Pastor Harry Skeele
Harry Skeele grew up in New Canaan, Connecticut, and began college in 1973 at Amherst College in Massachusetts. During a year off in 1975, he worked as a bartender in Nantucket, sailed from Nantucket to Bermuda, then began a trip around the world with a knapsack, sleeping bag and tent. Reading, sightseeing and meeting people as he traveled, Harry was somewhat surprised to find that happy, healthy and otherwise normal people could be intellectually serious about and personally committed to following Jesus Christ. After an extended time of studying, arguing and learning with Christians, Harry became a follower of Jesus in New Zealand.
Traveling home through Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Hawaii was an eye-opener. Previously, Harry believed Christianity to be a white, western religion. Yet during this trip, while visiting leaders of city and university ministries, he learned that Christianity is in fact a burgeoning social force in the Pacific Rim and around the world.
Harry returned to college in 1976 and earned a B.A. from Amherst in 1978. For three years after that, he served in campus ministry at Lehigh University with the Navigators. After this he earned a Master of Divinity and a Master of Theology in New Testament from Trinity Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois.
In 1987, he became pastor of the English-speaking congregation at Rutgers Community Chinese Church (a trilingual church) in Somerset, New Jersey. During the next thirteen years, English ministries increased almost tenfold from 45 to about 400, and the church’s combined adult membership tripled, making RCCC the largest Chinese Church in North America. During a sabbatical at Westminster Theological Seminary in 1995, Harry began a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology. During this time, he began to consider planting a church that would reach out to the whole community.
In early 2000, Harry transferred his credentials into the Presbyterian Church of America, and Crossroads Community Church was planted in Hillsborough. A mission church of the Metro New York Presbytery, Crossroads receives support from Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan.
Harry met his wife Gigi at Trinity in 1982; they married two years later. Gigi has a B.A. in Music Education from Wichita State University, and a Master of Divinity from Trinity Divinity School where she was a Teaching Fellow in New Testament. She also served as Director of Women’s Ministries at First Evangelical Free Church in Wichita. Harry and Gigi have three children and moved to Hillsborough in 2000.
Pastor Sam Hettinger
"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." - Proverbs 22:6.
After the last several months of scandal in American business, more and more people are agreeing with a recent editorial: "If they (MBA students) didn’t get a sense of right and wrong from their families and their faith, it’s unlikely a business school professor can instill one." (New York Times, OP-ED, Tuesday, August 20, 2002) If we want good values in tomorrow’s leaders, we need to start the training early. Crossroads Church is committed to the formation of Christian character in children and teens. Our recent search for a Youth Pastor brought in well over sixty resumes. Within this pack, one stood out and God sent him to us: Sam Hettinger. Sam will be the champion for Youth Ministries at Crossroads.
Sam Hettinger
Covenant College, B.A.
Covenant Seminary, M.Div.
Sam has coached, counseled and taught teens in a variety of settings for the last eight years. His college years included academic awards, three years of varsity soccer and lead roles in plays. The oldest of four brothers, Sam has developed practical convictions about how young people can know God. His training from Christian parents, good churches and strong schools have also made him theologically sound. Sam’s passion is to help families raise teenagers who have the wisdom to make the right choices in life based on timeless scriptural truths. He knows how to meet teens where they are and communicate God’s love to them.
Sam was blessed to meet the love of his life, Laura, right here at Crossroads. They were married two years to the day he moved to New Jersey. Laura has a B.A. in fashion merchandising from Philadelphia University and utilizes it daily as the men's accessories buyer for IZOD outlets. She has always been and continues to be extremely involved in church life and has a passion for discipling teen girls.
Come meet Sam and Laura at Crossroads!