Random fact of the week: the official word for a 250th anniversary is "semiquincentennial." Go ahead and try to say it out loud. I'll wait. I have been talking for a living for decades and I still cannot get through that word twice in a row without needing a glass of water.
America turned 250 this weekend.
That sounds like the kind of sentence that should come with a brass band, a bald eagle flying overhead, and somebody reading something very official in a deep voice. In real life, we celebrated the way most people celebrate a holiday weekend in Indiana: pancakes, errands, parking lot duty, toddler bedtime routines, fireworks, church, food, sweat, and people getting far too competitive over cornhole.
Honestly, that feels about right.
Anniversaries have a way of making you look backward, but they ought to do more than make us sentimental. They ought to make us ask better questions. What are we carrying forward? What are we building for the next generation? What kind of legacy are we leaving behind?
Freedom is a gift, but it is also a responsibility. Faith is a gift, but it is also something we steward. The same is true of church, family, community, and country. You can inherit a story, but at some point, every generation has to decide what they are going to do with it.
That thought stayed with me all weekend.
So here we go - Week 28.
Friday
Friday was Amira day. She spent the whole day with Lolli and Pop Pop, and we started it the only way a day with Amira can properly start: pancakes. First thing in the morning we took her to The Crossings here in Pendleton, and she went straight to work. The girl loves her pancakes. This is not a casual preference. This is a lifestyle. If pancakes were a spiritual gift, she would be operating in the fullness of it.
After breakfast we ran errands and did some shopping, which with a toddler means darting in and out of shops at a pace that would qualify as interval training. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I had one very important stop to make: picking up a Blackstone grill for the church and our Celebrate America cookout. Now, I want to be clear. The grill was for the church. It is a ministry grill. It will be used for ministry purposes. But I am not going to stand here and pretend a man does not feel something standing next to a brand-new Blackstone. Somewhere between the checkout and the parking lot I caught myself planning meals for a griddle I do not even own.
We spent most of the morning moving from shop to shop, then got Amira home and settled for her nap. Around our house, nap time is not a suggestion. It is a sacred window of peace, and wise people do not mess with it.
Once she was settled, I headed to the church to drop off the grill, and then I spent about two hours with a leaf blower getting the parking lot ready for Sunday. Two hours. I now have a personal relationship with every square foot of that lot. Some people pray-walk their property. Apparently I blow-walk mine.
But here is the truth underneath it: at GT we say they see you before they hear you. Before a first-time guest ever hears a note of worship or a word of the message, they see the parking lot. They see whether we cared enough to get ready for them. Excellence honors God and inspires people, and sometimes excellence looks a lot like a tired pastor and a leaf blower on a Friday afternoon.
That evening we got Amira through her bedtime routine and off to sleep, and then DeAnna and I closed out the night watching our neighborhood fireworks show. You are tired, the sky is lighting up, and somewhere nearby somebody has clearly spent more money on fireworks than they told their spouse they were going to spend. Not a bad way to end a day that started with pancakes.
Saturday
Saturday, America turned 250 years old, and the Crawfords honored the occasion by doing absolutely nothing.
That was not an accident. With everything this weekend held, DeAnna and I had made a very wise and deeply spiritual decision earlier in the week: Saturday would hold nothing at all. No plans, no schedule, no darting in and out of anywhere. Danielle came by to pick up LittleBit, and that was the full extent of our social calendar. After that, we just hung around the house and enjoyed the holiday.
I know "we did nothing" is not thrilling blog content. But I have learned something over the years: rest is not laziness. Rest is preparation. Even God rested, and He was not tired. Sometimes the holiest plan on the calendar is a blank space, and with Sunday coming, doing nothing on Saturday was one of the most productive things we did all weekend. Very uneventful day. Zero regrets.
Sunday
What an amazing day Sunday was. It was a long day, but it was full of divine moments, a lot of fun, and one of the most meaningful things we have done as a church in a long time.
We had been gearing up for Celebrate America at GT Church for quite some time, and Sunday it all came together. We had representation from the Anderson City Police Department, the Anderson Fire Department, the Madison County Sheriff's Department, and the Indiana State Police. These are the men and women who run toward what the rest of us run from, and we got to look them in the eye as a church family and say thank you.
And then we did something I will not forget for a long time. We presented every sworn officer in the Madison County Sheriff's Department with a Policeman's Bible, engraved with their name and badge number. Not a generic gift. A Bible with their name on it, because they are not a uniform to us. They are our neighbors. They stand in hard places for this community, and we wanted them to carry something that reminds them the God who keeps this city knows how to keep them too.
The service was amazing. The Gospel Choir sang, and all those weeks of practice showed up in the room. There is something about a gospel choir on Celebrate America weekend that makes you sit up a little straighter and clap a little harder.
The message was called "Enough of the Bad News," out of Romans 8. Here is the heart of it. We are living in a season where every headline, every feed, and every conversation seems designed to feed your fear before it ever feeds your faith. And it is not that the bad news is always fake. Some of it is real. Some of it is painful. It is that if we are not careful, the bad news does not just inform us. It forms us. It shapes how we pray, how we parent, how we lead, and how we see the future. A negative outlook never, ever leads to a positive life.
Faith does not deny the headlines. Faith defies their authority. Our hope is not in Washington, the economy, a party, or a personality. Our hope has a name, and His name is Jesus. Paul asked it plainly: if God is for us, who can be against us? Nothing on his list stopped that promise, depression, disease, and division have not stopped it either. So the challenge was simple: feed your faith and starve your fear. Whatever you feed will grow. Whatever you starve will die. The bad news may be loud, but the Gospel is louder.
Then we went outside, fired up the new Blackstone, and had our cookout. Food, fellowship, bounce houses, shaved ice, cotton candy, and the main event: the cornhole tournament.
The tournament was a great success. I want to say that first, because what I am about to tell you should not take away from that.
I did not bring home the title.
Now, before you feel sorry for me, understand that I actually played extremely well on Sunday. The problem is that I played extremely well for the other team. Over the course of our game, I knocked nine points into the hole for them. Nine. My bags kept hitting their bags and pushing them in, like I was running some kind of assistance ministry. They rode my generosity all the way into the championship. At some point you have to ask yourself whether you are competing or sponsoring.
Some people call that losing. I call it leadership development. I empowered another team to reach its full potential. You are welcome.
We got home Sunday night worn out in the best way. Long day. Full heart.
Closing Thoughts
Week 28 was built around America's 250th birthday, but the thought that stayed with me was bigger than a holiday.
- Legacy is never automatic.
- Freedom is not automatic.
- Faith is not automatic.
- Community is not automatic.
The kind of church we are called to be will not happen because we had a good service, a good meal, or a good event. It happens when people decide to carry the assignment with faithfulness. We can organize a cookout. We can buy a grill. We can blow off a parking lot. We can print programs, plan songs, set up food, honor first responders, give out Bibles, and line up cornhole boards. But if we miss people, we missed the point. People are the assignment.
We can read the headlines. We can watch the news. We can rehearse everything that is wrong with the economy, the culture, and the country. We can let the loudest voice in the nation become the deepest voice in our soul.
Or we can decide that the bad news does not get the final word.
Not over our families. Not over our church. Not over our city. Not over this nation. The flag points to one kind of freedom. The Gospel gives the kind that lasts forever.
Lord, make us a people who feed our faith and starve our fear. Help us pursue revival, build authentic community, release God-given purpose, and leave a legacy that impacts generations.
And Lord, before next year's tournament, please teach my cornhole bags whose team they are on.
Above All Continue In Love And Excellence.
