Pastoral Notes for Sunday, January 8, 2023

Dear Cornerstone family,

The holiday break is over, and it’s time to get back to school––Sunday School, that is! That’s right, our winter Sunday School term starts today.

If you have elementary or youth aged students, please note the class offerings below. As always, if you have any questions about a particular class or the children or youth ministry generally, please reach out to our Children’s Coordinator, Meredith Suits, or our Interim Youth Director, Preston Brooks. Contact information for all our staff is on the back of the bulletin.

If you need assistance in locating a room in the building, ask one of our church officers or greeters for help. You can identify them by the Cornerstone badges they are wearing. They would be delighted to assist you!

Preschool class: room 103: Led by Joe and Joy Marlo; assisted by Emily Mitchell

5 - 6 year olds: room 101: Led by Lisa Fiedler; assisted by Colleen McGarry

1st- 2nd grades: room 104: Led by Alli Faulk; assisted by Poppy Driskell

3rd- 4th grades: room 207: Led by Matt O’Roark; assisted by Kent Coughlin

5th - 6th grades: room 301: Led by Dave Raymond; assisted by Sabrina Brewer

7th- 12th grades at Merridee’s Breadbasket (110 4th Ave) : Led by Preston Brooks and youth team

If you are an adult not currently volunteering in nursery or children’s Sunday School, there are two School of Discipleship offerings for you this term. Both of the classes below will meet every Sunday from January 8th to February 12th.

Safe and Sound: Standing Firm in Spiritual Battles (the chapel)
What is spiritual warfare? How are we to stand firm in spiritual battles? Join Pastor Tony Giles and Pastor Ben Griffith for a seven-week examination of the armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18) as together we discover how Christ’s victory strengthens us for spiritual warfare.

Knowing God through the Sacraments (3rd floor, room 302-303) What are sacraments? How do the sacraments tell the story of redemption? How do they unite us to Christ and each other? Join Nathan Johnson for this seven-week exploration into the mystery and beauty of one of God’s greatest gifts to the church—the sacraments.

Let’s press on together in the work of discipleship in 2023!

Your servant,

 






Pastoral Notes for Sunday, January 1, 2023

Dear Cornerstone family,

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” When I first read that sentence, almost nine years ago, it stopped me in my tracks. It’s a line from Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life in a section where she acknowledges that calendars and schedules have the power to shield us from wasting our days–– that is, our lives––on whims and impulses. Dillard says calendaring time is “...net for catching days...a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.”

I love the image because it’s counterintuitive to how we tend to think. For instance, we say we’re “free” when nothing is scheduled. And that is true in a way of speaking. But Dillard recognizes that “free time” is when we most often waste time; when time disappears into oblivion, and we experience a sense of loss. “Where did the time go?”

As the Lord would have it, I am typing this from my home office. Just outside my door, I heard a member of my family say, “I feel like my whole day is gone!” It’s 12:56 p.m. right now. The day is certainly not gone. But this week-between-Christmas-and-New Year, nothing-on-the-calendar-kind-of-morning has made said family member feel like their day has been a waste.

Ever been there? Sure, we’ve all had days like that. To be honest, we need a day or two like that every now and again so we can repent and be reminded why calendaring time can help us redeem the day.

I used the word redeem for a reason. You see, calendaring time is not the point. We can calendar a day of binging on Netflix and do ourselves no good. The more important question is what are you going to calendar? In the limited amount of time you have, what are you going to prioritize on your calendar?

Some of you are anticipating me, “I know, I need to manage my time better this year. Got it, Pastor.” Well, not exactly. Never in Scripture are we called to manage time. Do you know why? Time is not ours to manage! God owns time; he created it. All of our days are in his hands (Psalm 31:5).

Instead, we are called to “redeem the time” (Ephesians 5:15-16; Colossians 4:5). Time is a gift from God to be used for the purpose he gives it. Therefore, we aren’t to live like fools squandering time because time is not ours. Rather, we are to approach each day as a precious gift from God redeeming the time with godly work and rest.

If you do not usually look back on your year and consider “how you spent your days,” let me encourage you to do so. Take time to consider your days. How were they redeemed? How were they squandered? Take it all to the Lord. As you turn the page on another year, lay your past and future at God’s feet and commit afresh to receive each day of 2023 as a gift from God’s hand to be redeemed.

Your servant,

 






Pastoral Notes for Sunday, December 18, 2022

Dear Cornerstone family,

Today is the fourth and final Sunday of Advent. Next Sunday the wait will be over! And on that blessed morn, we will gather for worship.

For some of us––maybe lots of us––worship on Christmas is, well, a bit of a downer. To be honest, a few Shurden children feel this way. I know this is hard to imagine, but getting dressed and getting out the door on what will almost certainly be a bitterly cold day to listen to Dad preach is not exactly their idea of a wonderful Christmas mornJ

Truth be told, it took their preacher Dad a moment to get used to the idea. When I first realized I would be preaching two Christmas Eve services followed quickly by two Christmas Day services my initial response wasn’t, “Yippee!” It took my heart a minute or two or three to catch up––to remember, as the old saying goes, “The reason for the season.”

Christmas on Sunday has a way of revealing our hearts, doesn’t it? It pushes us to answer hard questions about what we really love about this season. In a word, do we love the Christmas season, or do we love the Christ of Christmas?

You, like me, probably want to say, “Both!” And that’s right, at least to a degree. But you’ll know which you love more––the Christmas season or the Christ of Christmas––when you’re forced to choose between the two. In several small but real ways, worship on Christmas forces you to choose between the two.

