At 97 East Road in Los Alamos, New Mexico, Crossroads Bible Church is a medium-size evangelical Bible congregation of about 500 adults, youth, and children. It is known for verse-by-verse biblical teaching, contemporary congregational worship, and a gospel-centered commitment to making disciples in Los Alamos and among all peoples. The church belongs to the Christian and Missionary Alliance, a connection that shapes its missionary emphasis, while Sunday school, children and youth programs, small groups, and men's and women's ministries create a broad ministry life.
Crossroads exists to glorify God by making disciples of all peoples through the gospel of Jesus Christ. It aims for all its people to become disciple-making disciples of Jesus and describes itself as a community of believers from different backgrounds who are passionate about the glory of God, the gospel, and making disciples. Senior Pastor Mark Lincoln summarizes the shared aim as knowing God through Jesus Christ.
Ninety Minutes of Singing, Scripture, and Expository Teaching
Crossroads' primary gathering is corporate worship at 10:30 a.m. on Sundays. The service lasts about 90 minutes and has a deliberate two-part shape. Contemporary-styled congregational singing leads the first half, alongside Scripture readings, prayer, an offering, and ministry and mission highlights. The second half is given to teaching and preaching the Bible, normally verse by verse through books of Scripture. People are available at the front of the auditorium after the service to pray with anyone who has a need.
Crossroads calls this expository preaching. The church describes that approach as clear and uncompromised, exegetically rigorous and contextually faithful, with teaching that follows the unfolding biblical story and its culmination in Jesus Christ. The goal is not only accurate biblical interpretation; the church also emphasizes application through faithful teaching, small groups, Christian education, personal discipleship, and other ministries.
For a first visit, the essentials are simple: Sunday school begins at 9:00 a.m., worship begins at 10:30 a.m., and the service lasts about 90 minutes. For those joining remotely, Sunday worship is available through the church's Vimeo livestream. Recorded messages are organized in a sermon archive that reaches back to 1970 and can be sorted by Scripture, date, series, speaker, and topic. The congregation also distributes its preaching through a podcast feed.
Sunday School for Children, Youth, and Adults
Sunday School begins at 9:00 a.m., before corporate worship, and gathers children from toddlers through sixth grade in age-specific classes. During the school year, running from the Sunday after Labor Day through the Sunday before Memorial Day weekend, the children's classes use the Truth:78 curriculum. Students in grades 7 through 12 have a separate youth Sunday School class at 9:00 a.m. in the lower-level multi-purpose room. Adults gather for Adult Sunday School at the same hour.
Crossroads' adult teaching record includes classes on biblical counseling, biblical theology, doctrine of Scripture, Old and New Testament surveys, church history, prayer, faith and science, and the reliability of the Bible. Those classes seek to equip adults to interpret and apply Scripture. Sunday School also connects to the congregation's wider discipleship life through small groups and personal discipleship.
Care for Children from Nursery through Fourth Grade
During worship, children are dismissed at greeting time for CrossTraining, a ministry designed to introduce children to Christian doctrine through stories, music, prayer, drama, and games. CrossTraining serves kindergarten through first grade and second through fourth grade, with Lifeway ministry materials. It is not offered on the fifth Sunday of each month; on that Sunday, children stay with their parents for the entire service.
For infants through age three, nursery care is provided in the west wing during the morning service. Four-year-olds join a PreK transition class; they gather with families during greeting time and are escorted by nursery volunteers from the west wing hallway to a classroom on the lower level. A cry room can be entered from the west side of the foyer. It is partitioned for nursing mothers, and service audio is piped into the room so parents can see and hear the worship service.
Children's education at Crossroads is meant to do more than occupy a classroom. The stated vision is for young people to set their hope in God, and the children's ministry seeks to nurture faith through biblical teaching, worship, prayer, relationships, service, and the example of adult volunteers. The church also says parents have the primary responsibility to teach and train their children in things of God; its role is to come alongside and equip parents. The children's ministry summarizes its approach as Come, Grow, and Go, joining evangelism, discipleship, and missions.
Youth Discipleship That Reaches Beyond Sunday
Crossroads wants to come alongside families in discipling students into godly, mature, passionate Christ-followers. The youth group meets on Sundays from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m., with a mini-series that focuses on core elements of youth group and gives students space to dig into Scripture and consider daily application. The wider youth ministry includes group Bible studies, one-on-one discipleship, fellowship, accountability groups, service projects, missions, and ministry trips. Associate Pastor Aaron Johnson serves as the youth point of contact. The 9:00 a.m. Sunday School class for grades 7 through 12 provides an additional gathering point during the church's Sunday rhythm.
Small Groups, Men, and Women in the Week
Crossroads has weekly small groups in Los Alamos and White Rock. Each group gathers a consistent set of church members to discuss Scripture and apply it to life, with the aim of cultivating spiritually intentional friendships beyond Sunday worship. The groups meet at different places and times, and newcomers can be connected through members already participating.
Fellowship and accountability among men
Men's Ministry centers on close fellowship among men and the mutual sharpening needed for life as husbands, fathers, and leaders. Its teaching emphasizes the Holy Spirit, spiritual strength, and accountability, and the ministry includes recurring morning and evening Bible studies along with an accountability group. The challenge presented to men is to participate in the opportunities before them and assume their responsibilities.
Three pillars in Women's Ministry
Women's Ministry organizes its work around three aims: Word-Filled Study, Word-Filled Relationships, and Word-Filled Service. Study is intended to build biblical knowledge and skill in Old Testament, New Testament, hermeneutics, and biblical exposition. Fellowship encourages women to participate in one another's lives and apply Scripture to daily life. Service points them toward ministry inside and outside the church for the strengthening of believers and the advance of the gospel. Groups meet at different times through the week in homes, White Rock, and the church. Larger gatherings for women are planned about twice a semester for fellowship, food, and shared conversation, and the ministry also plans retreats in odd-numbered years.
