IMPORTANT DATES FOR JNR and SNR HI
October 12, 2011 by Stephen
Filed under Ministries, Youth
Here are some important dates! We will let you know if anything changes!
SNR HI SCHEDULE:
SEPTEMBER 2011
9-11… SNR HI Kadesh Retreat
15… Midweek Kickoff
22… Sunday AM Start-Up
| OCTOBER 2011 |
9… NO Sunday AM
13… Small Groups
20… KGB Wide Game
27… Social Justice Night
NOVEMBER 2011
10… Small Groups
17… Operation Shoebox
24… Special Guest Speaker
DECEMBER 2011
1… Christmas Reflective
8… Small Groups
15… Social Justice Night
17… FARMily Christmas Party
SUNDAY AM AND MIDWEEK CHRISTMAS BREAK
RUNS FROM DEC 23-JAN 4
JANUARY 2012
5… Midweek ReBoot
12… Small groups
19… Study Party
26… Social Justice Night
FEBRUARY 2012
9… Small Groups
16… Gladiator Night
22-26…Panorama Ski Trip (Tentative)
23… Social Justice
MARCH 2012
8… Small Groups
22… Social Justice night
APRIL 2012
5… Easter Reflective
12… Small Groups
26… Social Justice Night
MAY 2012
10… Small Groups
24… Social Justice Night
25-27… YC Alberta
JUNE 2012
7… Small Groups
21… Social Justice
26… WRAP – UP
JNR HI SCHEDULE:
SEPTEMBER 2011
8… Kick-off Night
22… Small Groups
OCTOBER 2011
9… NO Sunday AM
13… KGB Wide Game
20… Small Groups
27… Trick or Eat Food Drive
NOVEMBER 2011
17… Small Groups
DECEMBER 2011
15… Christmas Party
22… Small Groups
SUNDAY AM AND MIDWEEK CHRISTMAS BREAK
RUNS FROM DEC 23-JAN 4
JANUARY 2012
5… Midweek Reboot
19… Small Groups
FEBRUARY 2012
2… Tie-dye Night!
9… Gladiator Night!
16… Small Groups
MARCH 2012
15… Small Groups
APRIL 2012
19… Small Groups
26… Pool Party Night!/Wrap – up
SNR HI KADESH KICKOFF 2011: Registration Form
Step 1: Clink Link. It’s right here – KADESH RETREAT FORM
Step 2: Print.
Step 3: Return.
Step 4: Awesomeness, Sept 9-11
Mamas, Don’t Raise Your Boys to be Nice…
July 15, 2011 by Stephen
Filed under Ministries, Youth
Just got home from a week out at Ranger Lake Bible Camp, where I had a chance to teach at their DIRT CAMP, which is a week of paintball with 20 high school guys. ”Nice” would not be a word I would use to describe the behaviour of 20 young men running around trying to shoot each other, northe condition of my person, as I returned home with 120 individual welts and bruises (I have delicate skin.). That whole “girls dig scars” thing? Melissa just laughed at me. (Granted, I do look like a dalmatian. She used the term “leper”.)
You don’t win at Paintball by playing “nice”. Your team does not benefit by saying “you know, we did better than them last round, lets take it easy, and let them have some free shots, so they can feel included and better about themselves”. That might actually get you shot by your teammates.
So why do we place so much emphasis on being “nice” as people? Is the focus maybe on the wrong thing? The two key passages we worked through during the campfire times we’re 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 and Psalm 15. I’ll save you the time of clicking a link–here’s what they say:
1 Corinthians 16:13-14 (ESV): “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.”
And here’s the Psalm:
Psalm 15 (ESV):
O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? 2He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart; 3who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend; 4in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the LORD; who swears to his own hurt and does not change; 5who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things shall never be moved.
Hmm. That’s interesting. Nowhere in there does it say anything about being “nice”. Heck, even the fruit of the Spirit–love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control–have no mention of being “nice”.
Sometimes those things may come across as being “nice”, but that is not the main root. I am incredibly grateful that my father, in his discipline of us as children, was always gentle, patient and kind, but at no point did I ever think “wow, he was really nice there.”
Nice people don’t rock the boat. Nice people don’t step on toes. Nice people don’t stand up and call people to action when it might be uncomfortable. Nice people don’t step in because they don’t want to make thing awkward.
