February 5 – Pastor Russ:  Born During Complicated Times –    Exodus 1:8-2:10

February 12 – Pastor Russ:  Making Life Complicated –    Exodus 2:11-14

February 19 – Pastor Russ:  When God Complicates Your Life –    Exodus 3:1-15

February 26 – Pastor Russ: It’s Complicated When Your Best Friend Blows It -  Exodus 32:1-24

The mission of the church is of vital importance. Christ’s call to make disciples is the pursuit that we need to passionately engage in as a body of believers in our world.  To accomplish this no detail is insignificant.  We need to constantly evaluate our ministries and their ability to build up the body.   Any barrier that keeps us from accomplishing the mission needs to be held up for examination.  As spiritual leaders we need to pray and ask for discernment that the ministiries of Cornerstone Church come from a place of obedience to God’s kingdom plans.   Scripture teaches us that as leaders we will be called to give account for how we lead.

As we engage in the ongoing  practice of accountability, we find that we have regular evaluations of individual ministries, programs, and staff.  This is important and necessary to ensure the quality of these indivdual areas.  However these are all interconnected in a larger frame work or structure.  And our practice of evaluation should also extend to looking at the bigger structures of leadership and management within the church.

With this in mind Council decided to look at the Constitution and structural organization of the Church and initiated this process by appointing a committee on October 19^th, 2009.  It’s been a prayerful process, and we continue to walk carefully through it.  In this document you’ll find answers to frequently asked questions about the proposed constitutional draft, a list of key leadership values in the proposed structure, as well as testimonials from other churches and organizations that have benefited from going through this process.  If you’d like to explore this further, take the opportunity to examine the proposed documents (they are available to download as .pdf’s at the bottom of this page).

Constitution Frequently Asked Questions

Why make these proposed changes?

Our current constitution is limited in its ability to accommodate the needs of a growing ministry at Cornerstone Church.  The desire is to clarify issues of authority and responsibility, as well as providing a framework for the ongoing development of management policies.   We also want to ensure in our leadership structure that our spiritual leaders have greater authority to exercise their gifts of prayerful discernment in directing the overall mission and vision of Cornerstone Church.

Does this model give the pastor too much power?

This is an important concern, because we’ve all seen power abused.  The proposed leadership structure will clarify the power that the lead pastor may exercise, as well as their responsibilities and accountabilities to the board.

Does this remove or minimize the congregation’s voice?

No, if anything this leadership structure affirms the voice of the congregation in a way our current constitution assumes, but never specifically prescribes.  In the proposed documents the congregation is identified as the authority in the church, and it lines out specifically how that authority is exercised.  Further, it prescribes how the board and the lead Pastor are to engage the congregation in more meaningful conversation on the mission and vision of Cornerstone Church.

Is this the perfect system? 

There is unfortunately no perfect system.  We are all human beings prone to sin, and to abusing the systems that are meant to protect.  What this proposed system of leadership does better is clarify responsibilities and accountabilities, thus minimizing the possibility for abuse.  And, if abuse does occur, it gives clear authority in regards to accountability. 

Cornerstone Leadership Structure – Quick Values Check:

The affirmation, involvement and empowerment of every individual and group at all levels is vital to the success of Cornerstone Church

Decision-making proceeds from shared values, vision and mission, not unilaterally from the Board or the Senior Pastor. Decisions are made as close as possible to where they are implemented.

The lead pastor and staff are responsible for management, delivering services on behalf of members in accord with Board-stated priorities and for achieving the strategic goals within the limitations of the authorization and resources available.

Authority, responsibility and accountability are the primary components of all relationships. Limitations (of authority) and expectations (of responsibility) are the secondary components.

Each individual is responsible for creating, owning, understanding and implementing the mission or purpose of Cornerstone Church.

Cornerstone Church is results oriented. Indicators and measurements of strategic results are identified and applied. Monitoring progress towards results and monitoring compliance with limitations form an ongoing process.

