In keeping with the centennial theme
that the City of Turlock is celebrating this year, I
thought it would be appropriate to write about a church
that has been around for over a 100 years. Crossroads
Church an Evangelical Free Church has been a stamp in
the Turlock community for quite some time. They started
off as Evangelical Free Church back in the early 1900’s
and are still very much alive today with dynamic ministries
and a new name. According to their website, their philosophy
is quite simple. Relationships build people and people
build the church.
Under Dr. John’s leadership,
Crossroads Church has grown to be one of the largest
congregations within the city limits of Turlock. We
requested to interview Dr. John Stensether, but due
to a 2 month sabbatical, he was unable to do it. However,
we had the opportunity to talk about Dr. John’s
vision for Crossroads church with Senior Associate Pastor
Morri Elliot.
I really enjoyed interviewing Pastor
Morri because we share the same passion for worshipping
the Lord and leading people into his throne room. Pastor
Morri knows that he was called by God to serve under
Dr. John Stensether. The book, God’s Armor Bearer,
talks about how Elisha’s double-portion ministry
had its beginnings by being a servant to Elijah. His
heart remained humble because there was no ulterior
motive. He wasn’t there to “climb the ladder”
to success. Pastor Morri has made the decision to obey
God at whatever cost, and knows God will reward him.
US-Tell us about your
family.
PM- I have three kids. They’re
all grown: a 24 year old son, a 22 year old daughter
and a 20 year old son. My 24 year old is married and
living in Sacramento. He is a school teacher. He and
his wife have a 6 month old son, so I’m a grandfather...Papa
Morri. Then Stephanie and Jared are in school, so they
still live at home. I met my wife in Junior High. We
got together in junior high and got married right after
high school.
US- What is your ministry
background?
PM- I was called into the ministry
march 3rd, 1980. I was at a conference in Denver Colorado.
God woke me up in the middle of the night and told me,
you will be a pastor. I remember waking my wife up and
telling her that God told me I was going to be a pastor,
and she said to me I know. So apparently he told her
first. So I came back and at the time I was attending
the Nazarene church in Denair. It was on Gratton Road
then. I went to Nazarene Bible College in Colorado Springs.
I was a youth pastor in Colorado Springs and Oakdale.
Then I went to work for Youth for Christ in this area.
Then in 1994 I came on staff here at CrossRoads as the
junior high pastor. Then in 1996 we started a contemporary
worship service and I had some music back ground so
I did that. What was supposed to be 6 months turned
into 12 years leading worship here. We have four worship
services. We have a traditional service, a contemporary
service that I lead and then the edge service which
is geared toward 20’s and thirty’s. However,
we don’t put any age stamps on our services. Anybody
can go to any of the services.
US- Because you pour
into others mainly, how do you keep yourself spiritually
fed?
PM- One of the best things that I do
is the time I spend preparing for the worship service
on Sunday. Even when I am picking out the music, it’s
like my own personal worship time. Because I am just
going through songs, I never want to lead the congregation
in a song when I don’t understand the song, so
I’m not just listening for a song that’s
easy for the congregation or a song that sounds cool,
I’m really looking at the content and the meaning
of the song. Are these words relatable? Every once in
a while a song comes along that you hear it one time
and you go, “Oh yeah!” Like How Great Is
Our God. You hear that song one time, and it takes you
to the throne. It works out great because it’s
what I do for a living. Sometimes our rehearsals are
absolutely incredible. We have some incredible worship
times when were together on Saturday night getting ready
for Sunday morning.
US-So why did the
name of your church change?
PM- That’s an easy question.
Evangelical Free Church, that’s the name of our
denomination. When someone would ask, what’s the
name of your church? We would say Evangelical Free Church.
Then they would ask, what denomination is that? Again…
Evangelical Free Church. It can be a little confusing.
The other confusing thing is when we would hire a new
secretary; she would have a hard time saying, Evangelical.
Evangelical is a big word, it’s a churchy word,
and not very many people understand what it means. Then
you look at the words Evangelical Free, What does that
mean? Does it mean that we are free from evangelicals?!
