I AM WILSHIRE - RANDY CROSLAND
Historic Turn
Randy Crosland planned to teach history, but his life took several turns before he found a new calling as a facilities manager, first for churches and now for a synagogue.
He was born in Haltom City and lived in the same house until he left for college. During that time, he attended the same church, Birdville Baptist, where he was baptized at age 12.
When Crosland graduated from high school in 1968, he turned down a scholarship from Tarrant County Junior College because his mother said he needed to become more independent. That meant living in a college dormitory in a different city.
He chose Howard Payne University, partly because it was small, but also because it was familiar: his church youth group held its summer camps nearby, and the youth toured the campus every year.
At Howard Payne, Crosland majored in education, went to summer school three straight years and participated in the honors program, the Douglas MacArthur Academy of Freedom, for two years.
Just after high school graduation, he had spotted his future wife at HemisFair in San Antonio. “When I went to the Baptist pavilion there, an attractive young woman giving tours was Carolyn Truett,” he recalled. “Then I saw her at Howard Payne that fall as an incoming freshman.”
They dated in their freshman year and began to date seriously as seniors. They became engaged at winter break and married the summer after their 1971 graduation. They have three grown children: their oldest, Tracy, also is a Wilshire member.
Crosland was hired to teach seventh- and eighth-grade history in Arlington, but “it didn’t take me long to realize that this was not my calling,” he said. “I lasted only that year.”
For the next five years, he worked for a finance company, first doing loan applications and then serving as a branch manager in Denton. “My best day ever was when the state manager came into my office and let me go because I ‘was not mean enough to do this job.’”
He then was hired to operate a library of religious films in Dallas. He held this job for several years and made valuable contacts with area churches.
“The next important thing was deciding I wanted to do this for myself,” he said, and the Croslands opened a film distribution business in Lubbock in 1981. “God was in that decision,” he said.
The transition from 16mm film to video eventually marginalized the business. Fortunately, Second Baptist Church, where the Croslands were active, already had hired him part time to open the building and get everything running on Sundays, and he soon became the church’s full-time facilities manager. “I learned on the job and loved working for the church,” he said.
After six years, he became facilities manager for First United Methodist Church of Lubbock at a substantially higher salary. “I would still be there except for a phone call in November 1998” from Phill Martin, who then was minister of administration for First Baptist Church of Richardson.
Martin was looking for a facilities manager, and Crosland was offered the position, serving the church for six years beginning in January 1999.
“Through unusual circumstances, I began talking with the executive director of Temple Emanu-El,” one of the largest Jewish congregations in the United States, Crosland said. He submitted his resume and was hired as the temple’s first facilities manager.
“It was an interesting decision but the right decision,” he said. “I’ve learned a lot about Jewish customs and practices.”
This experience has given him “a larger vision of God’s work in the world,” he said, and “I’m sometimes asked for the Christian perspective when they have staff studies.”
The Croslands joined Wilshire in 2004. He’s in his third year as a member of the Building and Grounds Committee, currently serving as chairman. He was ordained as a deacon at Second Baptist Church in Lubbock and is part of Wilshire’s Fellowship of the Ordained.
“I love Wilshire’s liturgical worship, the music, and the church’s openness, strong social positions and women’s involvement in leadership,” he said. “Members are comfortable with who they are. We’re not asked to check our brains at the door but are challenged to think and act.”
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