Testimonials

“The key benefit of investing in leadership structure is the clarity that can result as roles and responsibilities are discussed and agreed upon.  The introduction of policy governance at Briercrest created an opportunity to clarify the expectation the board had of the president and the expectation the president had of the board.  The conversation was helpful because it enabled a new level of clarity about roles, a new freedom to work in those roles, and a new accountability to deliver in those roles.   It reduced the surprises and frustration that comes about when roles and expectations are not set out and agreed upon.“

Dwayne Uglem, President of Briercrest

“The most significant value of a governance approach to church leadership structure is that it allows for the best influence at the best places. In many churches, the staff (especially the lead pastor) gives overall direction to the vision and mission of the church. This is a problem because when the pastor changes, the vision changes. Often the board (or the council) ends up managing the changing vision as staff naturally change. In a governance system, the board is responsible for setting vision, mission and strategic plan. Staff and membership have input into this but it is owned by the board. The primary role of staff (mainly lead pastor) is to implement this vision/mission. A compelling vision can be better embraced by everyone in this case. Also, when pastoral changes happen, the vision doesn’t change. So, the best influence for vision and strategic plan happens at the board level with input from staff. The best influence for membership is to give regular feedback to the board about the vision and mission of the church. The best influence for implementation of this vision and strategic plan happens at the staff level.This make sense because staff have specialized training to do the ministry of the church. Boards generally do not have this specialized training.

When governance works, the board engages membership to set visionary direction and the staff manage and implement that visionary direction.”

Dale Dirksen, Associate Pastor, Forrest Grove Community Church

“The most frequent word I hear from churches who use the Relationship Model for their governance is “clarity”. People feel much more confident when they know how authority flows in the church and how much authority they have to make decisions.  The confusion and sense of powerlessness is replaced by a clear sense of direction and clear expectations of responsibility.  The relationship between the pastor and the church board is strengthened with this clarity. It’s been a great pleasure to watch the difference these Biblical principles make for churches.”

Les Stahlke, Church Leadership Consultant, Author of Church Governance Matters

“For nearly four decades of pastoral ministry at various levels of church sizes and complexity, I have been struck with the importance of efficient church governance.  How well a church is governed may very well spell the difference between “mission accomplished” and “mission aborted.”  Instituting great church governance is hard work yet with significant payback.  Time invested in assessing and enacting clearly written and articulated leadership and management for churches will prove to be time well spent.”

Dr. Les Somers, Lead Pastor, StoneRidge Fellowship Church, Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia

 Proposed Constitutional Documents

Constitution Draft (.pdf)
Board Governance Manual Draft (.pdf)
Management and Policy Draft (.pdf)

Lately on this blog I’ve been going through and highlighting thoughts on personal worship from the book Worship On Earth As It Is In Heaven: Exploring Worship as a Spiritual Discipline.  It’s been a very healthy call to really make worship beyond just a Sunday event that I attend, and discover what the pattern of a worshiper should look like beyond the community worship we experience Sunday by Sunday.  Honestly, we expect a lot from the church worship gathering.  We need it to be this refugee of holy peace, and an escape from the noise of everyday life; we expect to commune our hearts together and to hear the intimate voice of God, and it needs to all happens within the confines of a specifically allotted one hour time.  However, a worshiper lives a life of devotion beyond Sunday morning.  And this book thus far has challenged us to make worship a priority, and to schedule a regular routine of it in our lives.

This leads us to another challenge: surrender.  We need to let go of the idols that compete for our time and attention.  Idolatry is often easily dismissed as an antiquated image.  In our minds we imagine some ancient tribal people group dancing ecstatically around a fire, late at night, bowing down to some carved wooden face, or other kind of statue.  In the Bible we think of the golden calf, or of asherah poles, and idols like the baals of the ancient Canaanites.  We don’t participate in any overt ritual action like that and so we think idolatry is not an issue for us.  But idolatry as theologian A.W. Towzer said is simply “worship directed in any direction but God’s, which is the epitome of blasphemy.”

