Pastoral Notes for Sunday, February 26, 2023

Dear Cornerstone family,

It was a joy last week to focus on the ministry of Reformed University Fellowship (RUF), our denomination’s college ministry, and to sit under the ministry of Will Cote, Campus Minister at Austin Peay University, and to hear a report from Mr. Ryan Angel, Campus Minister at Tennessee Tech University. It was particularly meaningful to hear Rev. Ben Griffith speak personally during Sunday School about his history with RUF and his love for RUF as he prepares to serve with RUF at Samford University. If you missed Ben’s report, I encourage you to check it out. You’ll find it on our church website on our livestream page.

We have a little over two weeks left with Ben on staff. On Sunday, March 12th, Ben will preach his final sermon at Cornerstone. That same Sunday, we will have a reception for the Griffiths between services in the church yard (weather permitting). Please mark your calendars and make plans to attend.

As you’d imagine, yours truly has been working with our Personnel Committee on a plan for filling the holes on staff that will be left when Ben departs. We’ve been deeply encouraged by all the ways the Lord has guided that work, providing answers close to home for so many of our needs.

One of the answers was found in our brother and friend, Rev. Tony Giles. Tony has been serving on a part time basis (20 hours a week) for the last couple of years. During this time of need, and for however long it’s needed, Tony has agreed to scale up to three-quarters time (30 hours a week) at the church. In his revised role, Tony will assist in worship more, teach more, preach more, and (most significantly) will be pastoral oversight to all our Discipleship Ministries. Words fail to express how grateful I am for Tony’s eagerness to serve us in this increased way. Truly, he is gift from God to us. I am utterly delighted to partner with him in ministry.

There are other “answers” in process staff wise. As those come together, I will be sure to communicate to you. In the meantime, will you pray for the church? It’s a wonderful, hectic time in the life of our body. God is at work in beautiful ways! (Oh, the stories I could tell) But at the same time, we’re spread thin. We appreciate the tremendous patience and grace you’ve extended to us as we strive––often stumbling and bumbling––to care for you, God’s precious people, during this time of exponential growth. Your kindness is not lost on us. Please know we love you, and that your prayer support is needed and cherished right now in a special way.

In next week’s Pastoral Note, I’m going to update you on our search for a Minister of Youth and Families. In addition, I will share some developments that are coming together for modifying the chapel. Stay tuned!

Your servant,






 

Pastoral Notes for Sunday, February 19, 2023

Dear Cornerstone family,

We have the joy this morning to celebrate God’s work through Reformed University Fellowship (RUF), the Presbyterian Church in America’s campus ministry. On more than 178 college campuses globally, RUF strives to engage students with the hope of the gospel and equip them to live as servant leaders in every area of life.

Today we welcome Rev. Will Cote, Campus Minister at Austin Peay University, to the Cornerstone pulpit. Will grew up in Chattanooga, TN, and is a graduate of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Will lived and worked in South Korea for eight years following college where he met his wife, JungMi. Will has a Master of Divinity degree from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, MO. Will and JungMi have three children: John, Mia, and Louise.

We also welcome Ryan Angel, RUF Campus Associate at Tennessee Tech University, to Cornerstone this morning to report and teach youth Sunday School. Ryan and his wife, Charlie, are both native Tennesseans and both attended Tennessee Tech for their undergraduate studies. Ryan is currently a student at Reformed Theological Seminary in Atlanta, GA, pursuing a Master of Divinity degree. They have two young daughters: Scarlett and Kinsley.

As we take time to highlight the work of RUF, it’s only right that we would also take time to hear from our dear brother and pastor, Rev. Ben Griffith, about his call to be the next Campus Minister at Samford University in Birmingham, AL. During the Sunday school hour today, Ben will share with us about how the Lord has given him and Rebecca a heart for the ministry of RUF, and the process they went through to say yes to the work at Samford. Don’t miss it!

Finally, I can’t wait to begin a new sermon series next week, The Family of God: A Study of Ephesians. When scholars talk about Ephesians, they reach for the superlatives, and rightfully so. Nowhere will you find a more compelling presentation of the doctrines of grace and the importance of the church than in this marvelous letter. It is, as one commentator put it, “the crown of St. Paul’s writings.”

