PERFORMANCE

Worship
A Cross Between is committed to offering our gifts to the church, believing that God calls His people to adore Him in community. Music is powerful! Having musical gifts is a high calling and we take this calling seriously. We also believe that worship is a holy drama, requiring us to use our gifts with creativity and integrity. Respectful of tradition yet open to emerging trends, A Cross Between offers both vocal and instrumental music for participation and presentation. We hold fast to the truth that God can and should be worshipped in a multitude of styles. We can express our gifts in any of the following ways, individually or a combination:

• Service music
  Performing selections that fill your church's regular prelude, offertory, anthem, communion, and postlude time with beautiful and evocative music. A wide blend of styles are available.
• Hymn sings
  Leading your congregation in the singing of great hymns—either with emphasis on the sermon text, as a special teaching about a selected hymn writer, or as an exploration of hymns—as they represent and reflect church history. We can do this alone or partner with your church's musicians.
• Songs and choruses
  Leading your congregation in singing the best contemporary music. We can do this alone, but partnering with your regular worship team is especially fun for us.
• Mini concert
  Weaving the theme of your service into a special musical presentation to set up, affirm, and/or help the congregation respond to your message.
• Musical sermon
  Using a selected Biblical text and carefully chosen lyrics to deliver a kind of musical sermon that helps the message of the text sink deeper into people's hearts! We especially love singing the Word.
• Any style you want
  Is your church mostly contemporary, mostly traditional, or trying to blend? No problem—whatever the case may be, we revel in creative diversity, and can either fit in with your style or help you break new ground!

Concerts
Like most musical groups, we started out offering mostly evening concerts. We still love doing such concerts, but more than ever we see concerts as not just entertainment and not just worship; not just audiences listening to a performance and not just for the evening. Instead, our concerts are a special time for musical truth-telling, incorporating all of these features and more. As our concerts unfold, we connect with the audience in a dialog of laughter and tears, passion and discovery, plus the sheer enjoyment of beauty as uniquely expressed through music. Indeed these concerts provide an opportunity for drama and the intimacy like no other we've experienced.

• Hymns, Songs, and Spiritual Songs
  Blending the best of trusted old and exciting new styles, this concert refreshes, teaches, preaches, and affirms God’s truth through song. Hearing a favorite hymn dressed in new “clothes” or experiencing a chorus lifted high in a sweet string harmony, we share stories of the composers as well as our own stories as musicians, weaving together story and song in a dynamic blend that enriches the soul.
• Christian Musical Theater
  Our latest CD, Miracles and Mysteries, is a musical tour de force expressing the seven miracles of John’s gospel. Written especially for A Cross Between, the compelling lyrics of Ken Medema and stunning music of Bruce Greer frame these Biblical stories in a dramatic new way. One veteran preacher called it “the finest musical sermon" he's ever heard. This concert is best described as Christian musical theater. We let the lyrics we sing and the scripture the audience reads stand without comment. It is a unique interpretive journey into the heart and mind of Christ.
• Forever Christmas
  During the special and often traditional Advent/Christmas season, A Cross Between offers concerts filled with the best loved carols, popular tunes, and songs of the season, which fit easily in both church and secular performance spaces. Our repertoire includes a little baroque, a little Mannheim Steamroller, as well as a number of wonderful pieces we’ve commissioned from outstanding composers whose artistry fills these concerts with Christ's message of hope and light.
• A Cross Between Classics
  For churches with an arts series, college Fine Arts programs, and community concerts, we offer standard classical recitals featuring chamber music for strings or voice. We also offer a special Broadway concert that includes popular show-tune standards and favorites. We've also performed these concerts as lecture-recitals, which include informative audience question-and-answer times.