Worship is anything that is more important to you than God.  It can take the form of many things, whether possessions, relationships, a job, a social cause.  It can really be anything.  I actually have this picture in my mind of the character Linus from the cartoon Peanuts.  He’s a very mature, articulate, and well adjusted young kid, but for some reason he’s very attached to his blanket.  It causes him great anxiety to part with it.  It goes everywhere with him.   That’s kind of how we attach ourselves to idols, and it is an unhealthy kind of attachment.  Idols can be the things that set us off emotionally, that give us a sense of peace and security, and cause us great anxiety when they are taken away.

The thing is, as Christians, holding on to an idol is an insult to God.  In the first two of the Ten Commandments God says we are to have nothing above him, nor are we to worship anything else.  Exodus 20:3-5 says: “You shall have no other gods before me.“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.   You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God…”  (NIV).   God tells us very clearly there is no room in our lives for anything above him.

And neither can anything replace the satisfaction of placing God first in our lives.  Only God can make our future secure and guide us to true lasting satisfaction.  The Psalmist understands this when he says:

You make known to me the path of life;
   you will fill me with joy in your presence,
   with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
 Psalm 16:9-11 (NIV)

And so worship in our personal lives needs to be expressed in full devotion to God.  We need to be careful to live our lives free of idolatry, and to spend our time enjoying the presence of our God.  If there is anything that hinders us or tempts us away from Christ, we need to examine ourselves, and flee from it.   This will continue to transform us as a congregation when we come together to worship.

Lorn Gieck

Associate Pastor of Music & Arts
lorncornerstone@sasktel.net

They were in a meeting together and the one man wore a button down collared shirt. The other man wore a faded tee shirt. One man wore jeans that had a hole in them by design. The other man wore jeans that had holes in them because they were worn. One man had well made shoes that matched his wardrobe. The other man had running shoes that had seen too many miles. When they were leaving to finish their respective days the one man put on his leather jacket and the other man slipped on a well-worn winter jacket.

One man walks to a lot of his destinations as he shares a vehicle with his wife. The other man drives in his newer model car and his wife drives in her own car. One man has a staff that works for him and the other man has a few co-workers working with him. One man has a curiosity about the inner city in which he lives. The other man has a passion for the people of the inner city in which he lives.

One man’s hands will touch drugs, puke, homeless people, weapons, dirt, empty bottles and backpacks in any given day. The other man’s hands will touch a laptop, iphone, ipad, books, bibles, office furniture and a personal coffee thermos on any given day.

One man’s hands will touch people in such a way as to be the hands and feet of Jesus. The other man will talk about the need to be the hands and feet of Jesus. One man will look into the face of one person at a time and tell them they are valuable and loved by God no matter what their circumstances might be. The other man will look at hundreds of people and remind them that because God loves them they need to be the hands and feet of Jesus to those who don’t know that God loves them.

One man’s heart is broken by the brokenness he sees in the people he serves. The other man’s heart is broken by the hardness of the hearts of many of the people he serves. One man touches the poor day by day. The other man reads about the poor once in a while. One man knows the poor by name. The other man knows the rich by name. One man stops and has a conversation with the poorly dressed person on the street. The other man walks around and avoids the poorly dressed person on the street. One man fights for the welfare of the disadvantaged. The other man fights to keep what he already has.

One man read Matthew 25:40 and had no problems because he was doing good to the least of these. (“I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”) The other man read those same words and shuddered wondering how he could explain the words in such a way so that they would not apply to him.

Two men living two lives in the same city serving the same God. Something has got to change. We must stop looking at the people who are actually serving the poor as the weird, oddballs who have a strange calling. We must come to recognize that God “calls” each and every one of us who dare to call ourselves followers of Christ to serve those less fortunate than ourselves.

These days as I look into my own spiritual mirror I do not like the image I see of myself. I do not like the image of the church I see. Something has got to change……in me. What about in you? I came across this prayer recently. Will you pray it with me? “Here we stand, Lord. Purify us. Here we kneel Lord, we lift you up. Here we lay, our faces down. Wreck us, Lord. And do a mighty work.”

May God do a mighty work in me…and in you.

This DVD series will be led by Roger & Lisa Braun at Cornerstone Church, in the Mayfair Room, as an adult Sunday School Class, during the 1st service.

