy fueling that work creates a lifelong community over a shared bond from serving in these physical and spiritual trenches.

The Worship at Crossings

Mary, the sister of Martha, worshiped at the feet of Jesus. This posture toward the supremacy of Jesus compelled her to break jars of fragrance that filled the room. But she’s not the only one. It’s the Lord’s design to occasionally bring people to a peculiar place and at particular times to do beautiful and sometimes painful things. Jacob at Peniel. David in the wilderness. Israel in the desert. Paul in Arabia. Jesus in Gethsemane. There’s also the notable account of the prophet Isaiah, who experienced the majestic worship of Angels crying Holy, Holy, Holy, and then instantly felt the searing heat upon his sinful lips from a coal ignited by the Lord’s holiness and glory. Worship burns.

Students and leaders often talk of being “blown away” by worship at Crossings. It’s actually not mind-blowing but heart-burning. The schedule of the worship “service” is simply a capstone to the worship that occurs all day. Worship happens when church vans arrive and receive over-the-top encouragement and prayer before they hit the main property. It occurs when staffers sit with students who have never had someone seek them out. Worship happens when conversations are marked with gospel intentionality, and everyone considers each other as image bearers of God. Staffers witness to hope, and when joy is as real as the empty tomb, that worship burns . . . or breaks jars.

Beholding the supremacy of Jesus will break jars of what you once believed was highly valuable. Many staffers have had particular career goals, but those jars got broken at camp. Many pastors came to camp with a solidified ministry plan for their church, but the Lord broke a tight grip on that jar. Students come to camp with all sorts of lesser priorities, and those jars end up broken at the feet of Jesus.

The Waking at Crossings

Frankly, I cannot imagine having a meal with a man who just died. Of course, that was Lazarus. He died, then woke at the command of Jesus. For the past 25 years, Crossings has watched dead people respond to God’s Word and “crossover from death to life” (John 5:24).  Think of the Lazarus student who came back from camp changed forever. Think of the Lazarus adult who confessed secret sin for the first time and went home no longer defined by sin but filled with the Holy Spirit. And think of the individual who came to camp with plans for self-harm but went away with Gospel courage to live again, and again.

Please remember that Jesus was in Bethany to rest, not stop. He had more work to do. That work on the cross and the empty tomb has set us free. That work continues today in particular places—3083 Cedarmore Road and 3043 Beal Road in Central and Western Kentucky, are just a couple.