Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Elevate!

You heard it here first. Our theme for 2008 will be "Elevate!" It is our goal this year to take our church to the next level of effectiveness. In order to accomplish this we will seek to elevate Christ, elevate the people of the church, and elevate our community. The story began last fall as our leadership team sat down to discuss making our purchase of land a top priority for 2008. We spent several months evaluating and talking to outside leaders about where we are at as a church and what it will take for us to raise sufficient funds to purchase land in this market. We realized along the way that although land is an important goal, that it should not be the main goal, but only a tool to achieve the main goal. Our main goal as church is to elevate Christ, in our hearts and in our community, and Jesus has promised that if He is lifted up (elevated) He will draw all men unto himself. On Sunday we will have our annual vision meeting, but it is not just any vision meeting. I really see it as a turning point for our church. I believe that if we spent the last 5 years of our infancy focused on surviving, we must spend the next 5 on thriving. We will lay out the 5 year plan that will elevate our church to the next level of effectiveness, and will call us up to a great level of service to our Lord and to our community. If you have anything to do with Cornerstone or the Four Corners Community, you CANNOT miss this Sunday.

Monday, January 07, 2008

"I've never been to your church before but..."

This past weekend was awesome. We began our Saturday night current worship service with a great turn out of our launch team. (It is our hope to go public in February.) We had visitors in both of our worship services on Sunday, and one of them said " I've never been to your church before, but today God woke me up at 6:30 and I decided to come and today was for me." One of the things we strive for is that everyone goes away feeling that the message was for them. When that happens we know that it was a God thing. That the Holy Spirit was leading us as we prepare and then leading people to come and participate in the service. I have not checked the numbers yet, but I think we may have had a record crowd this past weekend. And then, next Sunday we will launch our 2008 theme and I know it will be another great weekend!