Who knew Mimi was allergic to gladiolas? Not Michael! They looked beautiful on the dining room table, and when Michael had to “get rid of them,” there had to be another alternative than the garbage. Then the idea struck like lightning. Why not give them to Debra, the Jewish woman who recently moved in next door…So Michael and Mimi, flowers in hand, went to their neighbors. Debra and her husband, Richard, answered the door and were presented with an unexpected gift, to which they said, “Please, come in.” For two missionaries, these are welcome words!…For the next one and a half hours, some of the conversation was about “where are you from,” “do you have any children,” etc. Then it turned spiritual, where Michael shared with Richard about how the Jewish Scriptures, from beginning to end, flow toward the coming of one Jewish Messiah who will both suffer then return and judge the living and the dead, and will bring God’s glory to the ends of the earth.

Michael and Mimi Finesilver are missionaries that Cornerstone supports. They are Messianic Jews reaching out to the Jewish community in southern Florida. I read this story in their newsletter last week, and I was highly encouraged and excited about this simple story they shared. The Finesilvers continue and share about how Richard and Debra are not yet believers, but that they invited the Finesilvers to return and continue their conversation.

I wanted to share this story because it’s this kind of swift, other people focused, servant-hearted attitude that I hope I learn and continue to have with my own neighbors. Flowers, that the Scriptures say will wither and pass away, turned into a conversation that has eternal implications.

Please continue to pray for Michael and Mimi Finesilver as they seek to lead people to know and serve Jesus in their community.

Perhaps you’ve heard of Second Saturday and you’re not really sure what it is. Second Saturday is what we refer to as on-ramp for joining Cornerstone in its mission to “Lead people to know and serve Jesus.” This is an opportunity for anyone really, not just members, to take four hours on the second Saturday of each month and engage in serving our community.

The Big House in Opelika, AL

In March, we began a partnership with a local organization called “The Big House.” The Big House’s mission is, “Connecting the needs of foster families with the generosity of our local community through the love of Jesus Christ.” I love that. They exists to be a bridge. It reminds of what Rusty often says, “We as Cornerstone exist to be a bridge, connecting lost people to the love of Jesus Christ.” Some of the focused needs that the Big House meets are providing a clothes closet for foster care families, providing mentoring/tutoring for foster children and some future goals will be hosting day camps in the summer and holding classes like dance and piano.

In March we were able to focus on cleaning up around the interior and exterior of their new facilities and begin construction on built in shelving for their clothes closet. It was very encouraging to see so many people dive into working, even on a rainy Saturday morning. We already have plans to continue working on the Big House in April and I’m looking forward to the opportunities this will offer beyond just four hours on a Saturday as we partner in serving foster families in our area.

Community Buzz

Want to see more photos from Second Saturday?  Cornerstone has it’s own social networking site created just for you.  Just create an account over at http://www.communitybuzz.org to see more and be a part of the fun.

First, if you’re tracking with the conversation on the ‘missional church’ or ‘missional living’ then some/much of what you read below might be familiar to you. I’m just pulling together the conversations I’ve been having and the teachings that have been shaping me. Second, you might suggest, ‘missional’ is just a hip term for living obediently as Christ has called us to live. You’re right. The problem is, so many aren’t living like that. So let’s dive in. Here’s what I’m learning and thinking about missional living.

To me, the best way to start this conversation is to look at a picture. I’m kind of a visual person. I’m not sure where I picked this up, but I know I’ve seen it at Entermission once or twice.

On the left side we see what we might call the nominal Christian. Here, Jesus is just a compartment in the box we call our life. It seems that this is the American way. We’ve got so much going on and Jesus hasn’t really impacted our life in a massive way and so we compartmentalize our faith. I put Jesus in parenthesis here because really, this compartment is about our religion and church an hour or two a week. It’s not even primary in the box. Its just worked in there a little ways down. Sometimes, these people will go on a mission trip or invite someone to join them when they go to this box once a week. But, in truth, Jesus is not allowed to affect the other boxes.

The right side is where we see missional living played out. Jesus is at the center of a circle or a wheel. He is the hub. Here he has affected the believer. This person sees Jesus as the only thing that satisfies. Because of this he bleeds over and affects all parts of the persons life. He is not a compartment. He is the central piece and the other parts of this person’s life are not only affected by Jesus but they require him to be in the center making them move (clearly this wheel would not move very well due to its funky shape, but I’m no Picasso). Every part of this person’s life is about sharing what is happening at the hub. Not in a weird way. But a genuine way.