All adults welcome, whether you’re in Senior High or a senior who’s 80+…you’re all welcome.

Classes begin Sunday, January 22 at 9:30 am and will be an hour in length.

Sunday Feb. 18th and Sunday Apr. 8th there will be no classes.
There are 13 classes in total and so this study will take us up to Sunday, April 29th, which will be our last class in this series.

Jan. 22 – Lesson 1 – The Lost Blessing

Jan. 29 – Lesson 2 – Ephesus: Repent or Else

Feb. 5 – Lesson 3 – Smyrna: The Rich Church

Feb. 12 – Lesson 4 – Pergamous: The Church at Satan’s Capital

Feb. 19 – NO CLASS

Feb. 26 – Lesson 5 – Thyatira: Jezebel’s Church

Mar. 4 – Lesson 6 – Sardis: The Dead Church

Mar. 11 – Lesson 7 – Philadelphia: The Church of Brotherly Love

Mar. 18 – Lesson 8 – Laodicea: The Disgusting Church

Mar. 25 – Lesson 9 – Rapture: Fact or Fiction

Apr. 1 – Lesson 10 – The Two Resurrections

Apr. 8 – NO CLASS

Apr. 15 – Lesson 11 – Who is That Woman?

Apr. 22 – Lesson 12 – The Marriage of the Lamb

Apr. 29 – Lesson 13 – The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

We hope you can join us!!

If you have any other questions, feel free to contact us anytime.
rl.braun@sasktel.net

This is the link to the Facebook event page, if you’re interested in seeing additional photos and a couple of videos.

The Gift from Cornerstone Church on Vimeo.

There is also an audio only version as well, which can be downloaded by clicking on the link below.

The Gift (.mp3)

One of my favourite advent songs is “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”   The advent season is a wonderful time to anticipate the birth of our Saviour, whose name “Emmanuel” means “God is with us.”

What an extravagant sacrifice God made in sending His Son into a world that would ignore, mock, and ultimately kill Him.  People today are not so different from those who lived two thousand years ago.    In many ways Jesus continues to be openly ridiculed or rejected or overlooked in favour of an overweight man dressed up in a red suit.  Just open a newspaper or listen to a radio broadcast or eavesdrop on a conversation at the mall.  And yet, even though God knew that Jesus would not be welcomed by the very ones He had created, the Father still sent His Son as a helpless infant, in an effort to draw a lost world to Himself.  What an amazing gift!

God is with us.  For thirty some years as a human being, walking on the face of our planet.  And forever after  through the gift of the Holy Spirit.  He is with us.

Sometimes He whispers an idea into our hearts.  Sometimes He brings a person to mind, prompting us to pray.  Sometimes we hear His voice in a song of praise or in a verse of Scripture or in the pastor’s message.

God is with us.  I am not left to handle the details of my life unassisted.  He is not a magical genie who will answer my every request, but He is faithful to walk beside me through each circumstance of my life.

God is with me.  I have felt His presence in a new way this fall and winter as I’ve gone with a team of volunteers to sing with core neighbourhood children who do not have access to any music program.  We meet on Tuesdays at noon with an enthusiastic group of kids, singing silly songs as well as songs with meaningful lyrics, eager to communicate hope and value to children whose lives we would not otherwise be able to touch.  Some of these children struggle with learning issues.  Some of them come to school hungry.  Some of them face daunting challenges in their home environments.  All of them need to be touched by the presence of Christ in their lives.   Tuesday noon hours have become an anticipated highlight of my week as I look forward to singing with these small ones who are precious to me and to God.  Please pray for Jessica (who keeps us organized) and for Darrell and Shaelynne (the most amazing accompanists ever!) and for me as we seek to make Christ visible to the choir children.

A couple of weeks ago, when I brought a small treat for the kids, one of the girls suggested that I should bring a “big treat” to our last practice before Christmas.  I asked her what would be a “big treat” and braced myself for her reply.  Imagine my surprise when she asked for a banana.  I have a hard time imagining a life where a banana could be a big treat, and I am humbled to have the weekly opportunity to touch these kids’ lives in ways that will hopefully communicate love and value and hope for their future.  It feels like too much to hope for, but God is faithful and I am so glad He whispered this idea into my heart.

