About Crossroads

Crossroads was started in 1987 by Larry and Marsha Ladd. I worked with them as a consultant in the early days and then joined them as a partner in 1993. Larry and I worked together on growing Crossroads until about 2003 when Larry retired due to health reasons. Larry went to be with the Lord in January 2008. And, although I know he is now in perfect health and able to do all of the things he had been unable to do for the last several years, I miss my friend daily. Donna Phillips continues to operate the store on a day-to-day basis, as she has for years, so that I can support my family through my web development business. You would have a difficult time finding a person in the area that knows more than Donna about the Christian book and music world. I continue to work in the store on evenings and on weekends.

The downturn in the Christian book and gift business started in late 2001 and continues to this date. Although I have been on the edge of closing the business on numerous occasions from the beginning of 2006 until now, I have never gotten the confirmation from God that I would need for such a change. And although Crossroads continues to shrink, and is now much more of a ministry than a business, I have the comfort of knowing that many people in the Washtenaw county area have had access to Christian materials that might not have if we had closed. Since 2006, Crossroads has been the only remaining omni-denominational Christian bookstore in Washtenaw County.

At the urging of many in the Ann Arbor Christian community that have been supportive of Crossroads for decades, we now launch a new web site and online store. We initially have focused on the needs of the local churches, and will continue to add general Christian merchandise that is available to us.

The Christian Music business has evolved into very exciting "Create-on-Demand" environment where shoppers can choose full length CD's or custom mixes of their own at a kiosk in the store, and we create the CD for them before they leave. It is differentiated from the music you can download online in that it is full bandwidth cd-audio quality, not a compressed mp3 recording. I will be attempting to include this in the web site as well, although it will likely be a compromise of some sort due to anticipated licensing issues. And, we will continue to order commercially produced CD's for you for as long as they continue to be available.

Murray Zetterholm