For instance, it forces us to choose whether we’ll be slightly inconvenienced—rescheduling Christmas brunch—in order to worship the Christ who left all the comforts of heaven to save us. It forces us to choose whether we’ll delay gift giving until later in order to thank the Father in worship for the greatest gift he ever gave.

When I put it this way, it’s easy for me to see the right answer. But even seeing the right answer, the struggle doesn’t go away. Can’t you still hear that voice inside your head saying, “It would be so much easier not to go to church. I wouldn’t have to hear the kids whine. I could sit by the fire in my easy chair. Those pews are so cold and hard...” I know that voice well. It’s in my head, too. It wants me to choose the fleeting joys of the Christmas season over the eternal joys of the Christ of Christmas.

Which is why, if I may say so, I really need to be at church Christmas morn. To hush up that voice, and to move toward what I really want to be increasingly true about me––that I love the Christ of Christmas more than the Christmas season.

Your servant,






Pastoral Notes for Sunday, December 11, 2022

Dear Cornerstone family,

One of the staples of the Christmas season at Cornerstone is our annual Service of Lessons and Carols. For those new to our midst or unfamiliar with the history behind this glorious service, the service began in 1918 at King’s College Cambridge led by Eric Milner-White. The opening service was received with such great acclaim that it became an annual tradition at King’s College and beloved by millions throughout the world.

The BBC first broadcast the service in 1928 and, with the exception of 1930, the service has been broadcast every year since. The broadcast extended oversees in the mid 1930s, and its popularity quickly spread worldwide. It was even broadcast during World War II when the stained-glass windows of the cathedral and the heat source were removed from the building for security reasons. During those dark and tumultuous days for the world, the service of Lessons and Carols provided a gospel reminder of hope and peace.

As the popularity of the service grew, churches around the globe began to adapt the service for their own corporate use. Since our founding in 2011, Cornerstone has conducted a Lessons and Carols service each year. There are aspects of the service that remain the same, such as certain Scripture readings and carols, but there are always new pieces of orchestration and music, too. If you’ve never been to a Lessons and Carols service, the power is in the main theme of the Scriptural lessons and carols—what Dean Milner-White called, “the development of the loving purposes of God through the windows and words of the Bible.”

Before Midweek at Cornerstone ended back in November, I lingered outside the sanctuary door one Wednesday night while the choir practiced for this year’s Lessons and Carols service. Trust me when I say—we are in for a treat. Greg Wilbur, the choir, and the musicians have worked hard to make tonight’s service a special evening of worship. In order to accommodate schedules and attendance, there are two opportunities to enjoy tonight’s service. You can come at 5:00 or 7:00 p.m. Nursery for children up to age three will be available at the 5:00 p.m. service. We urge you to invite your friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors to attend. There will be plenty of room!

Let’s together travel the pages of Scripture in readings and songs, coursing our way from the Garden of Eden to the manger in Bethlehem, tracing the hand of God in the salvation of the world.

I look forward to seeing you tonight!

Your servant,






Pastoral Notes for Sunday, December 4, 2022

Dear Cornerstone family,

The Cornerstone staff gathered for a fun fellowship lunch on Tuesday this week. As we talked and laughed about everything under the sun, the conversation turned at one point to the different personalities and perceptions God has given us and how those differences give shape to the way we see and experience the world. At some point, the comment was made, “So, if you’re sitting on a pier watching your children tube on the lake, do you see them having a good time or do you see all the ways they can possibly die?” As you’d guess, some of us primarily see the good time on the water while others of us are mapping the quickest route to the closest hospital! We’re all seeing the same thing––kids tubing on the lake––but what we “see” is radically different.

Now, let me ask you: which person is seeing things correctly? Is it the person seeing danger? Or is it the person seeing a good time? If you’re hesitant to answer, that’s a good sign. The question is a false dilemma. I’m making you choose between two things that aren’t mutually exclusive. In this case, both people are seeing something correctly.

I italicized something in the previous sentence to emphasize that both perspectives see a particular aspect of the situation correctly. One person is seeing the fun time on the water while another person is seeing (potential) danger. It’s good and right for both perspectives to be present. In fact, we need both perspectives.

We need people who can see the good time on the lake, for that is difficult for some of us to see. Some of us can get so tunneled in on potential dangers that we miss the good happening right in front of us. The seeing good perspective widens the reality of the seeing danger perspective, tempering fear and freeing us up to receive the good that is there.

At the same time, we need people who can see the dangers and sound the alarm. In fact, those who are particularly oriented at seeing the “fun on the lake” are often blind to the presence of real danger. The seeing danger perspective widens the reality of the seeing good perspective, dispelling naiveite and deepening wisdom.

The problem, of course, is that too often we absolutize our particular perspective as if it’s the only right way. When we do that, we sell ourselves and our relationships short. We cut ourselves off from the gifts, experiences, and perspectives of one another. At a more troubling level, we cut ourselves off from the grace God provides in and through the church.

Bet you didn’t expect me to say “church,” did you? We tend to view (read: perspective!) church as a place we go (the chapel) or an event we attend (worship). But if we’re tracking in the truth of the Scripture, we must recognize the church to be people—God’s people. And right now, you’re surrounded by them! Each person—including you, if you’re a follower of Christ—has God-given gifts, experiences, and perspectives that are intended for the building up of the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:15-16).

So, how about you get to know someone new this morning? Invite them over for lunch or coffee later in the week. Tell your story. Listen to their testimony. Let their gifts, experiences, and perspectives widen your own reality as you share Christ together. In a word, receive the gift of the church.

Your servant,