Lead Pastor Blog I.II

Two weeks ago I shared with our church family my vision for Cornerstone. I am excited by the fact that after two weeks of mulling it over I would not change a thing about that vision. I have enjoyed the number of comments I have received since that time. Some were just quick notes to affirm the vison while others were more lengthy responses to the vision.

I have been reminding the staff that we are in the midst of a process, a journey. The first hard part was listening to God, church leaders, staff and other thoughtful individuals while trying to see the vision. The easy part was communicating the vision to the body. The next hard part is the work of being relentless in regards to fulfilling the vision.

Let me restate what I shared on that Sunday. The vision is to impact or to change the world in which we live. The way we will carry that out will be seen in four specific ways. We will be a church who will unashamedly target men. There is a lot of research out there as well as just some simple observations that would cause us to see that the church has ignored men and men have ignored the church. We will be strategic in our approach to attracting men. Now let me be clear, this is not about some form of male domination. The church has in the past been guilty of allowing men to get away with behavior that was not close to being Christlike. Let me also say that it is not about communicating male superiority in any way. The church needs both men and women to be whole. The truth is that once a man starts attending church the statistics tell us that the rest of the family generally follows along. We believe that in targeting men we will be part of the solution to building stronger families in our society and with that we will be changing our world.

Next we will be open to the prodigals within our community. People get burned by the church and leave. People make decisions that church is not for them and they leave. People fall into sinful lifestyles and leave the church.  There are a 1000 differnt reasons why people stop attending church but God never gives up on them. We want to be the kind of place that when they decide to check it our again they are warmly and favorably received. No lectures or finger pointing. Just open arms that let them know we can start back on the journey at this church where they welcome the prodigal home with excitement.  We will point them to the Saviour, Jesus Christ.

The third part is we want to surprise the seekers with this basic truth: God is quite fond of you. In fact God loves you. Again, there is no condemnation or spiritual superiority just an open invitation to come and join us on this life journey.   We want their walls of hesitancy to fall down quickly.  Whatever negative preconcieved ideas they have we will surprise them with a positive message: God loves you.

Lastly but no less important we will be a church that meets practical needs in our world. Two weeks ago we said goodbye to a group of people from our church who were heading down to New Orlenas to help with the reconstruction of houses in the that city. That is meeting practical needs. This past Sunday we heard from a lady who is helping out at a local crisis pregnancy centre. That is meeting practical needs. I was stoked by both those different and yet practical ministry stories. During Lent we are raising money to repair broken down water wells in Haiti which is again a practical ministry. When you allow a viilage to have access to fresh water you have changed their world.

There are things happening right now that are part and parcel of this vision. There are other aspects which will be more long term. We will be relentless. You will hear from me and read in this space from time to time more about our vision. This vision will be the driving force behind every aspect of our church ministry.

I would love to hear back from some of those who have yet to comment on our vision. I am excited about the vision as well as the staff and lay leaders who are excited about it. We will continue to rally around this call from God.

Be blessed!