Pastors Matt and Holly Thrasher share how Crossroads Church in Belton, Texas, is like a family.
Tell me a bit about the community surrounding Crossroads Church.
Matt Thrasher: Our community is in the buckle of the Bible Belt, so you have a lot of history in terms of faith. While Crossroads is about to celebrate 90 years, there are older churches in the area—including official historical sites. The tradition of church is pretty steep, so we leaned into that. But as our community has grown, it brings in people who have no faith or have no attachments to faith at all.
We have worked very intentionally to create a family home feel as we have grown from 300 to now 3,000. Our created culture allows people to feel like they’re coming into their home. A visitor leaves, but a guest stays around, so we intentionally frame words, thoughts and ideas that communicate our overall vision.
Matt’s parents, Harry and Carol Thrasher, were the previous pastors. How has the succession played a role in or been a hindrance to retaining your current church body?
MT: We were very public with the transition. It wasn’t done overnight, but continued over a period of about two to three years. We led the congregation and shared what we believed God was saying to us. It was a slow transition, which I think is the best thing to do.
I graduated from high school in this town, we were married here, and our kids were born here. We already had a lot of relational equity that we could tap into right away. Any change we made was done so very slowly, very methodically. We said what we were going do before we did it—providing the why behind it.
Why is it important to “do life together” at your church?
Holly Thrasher: It’s kind of who we are. We don’t have a master strategy other than authenticity. We’re very real, and I love that. This is an extension of our own living room. They’re our family—we’ve laughed, cried and done the really hard things together. We also do the really fun things together. We use the word “together” a lot. One of the beautiful things about Crossroads is the authenticity that speaks through our worship team. We don’t pretend like things are good when they’re not, and when we say we do life together, it is genuine. It’s authentic.
We tell our congregation that we never prayed for a large church. We prayed for a church that looks like heaven. Heaven will be diverse, and we’re diverse in spiritual backgrounds, color and economic backgrounds. It’s been really fun to see God grow us authentically together with genuine love for the people we get to do life with.
How would you describe your retention strategy?
MT: When I’m asked about church membership, I tell people that this isn’t a country club. You’re not paying dues to be a member. You’re simply coming and being a part of something that’s bigger than you. When we started out, we were in survival mode. The church was paid for, but we didn’t have a lot of cash flow, so that really hindered a lot of visionary things.
The focus became what we could control—spending one-on-one time with people and doing our best to love them. We want to know if they are upset or hurting because I’m going to let them know from the pulpit when I’m not doing well and they need to pray for their pastor.
You said you never prayed for a large church, and here you are pastoring a large, fast-growing church. How do you help people feel like more than a number?
MT: We needed to move from friendly to relational. It’s such a cliché, but it is so true—people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. People may not remember your sermons, but they’ll never forget you were there when their grandma died.
Our care team is connecting with people. Whether they’ve been coming for a week or 10 years, we want them to know, Hey, we saw you. We recognize you. And we’re gonna reach out to you.
Certainly, our small groups have connected people—especially our men’s groups. If you have strong men, you’re going to have a strong church, so I have intentionally gone after the hearts of men in our church. I want a manly and masculine church.
HT: Statistics show, if you get the man, you get the whole house, right? Many men have said they would never have come through the door of a church, and now they’re serving and leading our outdoorsmen’s groups. They feel validated for being strong leaders, outdoorsmen and loving the things they love. We’ve been really intentional in creating this culture that is “people over process.”
What has been a struggle you’ve had with retaining your church body, and how did you overcome that?
MT: We’re in a facility that was never meant for 3,000 people—it’s more for 300 people. One of our executive pastors personally saw two families leaving because there was nowhere to sit, and that breaks my heart. Our lack of space is a fight on retention for sure, our constant struggle. God is constantly sending us souls, and we have literally flexed every piece of our facility to care for them. We are looking and have things for the future, but in the meantime, we keep flexing the space we have, and it’s really, really hard.
Has there been an individual or a family that started off on the periphery and became pillars of the church?
HT: There was a husband and wife that came who had never been to church in their entire lives. They received salvation and came back the next Sunday to go through our believers’ class, a three-week process. As soon as they finished the class, they wanted to know what was next, which was our serve class. Now, they are literally some of our top leaders in our youth ministry and volunteer for everything. They went from not knowing who Jesus was to diving into the deep—just one of many stories.
Anything else you’d like to share?
HT: One of the things that has helped us is finding mentors. We’ve been very intentional to have mentors in our life. Some of the things they’ve asked us to do were really hard. We had to do hard work in order to get where God needed us to be to lead at this level. So many pastors just think they don’t need anybody else. No, you need mentors, too. We have mentors who are crucial to us, and we lean on them heavily, and we can’t do this without them.
MT: Once one of the mentors said, “Heart work is hard work.” If you don’t have a healthy pastor and they don’t have a healthy marriage, you’re never going to have a healthy church. It’s not possible. We started doing hard things in our marriage, seeing a counselor.
I had to get very serious about my relationship with Jesus. It had become transactional. I didn’t know that, but one of our mentors helped me see it. So, I had to sneak away for a week and just spend time with Jesus. This was back in January 2015, and it radically changed me. I didn’t have my phone. I spent five days letting Jesus heal me and correct me. It’s going to have to start with senior leaders. There’s no two ways [about] it.
Crossroads Church
Belton, Texas
Website: CRCBelton.com
Founded: 1936
Connection Points: Believers’ Class, Serve Class, Care Team, Small Groups
A 2025 Outreach 100 Church