There’s the famous CS Lewis line from the Chronicles of Narnia about how Aslan, the character representing Christ, is not safe at all, but that he is Good. When look at the world around us, and the push for “polite, nice boys” I think of the same thing. Safe.
As we talked with these young guys this week about what it means to be men, and to follow Christ, safety and being “nice” never came in to the discussion. Gentleness, yes. Kindness, yes. Righteousness, yes.
But not playing “nice”. Sometimes we tell our students to “play nice”. Maybe what we should really say, is to play with integrity and honesty, and genuine care and respect for the other individual. That can be much different than playing nice.
By that same token, as we work through what it means to follow through and live out the vision that we are talking about from the platform Sunday mornings–to engage the City of Saskatoon, and the needs and hurts of our community–it will not be accomplished by simply being “nice” people.
Just as we challenged the guys at camp, and just as I want to parent my own son now… We need to direct out focus to raising our young men (and our young women) to love justice and mercy, to be faithful, righteous, and upright.
That’s gonna take a little more work, and sometimes it won’t look very nice. But it will be good.
ONLINE Plan to Protect training!
**FOR VOLUNTEERS FROM CORNERSTONE CHURCH IN CHILDREN’S & YOUTH MINISTRY ONLY!
Thank you for your continued commitment to the protection of our children and youth.
As part of our protection plan we require annual training for abuse prevention.
We are pleased to offer on-line Winning Kids Inc. Plan to Protect training which you can do at your convenience.
PLEASE CONTACT JESSICA if you you want to take advantage of this online option and then you will not be required to attend a training session in the fall!
email: jessica@cornerstone-church.ca
YC MEDICAL FORM AND JNR HI LASERTAG
Here’s the details you are looking for! YC medical form, and the JNR HI lasertag info. Just open, download, print, and voila!
Haiti Arise Mission Team
March 18, 2011 by Jen Wilson
Filed under Missions Trip, Youth
The Haiti Arise Mission Team will be reporting on Sunday, April 3rd at 9:30am and 11:00am.
A Word from a Volunteer…
January 21, 2011 by Stephen
Filed under Blog, Ministries, Youth
I wanted to “make available to the masses” a letter that one of our student ministry volunteers sent out just before Christmas. The opportunity to hear from Hands On Ministries caught a lot of people of guard, and left many deeply troubled about the hurting kids and teenagers in Saskatoon.
The reality though, is that those same hurts exist within the community of kids and students who come through our doors each week, whether it be Sunday morning, or midweek. In response, the volunteer wanted to champion and encourage those who were already engaged in making a difference in the lives of students, while at the same time celebrating what’s going on at Hands On, and encouraging people, on some level, to engage in investing in the lives of students. That regardless of where they are, the hurts are the same, even if they look a little different sometimes.
The letter was well-thought out, and well written, and so we wanted to share it with the broader congregation, as both an encouragement and challenge to you as well.
On December 12 Rick from Hands On Ministries shared a message that opened many of our eyes to the desperate situation that is happening in our own city. His message identified the outstanding need that exists in our own downtown. The number of kids that he told us about that are abused and taken advantage of in our city is devastating. Hands On is ministering to a demographic that often flies under that radar and is forgotten. As the church, we must partner with ministries such as this and support them both fiscally and spiritually.
I write this to you today to identify yet another demographic that is in desperate need to hear the message Rick gave us. The groups of kids that I am talking about come from broken homes, are abused (physically, verbally and sexually) and are so desperate to feel something that they sometimes resort to habitually harming themselves. These kids range from 11 to 18. I believe that we as a youth ministry can be effective in showing the love of Christ to these kids. I can say this with confidence because I have already witnessed it first hand. The kids I am talking about are the 80 – 100 kids that walk through our doors every Thursday evening and Sunday morning. The same kids that you are already building relationships with and to whom you are already showing the love of Christ. For that I thank and commend you. …
The number of abused and hurting kids within our youth group is staggering. About 70 % of our students come from unchurched backgrounds and may be hearing about the love of Christ for the very first time. Nearly 50% of them are from families that have been split up, whether through divorce or the loss of a parent, and desperately need the comfort and hope that comes through knowing that God will never be lost or leave. We know of some who have experienced abuse of some form, and can safely assume that there are others that are too scared or embarrassed to open up about their pain. Also, we know of students that have taken to cutting or some other form of self harm as an attempt to dull their emotional turmoil with physical pain.