Kind of like caffeine free or sugar free! The word”free”
in evangelical free means free from government control.
That’s why the folks who started this denomination
came from Norway and Sweden. They were escaping government
control. They wanted to be free from that. We wanted
to make sure that we kept our heritage. So our official
name is Cross Roads Church an Evangelical Free Church.
It’s kind of like giving yourself a first name.
We gave ourselves a first name that was easier to say
and relate to. Some people thought that we were leaving
the denomination. We never had any intention of leaving
the denomination. It was just giving ourselves a first
name.
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US-What do you do as a Senior Associate?
PM- We have seven Pastors, six ministry
assistants, four custodians, so my job as a Senior Associate
is being in charge of the business side of the church.
I actually have two sides of my job; a business side and
a ministry side. The business side, I am the boss with
the exception of the Senior Pastor. I try to make sure
everything around here runs smooth, so that our senior
pastor can pray, preach, and visit. If I can keep him
from having to handle all the little things, he can pray
preach and visit our people. That’s my goal. If
I’m doing my job good, he can do that. In a church
this size, there are a lot of people that need prayer
and visiting, so that really helps him be able to get
to hospitals and prepare his sermons. It takes a lot of
time to prepare a sermon every week. It’s incredible.
I direct everything the way our Senior Pastor feels led.
I’m not making decisions on my own. I’m always
making sure that I am heading in the direction of his
vision. I know what his vision is for the church and I
try to lead us in that direction. That is one side (of
my job), then I also overlook music and tech. We are televised
and have a 24/7 radio station. I think the key to why
I have been here so long is because I know my place. I
am here because God called me, but I also know that God
called Dr. John Stensether to be the Senior Pastor. I’m
not going to try to lead this church in a different direction
than what God told Dr. John. God isn’t going to
tell me and not him. So if all of a sudden I think, this
is the direction I think we need to go, and he doesn’t
think so, then I’m wrong. That’s all there
is to it. That’s how you relate to a Senior Pastor.
He’s “the Guy.” He is the man of God.
US- Give us the vision
for Cross Roads Church and how it has changed over the
last ten years.
PM- Wow, we have had a lot of change!
When Pastor John came here in 1980, the church ran about
300 people and it was a very traditional church. In 1996
we started the contemporary service. Our services were
getting full so we started another service. We remodeled
our fellowship hall and started the contemporary service.
We started that with about a 100 people and that quickly
grew to about 400 people. We kept bumping up to the ceiling
where we didn’t have room for everyone. So we kept
trying to figure out how to solve that. We talked about
building on a new property, remodeling the current sanctuary
to get more seats, or building a new sanctuary on the
current land. We decided to switch to the venue system.
I don’t know if you are familiar with the venue
system, but what happens here on Sunday is at 9am in the
sanctuary, we have the traditional service and at the
same time in the fellowship hall we have the acoustic
edge. It’s a live band in the fellowship hall and
a live band in the sanctuary. When Pastor John gets up
to preach, we flip a button, and he comes up on a big
screen in the fellowship hall. At eleven o’ clock
we have the same thing happen, but in the sanctuary, it’s
the contemporary service with the fellowship hall still
being the acoustic edge. If you are in the ministry center,
you see the sermon on live video.
US- what do you have
in your I Pod now?
PM- In my car right now, I’m listening
to Gateway Worship. Then my last playlist I listen to
has Lincoln Brewster, Desperation Band, and Gateway Worship.
I love it when an artist turns an old hymn into a contemporary
worship song. For instance, My Savior, My God by Aaron
Shoust is actually an old hymn that he took the verses
from and wrote chords for. Then the chorus he wrote himself.
US- Before you were
called to the Ministry, what did you want to do with your
life?
PM- I was going to take over my father’s
print shop. He owned Harders Print Shop in Turlock, which
was a family-owned business. I started working in the
print shop when I was 10 years old. I worked there until
I was 24. Now my sister and her husband have the print
shop.
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