The missional life understands what is happening in 2 Corinthians 5. We have been reconciled to God. This truth humbles us and rocks us to the core. Then we are further humbled when we hear, “we have been given the ministry of reconciliation.” This does not mean, once a week for an hour and the rest of your life is not affected by what Jesus has done in your life. It does not mean that it is just up to the ‘pastor’ or the ‘professional Christian’. Because the passage goes on and it says, “we are therefore Christ’s ambassadors.” All of us have been given this message and title. Ambassadors take the message and go. They are sent. They engage the culture they are sent to. They no longer see people as “you are here to serve me,” rather, “I am here to serve you and show you the hope of Christ in me and the freedom I have found in him.”

Suddenly, knowing my barista’s name is important, and knowing what’s happening in his life is more important. The other parents at the soccer field suddenly matter more than they did before. The people in the cubicles next to me are not only my co-workers but friends who are put in my life for me to serve and demonstrate the attitude of Christ Jesus. Everywhere I go, it is my responsibility to engage the culture, to leave the four walls and make Christ more than just an hour on Sunday or a Bible study on Thursday nights. You name the area. Christ is affecting it.

Missional living. That’s the start of the conversation for me…

“Three years ago, Cornerstone received an invitation. It was an invitation to join a movement in Buloba, Uganda…We’re extending that invitation to you.”

Over the past few days, I’ve been editing some video that we were able to capture on our most recent trip to Uganda. The words above came from Josh Agerton, our pastor of connections, as we talked through how to tell people about what we are doing in Buloba. Genuinely, this is our heart. We joined a movement, a movement to partner with other believers in a completely different part of the world, for the sake of the Kingdom, for the sake of hope, for the sake of the gospel.

Cornerstone has been given the opportunity to help with a permanent structure for the local church, carry bibles to local families, give clean water through a bore hole well, sponsor over 200 children (on the way to 300, let me know if you’re interested) and so much more. We’ve also been given the opportunity to see Believers worshiping in new ways, lose our inhibitions in finding new ways to grow and serve, and what love looks like by watching our friends in Buloba. We are in a partnership of advancing the gospel with the followers of Christ in that community.

This Sunday, after the 11:30 service, we will be having an informational meeting about two of the three trips we currently have planned for this year. The first trip, May 25th-June 3rd, will be geared for university students. The second trip June 8th-June 18th, will be for families. If you’ve ever been interested at all in what we are doing in Buloba, then come join us this Sunday to find out more about what we will be doing on each of these trips. Attendance at this meeting doesn’t lock you in to going or anything, but it will help you be more informed about how you can join us this year.

We could continue doing what we are doing in Buloba, or we could take some next steps together as a community of believers. We can’t do this alone. It must be an united effort. And we’re inviting you to join us in that work.

This weekend, we have four projects available. One team of people will be working with ARM and a local family to do some minor repair work on a home. One team of people will continue working with the Lee County Humane Society that we have partnered with for the past few First Saturday events. And two teams will partner with a couple of our local elementary schools, Dean Road and Carey Woods, to do some light landscape work.

I can’t tell you what a great response we’ve had and how thankful our local schools were as we partnered with them through One Prayer Auburn. We want to continue to serve our schools as a thank you for their commitment to this community through education.

If you’re able to come, we’d love to have you as a part of this weekend. We’ll gather at the church at 8:00 am and leave no later than 8:30 am to head to each project and finish up around 12 noon. We do not provide childcare for this event, but there is usually something for everyone to do. In fact this is a great opportunity to demonstrate service to and with our children. If you are coming and know you’d like to help us out with one of the local schools, we would ask that you bring any lawn tools that you might be able to such as rakes, clippers, shovels or wheelbarrows (gloves).

If you want more information on this weekend, I’d love to talk to you about it. You can e-mail me at brian@cornerstonebuzz.org or call the church.

I will be leaving this Thursday at 10 am for Tanzania! We will fly to Houston then Amsterdam and the Kilamajaro. From there we will take a ten hour bus ride into the “bush.” They haven’t told me the exact names of the villages we will be working in are yet. While we are there, we will be setting up a medical tent that will serve as a triage. This will turn into somewhat of  an assembly line process. (ex. people will see a doctor, then will be sent to the makeshift pharmacy, and then they will go into an evangelism room) I will personally be in charge of the evangelism room (every other day) as well as keeping kids occupied while their parents are in the medical tent. We will also be doing a door to door walk everyday to get people in the village to come out to the Jesus film that we will be showing at night. While at the Jesus film, we are there to pass out pamphlets and pray over the people in that particular area.
Thanks for all of your support and prayers. I am so blessed to have a church family like Cornerstone!
Love you guys!
Ashley

I hope that you will join me in praying for Ashley over the next several weeks as she presses the gospel forward in Tanzania.

