Crossroads Baptist Church

	A History and a Vision

	On Sunday, September 6, 1981, the first service of the Northwest Baptist Temple was held in a banquet room of the Howard Inn in Northwest Washington. There were eighty-one people in attendance. Pastor Lou Baldwin and family, along with a handful of others, had been commissioned by the Fairfax Baptist Temple in Virginia to start this new work.

	The church met in that location for about eighteen months. After searching unsuccessfully for a building, the Lord led Pastor Baldwin and his small congregation to relocate across the Potomac in Northern Virginia.

	The renamed “Crossroads Baptist Church” held its first services on May 8, 1983, in a storefront at 5848 Columbia Pike, in Bailey's Crossroads, Virginia. Shortly thereafter, they purchased a freestanding two-story building nearby and relocated in September of 1983 to 3530 Moncure Avenue.

	By 1987 Sunday School and worship attendance had increased dramatically, leading to the decision to remodel the second level and add partitions to create more room for classes. Two full-time staff members were added that year.

	After seven years in the Moncure avenue facility, the need for more space was urgent. In August of 1990, the church purchased 1.1 acres of land at 5811 Hoffmans Lane. This site, approximately 500 yards from the Moncure facility, was fully developed to include a 20,000 square-foot building with a beautiful 800-seat auditorium and ministry space. The church occupied this facility in November of 1993, and added three additional staff members.

	Over the years the church has become a lighthouse in the national capital area and around the world. Outreach ministries include Soul-winning Visitation, Deaf, Single Adults, Single Parents, Bus, Seasoned Saints, New Converts, Discipleship, Children's Church, Youth, Jail and Homeless. The 500-member congregation currently gives over $300,000 annually to missions, and supports nearly two hundred missionaries and projects around the globe. In August of 1995, the Child Development Center (CDC) was launched as a full-service Christian day care with a capacity for eighty children. Crossroads Christian Academy and the COEBA Institute of Theology were founded as vehicles to provide Christian education from the cradle to adulthood.

	Annual church events include the Couples Retreat, the COEBA Ladies Conference, a National Singles Conference, a National Youth Conference, the Fall Revival and the Faith-Promise Missions Conference. The Christmas and Spring Productions are full-scale dramatic events incorporating up to one hundred people.

	The Conference on Evangelizing Black America (COEBA) is a Crossroads ministry/organization developed to raise awareness and support for church planting in black communities. Each summer, the church hosts the COEBA National Gathering which draws upwards of 2,000 people. Nineteen new churches have been birthed from Crossroads via the COEBA effort.

	Services at Crossroads are “Christ-exalting and congregationally exuberant.” Visitors often describe the church as being one of the most warm and welcoming that they have experienced. The Crossroads Choir ministers in every service and has encouraged many around the world through various traveling events and professional recordings.

	Pastor Lou Baldwin’s preaching and teaching has been said to be “direct” and “practically profound”, yet delivered with great compassion. His consistency and uncompromising example bears a central theme of challenging people to be the best that they can be for God.