Discipleship (Page 29)
Rebecca Lawrence: No, I’m Not Perfect
As a small child, this may come as a shock, but I was NOT the perfect child. In fact, when I did something wrong my parents would ask me why. “Why did you lie?” or “Why did you hit your brother?” I would answer “I dunno” and I meant it. I didn’t know why I did things I knew were wrong, but I had a sense that something was missing, I just didn’t know what. I found the answer at church. I grew up in a…
5 Ingredients for Spiritual Meal-Making
My mom is a great cook who would make three delicious meals a day for my brothers and me. I wish I could say I inherited my mom’s love for cooking, but I never did. She tried and tried to teach me how to cook, but I never wanted to learn. Now my wife is away for a few weeks and I’m counting down the days until the lasagna she made and so lovingly stored in the freezer is gone.…
Ann Ralls: From goddess Worship to Worshipping Christ
My mother would prepare food for them, said prayers while burning incense sticks, and burn ritual paper money to appease gods and ancestors for health and prosperity. We occasionally visited temples of different gods to pray and burn more incense and ritual paper money. My impression of the religion at that time was that we’d better do all the necessary rituals or they would come after us. I once asked my mother why we were doing all this;…
Cornerstone Connect: September 8, 2015
The September 8th 2015 edition of Cornerstone Connect is now available. It’s time for our second preview service this coming Saturday, September 12th at 5pm. We’re going to wrap up our two-part series in Ezekiel called Ready for God. You can prepare for this weekend’s sermon by reading Ezekiel 43:1-12. In our current issue, Pastor Jonathan encourages us to meditate on 1 Corinthians 3:16 to prepare us for worship, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s…
Tithes and Offerings
One of the ways we worship Jesus and bless each other is through giving generously and joyfully in our tithes and offerings. Although money can be a tricky thing to talk about, God calls us to worship Him with our all, including our finances. I encourage you to review this Tithes and Offerings Devotional from our June 27th 2015 Gathered Worship service at Cornerstone. You can also download the Keynote and PowerPoint editions.
What is the Gospel?
What is the gospel? My first semester at seminary I showed up feeling called by God to become a pastor and I couldn’t say what the gospel was. Sure I had an idea. Isn’t the gospel that we’re “saved by faith” or that “Jesus rose again”? The word gospel comes from the Greek word that means “good news.” Mark 1:1 tells us the gospel is “the good news about Jesus the Messiah.” So what about Jesus’ life and ministry is…