Pastoral Notes for Sunday, January 3, 2021

Dear Cornerstone Family,

Sometime after Christmas, but before New Year’s Day, I pull out the album Recovering the Satellites (1996) by the American alternative band, The Counting Crows, and listen to their smash hit, “A Long December.” Given the year we’ve had, I found myself resonating with the opening line of the song more than ever:

“A long December and there’s reason to believe

Maybe this year will be better than the last.”

In looking to the year ahead, the lyrics express both hope and reticence at the same time. The writer recognizes that there’s reason to believe things could be headed in an upward trajectory, but there’s enough uncertainty and question that he’s not yet ready to bank on it. “Maybe this year will be better.” Maybe not. Who can say for sure?

As Christians, our hope for the future is more certain than, “Maybe this year will be better.” As we looked at last week from Psalm 11, we know the end of the story. All who are upright in heart will behold the face of God (1 John 3:2). Our destiny is face-to-face, never ending fellowship with God in perfect love and holiness. Now, ponder this: no matter what happens in 2021 that future is ours in Christ Jesus right now.

Read that sentence again. Did you catch that? That future is ours now! Yes, I know we’re still waiting for that future, and we don’t know how long it will be until Christ returns and the fullness of the kingdom comes. But I’m telling you that by faith, you can lay hold of that future today. And when you do, that future becomes to you a present reality.

As I write that sentence, I’m experiencing that very reality. My heart wants to jump out of my chest with hope! I’m sensing the solid joys and lasting pleasures of my eternal future in Christ even now as I write this. It’s as if I’m standing in that eternal future now, experiencing the joy and peace that Christ has won for me.

Friends, this is what the life of faith looks like. Notice, I said the life of faith. Faith is not mere knowledge or feeling or action, though it incorporates all those things. Faith is a principle of life at work inside the true believer. It is, as Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3, a new birth that produces a new life empowered by the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:25).

As we gather for worship on the first Sunday of 2021, let’s reject reluctancy born of worldly hopes– “Maybe this year will be better.” Instead, let’s set our hopes higher—to the certain future of a new heavens and a new earth, where every tear is wiped away, and every joy and lasting pleasure are secured, and each day is better than the one before. Yes! Let’s let that future lead the way in 2021... and always.

Grace & Peace,

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Pastoral Notes for Sunday, December 27, 2020

Dear Cornerstone Family,

The beginning of a new year is often a time for transition. Whether starting new jobs, or moving to new places, or just turning over a new leaf, the shift from one year to the next is a natural time to make changes. As 2020 fades and 2021 begins, I want to inform you of several pending transitions in the church staff and leadership.

First, our Female Youth Intern, Eva Lewis, is stepping down from her position on staff on December 31st. Eva has served our junior high girls faithfully this past year. She has led small groups, met one-on-one for discipleship, organized numerous fellowships, and helped out supportively in countless ways. We are grateful for the spiritual investment Eva has made in the lives of our youth! By stepping down from her intern role, Eva will free up the time she needs to finish her studies at New College Franklin this Spring. Thankfully, Eva is not going anywhere right away. She will continue to worship at Cornerstone and volunteer in our youth ministry until the end of the school year.

Second, after six years of service as a ruling elder, Jim Payne will be taking a yearlong sabbatical starting January 1, 2021. Jim has served us faithfully as a shepherding elder. He started our prayer ministry from scratch (with much help from faithful prayer warriors across this congregation). He’s also served as head of our missions committee, helping evaluate and approve our various mission supports—campus ministries, church plants, and foreign missionaries. As you can see, this sabbatical is past due and much deserved! We will most certainly miss Jim’s wit and wisdom on the session and his loving care as a shepherd of the congregation, but we’re grateful he’s taking this year to rest and recharge for the work of ministry.

Finally, we’re deeply saddened to say goodbye to Terry and Barbara Cheney. From day one of Cornerstone, the Cheneys have been present with an all-hands-on-deck attitude. Barbara has taught women’s Bible studies and mentored women—old and young—throughout our congregation. Terry and Barbara both have a heart for struggling marriages, and have given sacrificially of their time and wisdom to counsel and disciple couples in how the gospel transforms marriages. On the session, Terry was always a dependable servant of the Master. His workman spirit revealed a heart committed to the duty of an elder shepherd, which added much needed ballast to our leadership core. Needless to say, he will be sorely missed. In case you’re wondering, God has called them to a mission field closer to family in sunny Florida. It’s a quick transition—today is their final Sunday with us! We will honor God’s work through them today in worship and send them off with a prayer of blessing.