These are our kids! They need to know Jesus loves them! They need to know we love them!
We often think that because a majority of our students have homes, money and stuff that they also have life easy and figured out. I would venture to say that these things merely cloud their understanding of what is important and where they should establish their life’s core values. We need to recognize the needs of the people we are presently ministering to. Throughout the past couple of years we have hosted a number of activities that asked our students to reflect on life and give us an honest account of how life is going for them. Some of the responses reveal the pain and need that I am talking about. These are some of those responses:
While being taught about their identities in Christ our senior high students were asked to answer the question, what do I say about who I am?
- Sometimes I am lost, and sometimes I am afraid … I am invisible and don’t live up to anyone’s expectations, especially God’s … I am guilty and impure, but I am saved. I am indecisive and confused. I don’t believe in myself.
- I am who God made me to be. I live my life as God has intended. I am indecisive, arrogant and egotistical. I cannot readily call myself a Christian and it still confuses me how I can live my life as one.
- Lost.
- I know God and I know that he has plans for good and not evil. I am also a young man that has problems with thought, language and actions. I feel that I am in a pit that I am unable to escape from for I keep falling in. I want to change but it feels like I can’t at times.
When asked to pray honestly to God.
- Dear God, Please help me to get through this journey of life.
- Dear God, I pray to you today because I need help with my life. My family is always mean and I want them to stop. Dear Lord, I just want to be happy. Amen
The message that we heard on December 12 was a message of honesty, revealing a truth that many people did not know or chose to ignore. There is a great need in our city’s young people to know the love of Christ. Rick’s call does not allow the church to be ignorant of the issues he talked about any longer. But I write this letter to you as CSM youth leaders to tell you that you have already answered Rick’s call to serve. You are already ministering to the abused and the neglected. You are already communicating God’s love. If you felt Christ’s call to go downtown and work with those kids then I encourage you to do so; if you simply felt the need to build into young people that need to hear that Christ loves them, then I encourage you to stay the course. Continue to build relationships with your small group kids. Continue to cheer on your students at their events. Continue doing what you are doing. Continue loving kids.
Rick said, “We don’t need to tell the children that Jesus loves them. We need to tell them that we love them and let them see Jesus through us.” Let’s take what Rick talked to us about and come back to our group of students renewed with open eyes to the vast needs that are right in front of us, and then let’s live our lives in such a way that we reveal the character love of Jesus to those needy kids.
Enough said.
IMPACT 2011
January 20, 2011 by Jessica
Filed under Kids, Ministries, Youth
I wanted to make sure that everyone out there hears about the upcoming Children’s ministry Conference here in Saskatoon at Ebenezer church February 12, 2011. Fantastic storyteller and speaker Steven James is going to be there. There are also many other awesome workshop choices! Cornerstone volunteers if you work in Children’s ministry or Junior Youth this is something you should consider. Come talk to me if you are interested! You can go to the website at http://www.cnetsaskatoon.ca/ for more information and to download a registration form.
Don’t miss out on this opportunity - It only comes around once a year!
Jessica Braun
jessica@cornerstone-church.ca
Where In The World Is…..?
Dan Jensen has been a part of the Cornerstone community for the last few years. Helping out in student and music ministry areas (and the best
"is this thing on?
Pepsi driver around), Dan left last fall to head to Briercrest College in Caronport.
Right now though, Dan is on his way to Africa. Kenya, to be specific, with a group of Briercrest students from across North America. As a representative of Cornerstone Church while he’s there, we thought it might be cool to give you a heads up on where he’s going, what he’ll be up to, and how you can be praying for him and the team. Here’s the main gist of what they schedule is in Dan’s words:
“The opportunities we have are amazing and the schedule is full. We will be doing a number of campaigns in four or five communities (preaching, speaking, singing, praying – basically being ready to do whatever we are asked to do). We will be visiting and ministering in 2 AIDs orphanages, and we will be ministering to widows and orphans in the village. We’ll also be helping to lay a foundation for an orphanage home in Kisumu that will give up to 32 kids a home, and help establish a poultry farm to help the locals. We will be helping to build 10 water springs and 2 wells in strategic locations in remote villages. We also have the privilege of leading meetings at the University of Kisumu. All of this is done with the local church, and all of it in just under four weeks.”
