Your images are fine, its just they are light on the bottom and dark on the top. Maybe if your more head on that would give you different light.
There is a church not far from me that has a stunning cross and the only thing I was able to do was a silhouette. I may give it another go
Its whats nice about these forums, others have done various different things with the same subject you will always pick up some tips. Flickr is also good regarding that.