Speaking of prayer, take a moment today to remember Eva, Jim & Becky, and Terry & Barbara before the Lord. While you’re at it, pray for Cornerstone generally. 2021 is a milestone year for us. Though I can hardly believe it, we are beginning our 10th year of ministry! As we close in on a decade of ministry, there’s so, so much to be thankful for, and yet so much I still long for God to do. Will you join me in praying that this next year will be the most fruitful and faithful year of Cornerstone’s ministry to date? By God’s grace, may it be so.

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Pastoral Notes for Sunday, December 20, 2020

Dear Cornerstone Family,

Every Advent about this time, I pull together a few quotes from my Yuletide reading to share. This year, sadly, my seasonal reading was cut short by research for upcoming articles, conferences, and classes. Even with that, I sneaked in a bookish exploration or two, running wild in grand mystery of the incarnation. Below are a few jewels from my treasure hunts, as we draw the waiting season of Advent to a close and prepare for the festivity of Christmas.

“Maybe Christmas” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”—Dr. Seuss

“Christmas says there is a cosmic scheme of things. God made us as his image to reflect his glory. We have sinned and fallen short of that glory (Romans 3:23). But the Son of God, who is the very image of God (Colossians 1:15), was sent by God, and came in love to restore his image. Through faith in him, we discover that our lives fit into the ‘cosmic scheme of things.’ He recreates in us a love for himself and restores us to fellowship with himself, which transforms self-directed love into love of our neighbors. That is the destiny for which we were created.”—Sinclair Ferguson

On this day of thine own Nativity;

Show thyself the Prince of Peace;

Bid our jarring conflicts cease.”—Charles Wesley

“In the Christian story, God descends to reascend. He comes down; down the from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity... down to the very roots and seabed of the Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world with Him. One has the picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some great complicated burden. He must stoop in order to lift; he must almost disappear under the load before he incredibly straightens his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders.”—C.S. Lewis“

"There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the incarnation.”—Madeline Engle

“We have nearly arrived at the great merry-making season of the year. On Christmas day we shall find all England enjoying themselves with all the good cheer which they can afford. Servants of God, you who have the largest share in the person of him who was born at Bethlehem, I invite you to the best of all Christmas fare—to nobler food than makes the table groan—bread from heaven, for your spirit. Behold, how rich and how abundant are the provisions which God has made for the high festival which he would have his servants keep, not now and then, but all the days of their lives.”—C.H. Spurgeon,

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Pastoral Notes for Sunday, December 13, 2020

I asked Martha Brooks, co-leader of our Women’s Ministry, to write this week’s Pastoral Notes.

Ever since our girls were born, they have spent one day a week at my parents’ house. This sacred day gave me a break from diapers and chicken nuggets and gave the girls a day with someone much kinder than I who was delighted to change the Barbie doll’s dress for the one hundredth time. Even now, when it isn’t basketball/track/school play season, Mom picks them up from school once a week, and she brings out the good snacks, and basically does anything they want for three hours until Preston picks them up and forces them to come back to our house “because that’s where WE live!”

We have always referred to this day as “Grandma Day” even though my Dad has been there most of the time as well. And while he may not have always gotten in on the princess tea parties (although “The King” was known to make an appearance every now and again) he has his own special things he does with the girls. One of those things involves heading out, beginning in early January, walking or piled into the golf cart, and looking for signs of Spring—buds, patches of green grass, the beginnings of a nest. Dad is an outdoor kind of guy, and he is of the school that thinks snow is awful, ice is worse, and 95 degrees is just about right. When the girls were little and would spot those first signs of Spring, usually crocuses and buttercups, Dad’s excitement about the hope of warmer days sure to come would spill over onto them, and they would return home declaring the time had come to get out our bathing suits because Grandpa says it’s almost Spring! Well, no, I’d explain, it’s below freezing and here’s your puffy coat and hat and hurry up and stuff your hands into these mittens. (Parenting tip: Don’t try to put gloves on little kids. They cannot do it. Can. Not. Mittens are your friends.) But yes, Spring will come. That’s a promise. You can hang your bathing-suit-hopes on it.