Busy schedule for sure, and part of Dan’s spiritual family, we want to invite you to be praying alongside and for Dan and the team. Not totally sure who Dan is? No problem! God will make sure the dots get connected 
Here’s the longform itinerary in case you’re curious what they will be up to each day:
July 24-26: Travel
July 28: University Event in Kisumu
July 29-Aug 1: Bunyore Campaign
Aug 2: Building fresh water springs/wells
Aug 3: Ministry to Operation Joseph kids and familes (AIDS ministry)
Aug 4: Orphanage ministry in Kakamega
Aug 6-8: Maseno and Kisumu Campaigns
Aug 9-11: Boyani Revival Service
Aug 12-13: Laying foundation for orphanage ministry
Aug 16-19: Wrap up and return home.
Well, at least the Canucks showed me SOMETHING in Game 4…
Fair warning. This blog is about the Vancouver Canucks. Sort of.
My “playoff beard” is just starting to get it’s legs, and this past week it has been pushed to edge of elimination/shaving, one game away from being banished for another year (Melissa can hardly wait.)
Captain Picard, reacting the Canucks game 4 effort.
As I sat on a tour bus watching game 4 between Chicago and Vancouver instead of singing along with Michael W. Smith inside (I much prefer the early 90s concert memories I have of Smitty to today anyway), I found myself muttering the same thing over and over.
“What the heck happened!?!”
See, I could show you the newspaper articles, and the video clips, and TSN reports, and all the notes from before the game (trust me, I read them. All of them.) To a man, every player on my beloved Canuck team spoke of how they knew what they needed to do. How they needed to have more discipline. Make smarter plays. Be tougher during the play, and not between the whistles. The said all the right things. They sounded united. Focused. They used the right words with the right inflections, and said it with enough conviction to have you believe that they understood what was at stake, and we’re prepared to go do whatever it took to make sure that what they knew they needed to do happened.
Then they went and laid a giant collective egg.
That was definitely not how this was supposed to go.
And yet, hours later while I was laying awake in bed replaying the sobering game in my head, an even more sobering thought hit me:
Am I the same way? Are Melissa and I, as a couple the same way? How about as a church? As Christians?
Now I really didn’t like the outcome of the game.
I’ve wrestled with this over the last few days. All I can do is speak for myself, and from what I see in our culture around me, but far too often, I wonder if we as Christians know the right things to say. We sound sincere, like we get it. We sound repentant, even passionate about being “missional”, and “community-focused”. We say the right things, have the right slogans, and, even, perhaps even most disheartening, the right intentions. We actually want to do the right thing.
But then we take a hit. We discover that it’s gonna cost. That there is work involved. And so we back off.
I’m so passionately frustrated when I see this pattern in my hockey team, and so quick to judge others for the same thing, but just as quick to rationalise and create excuses when it happens in my own life. It a trait I’ve been working hard to change.
So my question is this: What if we, as Cornerstone Church, were a place where when Christians said something, they followed through? Where when we say we believe in the grace, faithfulness, and goodness of God, our lived reflected that trust? Or when we say we believe that mentoring and coming alongside young adults, or serving the poor, or giving our time is important, we actually DID exactly those things? Or when we said that everything we have belongs to God, and then reflected that when we set our own budgets? What if we were a place that DID what we SAID? (wait, that sounds familiar…).
I want to be a part of that kind of Church. I think we’re moving in that direction. But we’ve got some more ground to cover. We’re we jump to action, and where we have an abundance of people who just simply want to follow through on what God is calling them to.
Because this is so much more important than a hockey game, or a shiny tin cup we can dance around with. It’s about eternity, and faithfulness, and fully grasping and joining the Adventure Jesus invites us to be a part of. It’s about obedience, and follow through, and Jesus doesn’t just ask politely for that, like a “good idea, but only if you really feel like it”. He commands it if we want to follow him (James 4:17).
I know some of you may already be great at doing this. Awesome! Please, continue to show us and teach us how. But for the rest of us, we need to show up. After Watoto last Sunday, I leaned over to Melissa and said “We can do more. We HAVE to do more.”
Let’s just start with doing what we say. (for a good example, google Vancouver Canucks, game 5.)
