A Creation Story

         This is a story of beginnings and new beginnings.

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” [Genesis 1:1-2]

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” [John 1:1]

As our Creator burst forth with the power of love, setting all creation into motion throughout over 13.7 billion years, that power of love has been at work in and through the person of Jesus even to this very day through our fellowship.

Part of the DNA of Christ Crossman UMC is to be a church on the edge. Crossman ME Church grew out of Fairfax Chapel, which began meeting around 1770. It was at Fairfax Chapel that Harry Hoosier, a black servant of Francis Asbury, was first witnessed preaching to blacks, mostly slaves.

         When the Civil War tore about the fabric of the United States, Fairfax Chapel was also torn apart. After the war, seventeen persons who had been opposed to slavery formed what became Crossman ME Church in 1872. As a “northern” church, it was definitely on the edges of a still predominantly southern society in Falls Church. Less politically, socially, and financially connected with the dominant society, the impetus of Crossman was to serve the community and the world.

In the 1940s, a group of persons from Cherrydale Church in Arlington began meeting as the Lee Mission. Serving the community and the world shaped the mission of what came to be called Christ Methodist Church. Both congregations grew with the post-World War II population boom.

In the mid-60s the population began to shift to the outer suburbs of the metro area. At first, the shift did not seem noticeable to those who were active in the congregations. They continued in their faithful gathering for worship and working in service to their communities. It was not until the shift and decline had been going on for over thirty years that either congregation began to realize that they had to make some serious decisions about how to be faithful and fruitful with shrinking numbers and resources.

At Christ Church, a few members realized that without a new paradigm their mission would soon become, as one member put it, “give us money to keep our doors open.” They knew that this was not true mission as the Body of Christ and began looking for a way to change that paradigm. They reached out to Crossman Church proposing a merger. In June of 1997, these two expressions of Methodismjoined forces.

For the first few years, all missions of both predecessor bodies were continued along with new avenues of mission. This began to prove unwieldy since the numbers of persons able and willing to serve had not greatly increased. Deaths and retirement moves took their tolls. It became obvious that continuing to function as we had for decades was not going to be the way to be a vibrant, fruitful fellowship for the 21^st century.

While building on the faithfulness of those who had gone before, we chose to take note of their essence, and not simply their style. Worship became more participatory and involved newer styles of music. With the dynamic leadership of our lay leaders, we became more willing to struggle with questions being asked by young adults in the society.

After receiving numerous proposals to redevelop our property to include some form of retail, Christ Crossman discerned that we needed to take the initiative ourselves. In 2012, the congregation established a goal to work towards building a residence for persons with intellectual disabilities either on our property or adjacent to it.

The fellowship of Christ Crossman sees our role as faithful stewards of God’s creation taking shape in our care of creation, in our partnership with differently-abled persons, and in welcoming, and accepting, all of God’s children to the Table. That Table is not just centered in our sanctuary. We take it out to edges of our world with us each week as the witnesses of the One who said, “See, I am making all things new…I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” [Revelation 21:5, 6]