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Published on May 4th, 2012 | by mfrancese

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A Cross Between serves Lindenwood and community

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Kenny Gerling | Staff Reporter

A Cross Between (ACB) is one of the campus’s largest organizations with over 80 members.  It has been the focus of an ongoing discussion after a series of Legacy articles investigated some alleged wrongdoings within the group.

Regardless of one’s perception of ACB, its members play an active role in the betterment of both Lindenwood and the community at large.

Summer Black is the faculty advisor for ACB and has been a member of the group for eight years.  She first came into contact with ACB’s parent church, The Crossings, as a high school student in Alton, Illinois.

Black said that what she admires most about the group is the sense of community.  She said members are there for each other to help with things as small as helping a person into a new dorm all the way to serious matters like dealing with the loss of a loved one.

This sort of comradery enables the group’s members to effectively serve the community in a variety of efforts.

Black said one of ACB and The Crossings’s most successful ministry programs is called New Heights.  “It’s an afterschool tutoring program and it’s really neat because [ACB members] are really able to be a positive influence in the kids’ lives,” she said.

After school lets out, a bus takes participating kids to The Crossings’ facility where they are given snacks and a chance to relax.  Volunteers then have an opportunity to interact with the kids and help them with homework until their parents arrive.

ACB also does renewal projects in the neighborhoods around The Crossings such as rebuilding playground equipment, mowing lawns, and hosting community barbeques.

Though their larger community service efforts may be unnoticed by most Lindenwood students, ACB’s frequent and vocal presence at athletic events is hard to miss.

Coaches have been known to contact ACB and ask if its members will come to games and root on the Lions to victory.  For ACB member Lindsey Stark, this is all part of being a member of the Lindenwood community. “We are a student organization and we want to promote all the other student organizations too.  We enjoy coming and seeing all the teams,” she said.

Last year, ACB helped make ribbons to sell in support of the Disabled Athletes Sports Association (DASA).  The ribbons were sold in conjunction with a charity 5K run, “Dash for DASA.”

“It was very important to me because I used to swim for DASA,” Stark said. “ACB had a huge part in making the ribbons, helping to sell the ribbons, and then promoting it.”

Stark said that though the ribbons were only $.50, they managed to raise over $400 for the cause.

When events are happening on campus, ACB members are often the first to rush and help set up and tear down.

Campus Activities Board Concert Chair, Amandine Deligny, who is not a member of ACB, said she can always count on its members to help out when the need arises.  “We don’t ask them first, but they show up because they want to,” Deligny said.

ACB frequently volunteers to help at other organization’s events such as ‘Swab for Sean’, which was held earlier this semester.  The event sought to find a matching bone marrow donor for a Lindenwood student.  Both student and faculty members of ACB turned out in mass to help out.

Among the many events organized by ACB, the annual Rootbeer Kegger is the largest.

Matt Cauley, a six year member of ACB, said he was around when the event was starting out. “I remember the first one in 05-06 when it was up there on the quad.  There was probably 800 people that came through.”  The Rootbeer Kegger has since grown into one of the largest events of the year and draws well over 1,000 students.

“I really feel like it is our poster event,” Cauley said.  “We all love it.  We all love putting it on and we all look forward to it.”

Throughout the year, the group also sponsors many other events such as a block party during freshmen orientation week, a spa day at Blanton Hall during finals week, and the flour wars during spring break.

Black said, “ACB does a lot of things like paying for things out of our pockets to put on events because we care so much about what we’re doing and creating a positive environment for people.”  Black added that an event happens almost every week that ACB members help within some capacity.

Cauley said he has seen the “serving heart” of the group.  “A lot of events we don’t really want recognition for.  We just help,” he said.

“I think at the heart of it is something that we all very much enjoy doing and generally enjoy being there and around the people and with each other,” Stark said.

All ACB members interviewed for this story said that at the core of the organization’s mission is its Christian faith and the examples given by Jesus in the Gospels.

“If you look at Jesus, he was not only serving the down-and-out but he was serving everyone he came into contact with.  That’s what we want to communicate is our love for both the university and the students,” Black said.

Stark said, “We do have a genuine love for people in general and that is very much something we want to express within each other and out into the community as well.”

“I really see changed lives through God and his work through the people in ACB and The Crossings’s church,” Cauley said.

Black noted the group’s diversity of membership and the passion those members have for doing God’ work.

“I look across the board at the organization and I see a ton of athletes and people on the dean’s list and very successful people.  It’s not about what color your skin is or what kind of money you came from or don’t.  It’s not about that to us.  We just love people and we love each other and above all of that we love God,” Black said.

Tags: ACB, Lindenwood University, the Crossings

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