Take time this week to read the whole book of Ephesians. Reading slowly—it will only take you 20 minutes. If you don’t have time to sit down and read it, maybe you can listen to it as you exercise or during your commute on the way to work. Then, starting on Ash Wednesday (Feb. 22), pick up the Cornerstone Lenten Devotional and follow along as we slowly, meditatively work our way through this masterpiece. Reading only a few verses a day and asking questions of the text and our hearts every step of the way, we’re asking the Lord to weave the transformative truths of this letter into the very fabric of our life together.

Your servant,






 

Pastoral Notes for Sunday, February 12, 2023

I asked Martha Brooks, our Women’s Ministry Director, to tell us about the upcoming Women’s Ministry event for this week’s Pastoral Note.

Dear Cornerstone family,

This chilly February morning I find myself sitting on the hearth by a crackling fire, cup of coffee and cinnamon raisin toast beside me, air pod playing Keith and Kristin Getty quite literally into my ear, healthy daughters busy learning at the school we love, husband off at a job he enjoys, me, writing this, one of my favorite things to do. I’m surrounded by comfort and coziness.

And yet.

If I’m honest, sometimes I experience a not-quite-satisfied underlying current in my heart. Not sadness. More...discontent.

Surely, I can cure this feeling of discontent. I’ll grab my bootstraps and cultivate the right atomic habits, get rid of all my stuff, get more stuff, get outside, avoid the toxic air pollution, move to a tiny house, build a bigger garage, eat the right food, fast from all food, get healthier, eat what I want (body positivity!), get wealthier, give all my wealth to the right cause, get off the grid, go viral with my latest Pastoral Notes. Something will click. I can achieve true contentment if I can figure out the secret!

Or maybe this feeling of discontent stems from the fact that I am not home yet? That Lumsden Lane is not my permanent address? That I am created for Eden but am temporarily here, where thieves do approach and moths do destroy? (Luke 12:33) My heart rightly longs for the day Jesus will return and all will be healed. (Rev. 22:3-5) Can Christians be truly content before that day comes? Or are things too broken? Is there actually a secret?

Paul himself tells the Philippians he has learned the secret to contentment. He says we can experience contentment here in our home-that-isn’t-our-home. Paul, having lived a life of wealth and power, now reduced to an often- flogged prisoner under house arrest with a tragedy-laden pedigree (I don’t know about you, but one shipwreck would be enough to keep me on land for the rest of all time; this man has been shipwrecked three times, and keeps getting in the boat.), has learned the secret to contentment. (Not to take too much liberty with the Scriptures, but I kind of picture the Philippians all leaning in when they get to this part of the letter. Now we’re getting to the good stuff! Who doesn’t want to know the secret to contentment?! Spill it, Paul!)

Do you want to know the secret? Lean in...

Come to the Deeper Together: in Contentment event at 6:00 p.m. on February 21! (or go home and read Philippians this afternoon J) In addition to revealing Paul’s secret, we will eat delicious food, enjoy sweet fellowship, have some fun, and hear from two of our dear sisters who have experienced seasons of discontent...but are now in on the secret! Join us!

Grace,
Martha Brooks






Pastoral Notes for Sunday, February 5, 2023

Dear Cornerstone family,

I started dating my wife, Christy, then girlfriend, when I was 19 years old. At the time, I was living with four guys in an apartment, and I was the only one of my roommates who had a girlfriend. This meant I was the resident expert on all things relating to love and the opposite sex.

We had a rocking chair on our front porch. Occasionally in the evenings I’d throw on my tweed jacket, puff away on an imaginary pipe, and wax eloquent about the art of love and the ways of women. After a few sessions, my roommates dubbed me, “The Doctor of Love,” a title I gladly received.

When I actually got married, I was surprised to learn I wasn’t quite the doctor of love I thought I was. In many respects, I was flunking “Introduction to Love 101.” Before marriage, I was such a great guy––easygoing, flexible, sacrificial. After marriage, it was like Christy was bringing out the worst in me. I never said that to Christy you understand—I had at least that much wisdom! But it did cross my mind. I truly felt that marriage was making me a really bad person.