A Church Oriented Around the Great Commission
Crossroads is a member of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, whose predominant emphasis is the growth of self-propagating Great Commission churches that spread the gospel among nations. Crossroads calls a healthy church missions oriented and supports ministries both locally and internationally. At the same time, it encourages members to contribute directly to missionaries and mission agencies rather than routing all support through the church. Direct support helps members remain close to the people and ministries they fund and stay informed about the work.
One major expression of support is the Alliance's Great Commission Fund. Crossroads supports missions by giving to this central fund, which finances missionaries so they can concentrate on ministry rather than operate as independent fundraisers. The fund supports international workers and their families, creative-access workers in places where traditional gospel workers cannot go, medical ministries including care for people with HIV/AIDS, workers in ethnic and multi-ethnic communities across the United States, church planting in the United States and around the world, and theological training for national church leaders. A central fund also allows people and resources to be redeployed as new fields open and emergencies arise. Giving to the Great Commission Fund is available online.
Each year, Crossroads observes missions with a Missions Conference scheduled around the arrival of visiting Alliance partners from abroad. The three-to-five-day gathering combines times of prayer, worship, presentations by the partners, and personal conversation with them. Activities can include a women's prayer time, a luncheon with a partner as speaker, and an international potluck or catered dinner. The conference is intended to teach church members about missions, increase awareness of needs and opportunities, celebrate what God has done, pray for partners and the international church, and renew commitment to the Great Commission.
Crossroads for Orphans extends that commitment into orphan-focused ministry. The ministry seeks to proclaim the gospel in the context of orphan care, equip local and global orphan-centered ministries, support and celebrate adopting families in the Crossroads community, teach the church and community about orphan and adoption issues, and motivate believers toward practical action. It includes adoption among the forms of orphan-centered ministry it seeks to equip, giving the church's missions emphasis a specific expression of care for children and families.
The Bible and the Gospel at the Center
Crossroads identifies itself as a Bible church because it affirms the authority and centrality of Scripture as God's word for all of life and ministry. Its doctrinal affirmations state that the Old and New Testaments are verbally inspired by God and inerrant in the original writings, serving as the complete revelation of God's will and the rule for faith and practice. The church affirms one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, coequal and coeternal, and a saving work centered on Jesus Christ.
- Expository preaching. Crossroads is committed to clear, uncompromised exposition that is exegetically rigorous and contextually faithful, teaching both Testaments within the unfolding biblical story and its culmination in Jesus Christ.
- Gospel-centered ministry. The gospel of salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the central message of Scripture. The church believes in good works that benefit society while holding that making disciples through the gospel is the church's primary and unique task.
- Reformed theology. Crossroads affirms the five solas: salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to God's glory alone, and revealed in the Bible alone. It describes itself as essentially Reformed-Calvinistic and emphasizes the doctrines of grace.
- A missions focus. The Great Commission is affirmed as the church's unique and primary purpose in this age, with missions directed toward reaching nations and peoples with the gospel. The church is committed to advancing the gospel and planting churches among unreached peoples.
- Elder leadership. Spiritual leadership is to be exercised by biblically qualified men called elders, pastors, or overseers. These leaders jointly shepherd the congregation rather than relying on majority congregational opinion or a single pastor.
More specifically, Crossroads teaches that Jesus Christ is both God and man, died sacrificially and substitutionally for sin, rose bodily, and will return personally and bodily to judge and establish his kingdom. The Holy Spirit indwells, empowers, sanctifies, gives gifts, and convicts the world of sin. Human beings are born in sin and separated from God; salvation comes only through regeneration by the Holy Spirit. Christ's redemptive work and resurrection are the ground of justification, and salvation is God's free gift of grace through faith alone in Christ alone. Those who repent and believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior receive forgiveness, eternal life, and membership in God's family. The church also affirms bodily resurrection, everlasting blessedness for believers, and everlasting judgment for the unbeliever.
The People Serving at 97 East Road
Senior Pastor Mark Lincoln began serving in Los Alamos in the summer of 1995, when the congregation was known as Christ Community Bible Church. Pastor Parker Landis joined in 2013 to help oversee missions and outreach. Associate Pastor Aaron Johnson leads youth discipleship. Children's work has several defined coordinators: Liz Harrison leads Children's Ministry, Linda Vander Wiel coordinates Sunday School, Jimmy Fung leads CrossTraining, and Anna Haynes coordinates the nursery. Together, these roles support the church's aim of helping adults, youth, and children grow in their relationship with Christ.
Crossroads is not organized around a single pastor or majority rule by the congregation. Its elder-leadership conviction places spiritual oversight with biblically qualified men, described in the Bible as elders, pastors, or overseers, who jointly shepherd the congregation.
Fellowship Around the Table
Fellowship also has a monthly table in the Salt Shaker Dinners, usually held on Friday evenings. Adults meet at volunteer hosts' homes, with the host providing the main dish and drinks and guests bringing complementary side dishes. The gathering rotates hosts and locations each month, and its simple purpose is to help people meet new faces, strengthen friendships, and bring newcomers into the community. Hosts call participants during the preceding week with the place, time, and suggested side dish. The rotating format is designed to give participants the greatest chance of meeting people they do not yet know.
Taken together, Crossroads' pattern is visible in the 10:30 gathering, the 9:00 classrooms, Sunday youth afternoons, small groups and homes, women and men walking together, and partnerships that carry the gospel beyond Los Alamos. The church remains centered on its stated purpose: to glorify God by making disciples of all peoples through the gospel of Jesus Christ.