At 599 30 Road on the northeast side of Grand Junction, Crossroads United Methodist Church meets in a building with deep roots in the orchards of the old town of Clifton. A single Sunday gathering at 10:30 AM brings together a congregation that has worshiped in this part of the valley since 1906, and that today streams the same service on its YouTube channel. Around that weekly worship, the church layers an active children's ministry, adult Bible studies, a series of distinctive Advent traditions, and a calendar of community craft fairs and swap meets that fill the church's gym and parking lot through the year.
Sunday Worship at 10:30
Crossroads holds one service on Sunday morning at 10:30 AM, and the congregation is invited to take part either in the sanctuary or through the livestream. Worship takes place in a casual space that generally follows a traditional liturgy and walks through the liturgical Christian calendar year. Music is a real mix. Most Sundays bring hymns, gospel, praise, and alternative songs accompanied by piano and organ, with hand bell pieces, the church choir, and visiting musicians filling out special music days. A few Sundays are unplugged and led by acoustic guitars. Children are always welcome in worship. During the summer the sanctuary offers a "pray area" sized for kids, with activity pages and crayons, and in the fall Sunday School resumes in a separate room so children can learn at their own level.
A Congregation That Began in 1906
The story of Crossroads runs back to the orchards of Clifton. On July 4, 1906, the trustees of what was then the Methodist Episcopal Church held their first organizational meeting, and construction began the same year on a wood-framed building with a $2,818 contract. By mid-1907 the church at 4th Street and Grand was complete at a total cost of about $4,000, with an auditorium seating 250 and a lecture room seating 75. The pews were five-ply curved oak with built-up curved seats of elm. Colorado Governor Henry A. Buchtel, who was also a preacher, dedicated the new church with such fanfare that he was first taken on an automobile ride through the valley's orchards and then delivered a lecture in Clifton on Theodore Roosevelt.
That first building served the congregation for nearly sixty years before the structure began to sink. The move to the present site came in 1966, and the Consecration Service at 30 Road and Patterson was held on March 6, 1966. Rosa Lee Blackwell submitted the name "Crossroads Methodist Church" with the thought that the congregation was at the crossroads of their lives, the moment when a decision must be made for or against Christ. Additions and remodels have followed over the decades, with the latest completed in 1996. The mortgage was paid in full in 2011. The intersection itself was once known to locals as Johnson's Corner.
Pastor Yunseon Choi
Rev. Yunseon Choi became the pastor of Crossroads in July 2024. Born in Korea, he graduated from Mokwon University before moving to the United States in 2009. He earned his M.Div. from Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis and was ordained as a pastor in the Korean Methodist Church in 2013. He became an Elder in Full Connection in the Mountain Sky Conference of the United Methodist Church in 2021. From July 2017 through June 2024 he served Adriance United Methodist Church in Pueblo, Colorado. He and his wife Miwha have three children, Catherine, Jayden, and Benjamin.
Children, Youth, and Vacation Bible School
Children and young people are central to the life of Crossroads. Sunday School runs every Sunday from after Labor Day through Memorial Day, gathering at 9:00 AM for age-level learning. Children from infants through age 18 hear and read Bible stories, explore how those stories apply to everyday life, and sing, play, and craft together. The children's ministry mission frames the work simply: to partner with God to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world by loving children and youth where they are, encouraging them in their relationship with God, providing opportunities for nurture and growth, and challenging them to respond to God's call to serve in their communities.
Each summer Crossroads joins with Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church for Vacation Bible School. VBS is intentionally designed as a family event. Kids are not dropped off, adults without children are warmly welcome, and dinner is served each night. Past years have shown VBS running across multiple evenings with a closing Sunday, and registration opens in the weeks beforehand.
Adult Groups and Bible Study
Adults at Crossroads have two regular weekly touchpoints. The Focus Adult Sunday School meets in the Wesley Room at 10:30, the same hour as the main worship service. On Friday mornings from 9:00 to 10:30 the Friday Morning Bible Study gathers in the Wesley Room for a slow-paced look at scripture. The current study walks through "Mountaintop Moments - Meeting God in the High Places," exploring the importance of mountains in the Bible. Both groups are open to newcomers.
Advent and Christmas on 30 Road
The Christmas season at Crossroads is built around a series of distinctive traditions that draw the wider community in. Each December the congregation drives up to Glade Park with permits to cut trees, returning for a soup dinner and a screening of "The Star." The cut trees become the Advent Spiral, a spiral of pine branches laid on the gym floor with a single lit candle at its center in a darkened room. Worshipers walk the spiral with an unlit candle at their own pace, light it, and set it down wherever it feels right. As the evening progresses the room slowly fills with light.
Las Posadas re-enacts the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem and is followed by a potluck dinner. A Blue Christmas service offers a contemplative hour for anyone who struggles to find joy in the season. A live Nativity fills the sanctuary one evening, with the spiral held separately in the gym. Special Christmas mornings are sensory-friendly, flexible celebrations designed in the spirit of Vacation Bible School and open to the whole family. The Christmas Eve Candlelight Service caps the season with the lighting of the Advent wreath, scripture following the virgin birth story, and the singing of Silent Night by candlelight.
Craft Fairs, Swap Meets, and Trunk or Treat
The gymnasium and parking lot carry a busy community calendar through the warmer months. Spring and fall bring two craft fairs where handmade goods take priority over commercial products, with vendors reserving booths in advance. Summer and early fall add monthly swap meets held in the parking lot on the first Saturday of each month, where sellers reserve two parking spaces for a small fee and shoppers attend free. Halloween brings Trunk or Treat, with the parking lot transformed into a candy stop for costumed kids. Worship in the Park, held on a Sunday in September, takes the congregation outdoors. An Ice Cream Sundae Send Off closes one Sunday in June each year. The building itself is also open to outside groups through a Building Use Request Form and a published Building Use Policy.
Ads, Sundays, and the Wider Mission
Crossroads is part of the Mountain Sky Conference of the United Methodist Church and supports the wider work of United Methodism through UMCOR, the denomination's humanitarian relief and development agency that responds to disasters too large for a community to recover from on its own. The congregation also partners with a number of local and regional ministries, including the Community Food Bank of the Rockies, Father to the Fatherless, and Homeward Bound of the Grand Valley, and links to the Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church. On Native American Sunday the church joins with First United Methodist Church in downtown Grand Junction for a combined worship celebrating Native American Ministries.
What Crossroads Believes
The church's own statement of mission reads simply: "Through the Christian message as revealed by the life and light of Christ, we embrace our differences in personhood and opinion with hospitality, love, grace, and a willingness to listen." Its vision calls Crossroads "an engaged community living the Christian message of love and grace while navigating the uncertainties of life together," stepping out of "the darkness of ignorance, fear and stagnation with empathy, compassion, understanding, inclusion, and unity in the light of Jesus Christ."
Visiting Crossroads
The church sits at 599 30 Road in Grand Junction, with a worship bulletin, newsletter, and archive of past livestreams all kept online. Office hours run Tuesday through Friday from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM, and the phone rings at 970-242-0577. Giving is handled through an online portal. A free online class through umctraining.org, "What It Means to be United Methodist," is offered as a way to learn more about the denomination. Anyone who walks through the doors on a Sunday morning will find a congregation that has been meeting on 30 Road for nearly sixty years and in the wider Clifton and Grand Junction community for well over a century, gathered around a liturgy that mixes hymns and gospel, prayer and praise, the steady work of Bible study, and a calendar full of seasonal traditions that fill the gym, the sanctuary, and the parking lot.