God is with us.  What more could I ask for?  This week I’m pretty sure I saw His pleasure in the eyes of a child who smiled at me as I handed her a banana.

Families will come into the 9:30am service together and the children will be dismissed for their programs during the offering time.

The reason for the change is to advance and enhance our Bible teaching time. Our Advisory Board will review the change after a three month trial period.

Of course I wasn’t always that way.  I took piano at the insistence of my parents, and as a young boy practicing was not the highest on my list of priorities.  Time used to move painfully slow as I did my best to fill that half hour with productive bits of music.  Often I’d just stare at the clock convinced that it was unmoving.  As I got older things improved, but even then I could procrastinate with the best, and put off important concepts that I really needed to know.

My darkest hour was when I was in Grade 6 Royal Conservatory Piano.  I wasn’t particularly thrilled with scales and so I put off learning my C# minor scale.  Next week always seemed to be the best time to get started learning it.  The problem was that I procrastinated so long that I was a week away from my piano exam and had still not got around to learning it.  So I tried to learn it furiously as the clock started ticking away (Just for future record, you can’t really cram for piano exams.  You either know it or you don’t).  This led me to the next step of rationalization.  They may not ask me to play it.  Of the several scales I’m supposed to learn, they surely wouldn’t ask for that one.

And so at week’s end I am ushered into my exam.  When it came to the technique section of the exam they asked me to play only one scale; one randomly chosen from a list of five or six.  Can you guess which one they asked for?  C# minor.  And yes, it was an atrocious, messy, non-musical assault, on that poor examiners ear.  When the time came, when it really mattered, I wasn’t prepared.

Now of course, this is a partial encouragement to all of us to continue to practice and rehearse, and to do it well.  Music is a daily discipline that needs to be developed carefully through the coordination of our minds with our instruments.  But I also want us to understand that what we do is not just music, its worship leadership.  And that requires another kind of daily discipline.

I’ve been reading a book by Rory Noland entitled Worship on Earth as it is in Heaven and in the second chapter he talks about worship being beyond a Sunday morning experience.  Worship needs to be a daily habit.

We see an amazing example of this in the life of Daniel.  Daniel is an exiled child from Israel who is bold about God when it really matters.  By the providence of God, and strength of character Daniel becomes an important leader in Babylon.  This made a lot of other powerful men jealous and they looked for a way to get rid of him.  So they convinced the King to pass a law against praying to any other man or God other than the king.  Verse 6:10 of the book of Daniel shows us his response:

 Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before. (NIV)

So when it really matters, we find that Daniel is well prepared to face what is coming his way.  He has been already in the daily practice of prayer and worship.  Every day without fail he would get down on his knees.  It wasn’t something he fit in when he could.  He prioritized it three times a day regardless of schedule.  And so when Daniel is arrested and thrown to his death at the mouths of hungry lions, God sustains him, and vindicates him.

Just as much as I want us to have a culture of musical excellence, and a commitment to practice and rehearsal, I hope also we cultivate and grow in our pattern of daily worship.  We can’t neglect worship in our lives all week, and then expect to be relevant in worship on Sunday.  Worship really does matter.  In Daniel’s case it was this witness that led the king to acknowledge Daniel’s God as the one true God.  Out of this came a formal declaration to the world that everyone should honour and reverence God.

Maybe this is why we lack influence in our society.  Cornerstone’s vision is to change our world.  I read from scripture that worship is an important part of this.  However, we need to worship like Daniel.  It has to be a daily pattern of our lives, not just a tacked on religious duty at the end of the week.  Let us follow the model of Daniel, and others like him in scripture.  When we make worship a daily priority, we won’t be caught off guard when it really matters.

Just for the record, I can play C# minor now without a problem, and I practice it regularly.  You can test me sometime if you want.

 Lorn Gieck
Associate Pastor of Music & Arts

click here for the Winter 2012 Music Schedule (.pdf)