The CrossWinds Experiment

Welcome to the CrossWinds Experiment.  CrossWinds is a churchplantmissionarychurchthingy (it sounds likes it is spelled) in the Godwin Heights area of of Wyoming MI.  It is an urban area with suburban architecture. This means we have the problems like the gangs and the poverty without the trendy coffee shops and the ubiquitous yuppies.  This area is 60 percent latino,  but there are at least 40 other countries represented here as well.  Right now the biggest influx is people from Burma.   White people are leaving and they don’t really come around so much anymore unless they have  lived here all their life (or need a used car).  At any rate I grew up here.  For a little while I moved away but after our first baby we moved back.  There are a few churches here but honestly most of them died years ago…but they have not noticed yet.  

I am that weird kid that always dreamed of living and ministering in what we call lovingly “the ‘Hood.”  So here I am.  But it is a strange ‘hood for the aforementioned reasons and others.  This is a neighborhood in radical transition.  The middle class and home owners are fleeing and the lower income and the renters are moving in.  In addition to that there is a rapidly accelerating immigrant population,  who come not only from far places but far away from the faith.   Typically this is not the kind of neighborhood the “man” tells you to plant a church in.  Prevailing denominational thought is that the best places to plant churches are in growing middle class neighborhoods,  when you do this,  churches grow,  it does speaking pragmatically work.   The thing is that people in Godwin Heights don’t fit into the categories. They still need Jesus.  So what to do?  In our case we planted a church anyway.  

There are no books,  there is no conference, there has been little support.  This is one big experiment.  We could not find a book on reaching immigrant Mende from Sierra Leone in the bookstore or the Library…So we are writing the book.  Maybe not on pages yet but with our  lives.  It’s the CrossWinds Experiment and it is what this blog is about.  The little and giant steps we have taken and are taking to bring Jesus to Godwin Heights.   This blog is not really about me but about Jesus…and about my partners in crime who claim that Jesus and I have “wrecked their lives.”  They say that because it seems when they spend too much time working close to me it ruins them for the middle class life and the white picket fence dream.  So they tease “Jesus and Dave Drake wrecked my life.”  But I think to the person they would say it has been a beautiful wrecking.  And as much as they tease, I am not the wrecker,  I was just here first.  I had to be wrecked too.   So welcome to this blog. Here we will tell our stories and share our dreams and all the giant mistakes (mostly mine).  The hope is that you will be inspired.  The hope is that you will see Jesus.  The hope is that you too might join the Fellowship of the Wrecked.