Originally this post was called “Relationship Building // Key to Leadership” and then I realized that was way too limited. But, I love leadership, following it, helping others become great leaders, etc., and that just tends to be my filter. What I wanted to share with you, however, goes further than leadership. It’s just some good advice from a book I’m reading right now that I believe will help as we develop relationships in every area of life.

I was reading last night in a book and the author listed 7 “B’s” of relationship building. They are:

Be Real.

Be interested (not just interesting).

Be a better listener.

Be empathetic.

Be honest.

Be helpful

Be prompt.

What I love most is that all of these are outward focused. They turn our attention toward the other rather than ourself. That advice sounds pretty basic, but so often we move away from the basic prinicple of “its not about you,” and we become quick to accuse, quick to think of ourselves as right and superior and we begin to destroy relationships rather than build them up. And these are small things that should take little effort. I’ll leave you with two quotes from the author about two of the above areas and let you process them as you need.

Be helpful. Little things make a big difference. Lots of small things cumulatively make a huge difference.

Be prompt. Time is the one thing that many people have far less of than money. Helping them save time by being prompt and efficient is a gift of great value.

*Quotes come from the “The Fred Factor” by Mark Sanborn.

Just wanted to say a quick thank you to all of you who have chosen to make Cornerstone Church the place you call home or the place you have chosen to support with your prayers, presence, gifts and service.

Because of your support of this local body of believers we were able to meet a very practical need yesterday to the university students. Yesterday was dead day and coffee shops tend to fill up quickly and we wanted to be an outlet for students who needed a place to study. So, we transformed our worship space into a coffee shop type atmosphere complete with couches and tables. We offered free coffee and wifi and a quiet place and the students came (not right away, cause its dead day and you gotta sleep in a little, right?). For the most part we’d have 15 to 25 students in the room studying at one time. Though I did get an update later in the night that around 50 students had come to join us at one time. And if my twitter stream is correct, Lee didn’t close up shop until about 12:30 in the morning on Friday.

So, I just wanted to say thank you on behalf of the students. I love being able to meet very practical needs for people, and this is one area where we made an impact. From what I understand, even students who don’t “go to Cornerstone” were invited by friends that do, and were able to take advantage of the space we provided. We hope that we can make this a regular occurance during finals and perhaps longer than just dead day next time around.

What I heard over again though was, “Thank you so much for providing this for us.” And I wanted to pass that along to you.

Thank you.

I have always been intrigued with this idea that Jesus asked His disciples to come into the garden and pray with Him. He took three of them deeper into a more intimate place to agonize over the events that were to come. The only problem for the disciples is that they had absolutely no idea what was going to come next, so they had were unable to feel the anxiousness of Jesus. But the garden was a critical moment. While at any point on the journey that Jesus took, He could have said, “Enough!” He made the decision in the garden that He would not utter that by placing Himself in the Father’s hands and saying, “Thy will be done.”

Tonight, Cornerstone is offering you an opportunity to accept the invitation to go deeper into the garden and keep watch through the night. Even now, I feel the heaviness of my own sin that had a part in crucifying Him. I know the victory and freedom I have Christ and that He paid for my sin without regret of having to give up Himself completely, but I believe we cannot celebrate truly and fully what He has done for us until we realize the weight of how hopeless our case was before Calvary.

Come worship through prayer with us tonight. The doors will be open from 8:00pm until 6:00am on Friday morning.

Again, today I would challenge you to read in Matthew. Take chapter 24 today and live in the words of Jesus. Without a doubt, He feels the hour drawing closer and closer.

I can’t tell you how excited I am about tomorrow night and the prayer vigil that we will experience together. We have been working diligently the last few days to have the worship space set up for you to have a unique experience of preparing your heart with Jesus and the disciples in the garden the night before the betrayal and the crucifixion. Our desire is that you will feel the weight of Jesus as he prepares to offer His life for the world. We encourage you to carve some time out of your schedule tomorrow night and Friday night to join us on the journey. We’ll be here all night tomorrow until 6:00a.m. on Friday morning.