I don’t know if we’ve ever collectively had a time when we’ve needed something to hang our hopes on more than after 2020. In many ways, for many people, it’s been a year fraught with hopelessness. A year full of cancellations, disappointments, uncertainty, and loss at every turn. Time and again Preston and I have answered our daughters’ many questions, “We don’t know. We just don’t know.”

The thing we keep coming back to is this: we trust Scripture. We are sure of that. Let’s go to Scripture. Let’s take our disappointments and our lost hopes, and let’s see what the Lord says about them. And every time we open the Word and listen to God speaking—listen to His promises—it’s like the hope of those first crocus buds that promise Spring: “I will... I did... I am... I came... I am coming...”

And there hangs our hope.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the kindness of God to leave us His Word. To leave us these buds of hope. And while there is so much value in sitting down every day and simply reading Scripture, there is also much value in studying Scripture in a community of believers—wrestling together, noticing things we never did before, discovering the magnificent truths that are our certain future. To that end, the Women’s Ministry is offering multiple Bible study times beginning in January, all working through selected Psalms. In addition to facilitating the study of Scripture, we want to deepen the community of believers, so we facilitate some fun, too! The groups have periodic fellowships where we pull out the good snacks and learn more pieces of each other’s stories and laugh a lot. We’ve also been known to cry together and drop everything and pray as we bear each other’s burdens. We are putting legs on the phrase “walk through life together.” Sign-ups will open this week; be sure to watch your email.

Join us. Come study Scripture with your sisters. Discover afresh where you can hang your hope.

Grace, Martha Brooks

Pastoral Notes for Sunday, December 6, 2020

Dear Cornerstone Family,

As I nearly froze to death tossing the football with the boys on Tuesday afternoon, as the dark of night descended at 4:45pm (Shew, it’s going to be long winter for me), I gave myself permission to reminisce about longer, warmer days... like the time my Dad first tried his hand at gardening. He’d long expressed a desire to return to “mankind’s original vocation,” to get his hands dirty and grow his own food—to be a man of the earth. It was a desire that, to be honest, bewildered the rest of the family.

Dad was an accountant. Need I say more? He spent his days with numbers, pushing pencils, and keying calculators. It was difficult envisioning him with boots on his feet and a tiller in his grip. That said, he was a farmer by name. My Dad’s name is George. George is a combination of two Greek words meaning earth and work. Etymologically, he was destined to be a worker of the soil. In every other way...well, not so much.

Nevertheless, with help from neighbors who were real farmers, and the slave labor of his son (ahem), Dad eventually fulfilled his gardening dream. And though the dream only lasted a few years (turns out gardening is a lot of work), some of my fondest summer memories include walking the rows to see how the squash and zucchini were coming along, and if the tomatoes were starting to redden, and if the deer had gotten the best of the snap beans. (They always got the best of the snap beans.)

Call me nostalgic if you want, but there’s something magical about a garden. Soil, seed, water, sun and a little attention (okay, a lot of attention) and before you know it, you’re smelling fried okra cooking on the stove—the perfect late summer delicacy. (Is winter over yet?)

There’s a lot of lessons to be learned in gardening, but chief among them is the need for patience. My Mom used to say, “A watched pot never boils.” Meaning, time moves ever so slowly when you’re eagerly waiting for something to occur. Gardening can be a “watched pot.” The farmer plants in faith, trusting that in due time, by God’s grace, he will enjoy the fruit of his labors.

Not surprisingly, in describing the work of the kingdom, Jesus turns to agricultural metaphors time and again. Our hearts are like various soils (Matthew 13:1-9), faith is like a mustard seed (Matthew 17:20), and if we’d just lift up our eyes, we’d see the world is white with harvest and needy of laborers (John 4:34). As we tend the field before us, growth may be imperceptible, but we press on like farmers who, “...wait for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it receives the early and the late rains” (James 5:7).

Like gardening, kingdom work can’t be hurried along. We must guard against weariness, knowing that in due time we will reap (Galatians 6:9). That’s a promise. Let’s just be faithful to do our part, and then watch the Lord of the harvest (Matthew 9:38) give the growth (1 Corinthians 3:7).

Your servant,

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