A few years later, I ran across this quote from Thomas & Kathleen Hart, “Sometimes what is hard to take in the first years of marriage is not what we find out about our partner, but what we find out about ourselves. As one young woman who had been married about a year said, ‘I always thought of myself as a patient and forgiving person, but in marriage the opposite seemed to be true. Then I began to wonder if that was just because I’ve never gotten this close to anyone.’”

The insight is an important one. Ironically, the closeness that drives us into relationships generally and marriage specifically is the same closeness that brings about the painful exposure of sin in our lives. It’s a packaged deal. Truth be told, the new circumstance of marriage wasn’t making me a selfish man. The new circumstance of marriage was revealing that I was a selfish man. It took me a minute to give up “the legend” in my mind, but I eventually began to admit to the fact that I lacked the ability in character to do marriage well. In short, I needed the grace of repentance.

Our earthly marriages, however, are not the only place where this kind of sin-revealing-unto-healing work happens. It happens most fundamentally in the church as together we live out our heavenly marriage with Christ (Ephesians 5:31-33). It’s here, in the body of Christ, where we learn to abide in Christ’s love, speak the truth in love, extend and receive forgiveness, and walk in new obedience (Ephesians 4:15; 4:32). In other words, it’s in the church where the grammar of the gospel is to be lived out day by day.

Ask yourself, “Am I close enough to anyone in church for the sin-revealing-and-healing work of the gospel to be operable in my relationships?” If the answer is no, consider stepping toward a Bible study, a home fellowship group, or a supper club. Volunteer to serve somewhere in the body. No matter what it takes, commit to break through surface level relationships into real Christian community. If you need help or direction in this regard, reach out to us. We’d love to help you move into a deeper experience of community at Cornerstone.

Your servant,






 

Pastoral Notes for Sunday, January 29, 2023

Dear Cornerstone family,

It’s the final Lord’s Day of January 2023. Ready or not, February is coming!

Over the next month, the church will be abuzz with lots of new opportunities to grow in Christ together. On the Focus on Church Ministry page this morning, you’ll see supper clubs, choir, men’s studies, evangelism training, and more. Please avail yourself of the many different ways to connect and grow at Cornerstone!

Of all the great opportunities before us in February, none is more central than Midweek at Cornerstone. Starting on February 22 (Ash Wednesday) and continuing every Wednesday leading up to Holy Week, we’ll gather for food, fellowship, worship, study, and choir. There will be opportunities for discipleship from the youngest to the oldest! Registration for dinner and children’s ministries will open soon; go ahead and mark your calendar.

Now, let me give you a sneak peak of what’s in store for our midweek vesper’s series! We are going to course our way through John Bunyan’s classic work, The Pilgrim’s Progress. Next to the Scriptures, The Pilgrim’s Progress is the bestselling Christian book of all time. Since its original publication in 1678, millions of readers have followed the ups and downs and ultimate victory of Christian’s pilgrim journey with profound spiritual benefit. Whether a child—mesmerized by the adventure, danger, and triumph of the story—or, an adult—captivated by the genius, beauty, and teaching—The Pilgrim’s Progress is a book containing rich spiritual blessing for every reader.

If you haven’t read The Pilgrim’s Progress before, join us in reading this great classic during the Lenten season. If you’ve read it before, please consider reading it again! If you’re a Dad or a Mom, consider pulling out the wonderfully illustrated children’s edition entitled, Dangerous Journey. This morning on The Bookshelf (second floor landing) you will find copies of both the original and children’s edition of the book.

In our time together on Wednesday nights, we will pause at selected points along Christian’s path to meditate together on key spiritual lessons for the Christian life. We will learn about the tinker, John Bunyan, and how his life and experiences are woven throughout the book. We will consider the historical context from which this book arises and the rich legacy of Puritan theology that marks every page of the work. Most of all, we will learn through pilgrimaging with Christian what it means to follow our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust me––it will be a feast for the soul. I can’t wait to make this journey with you.

Your servant,