Easter Wrapup

I’m feeling mixed emotions tonight. It’s been an awesome day, I’m both exhausted and excited.  Before I shut down for the night, I wanted to share about what happened this weekend at Cornerstone.

  • Our volunteers stepped up in a huge way.  We had several people serving for the first time this weekend and it made a difference.  Having the extra help for all our children’s activities was awesome.
  • Both bands did an incredible job leading worship. It is practically unheard of for a church our size to have two complete bands plus several more individuals who can fill in. All of them are talented musicians that love God and love leading others in worship.  The Saturday Night response time was one of the most powerful worship experiences that I have been a part of.  And this morning, our adult band kicked it up a few notches with Israel’s You Are Good and Tomlin’s I Will Rise.
  • Did I mention that all of our greeters, cafe workers, children’s workers, and musicians are volunteers.  Cornerstone has only has two people on staff.  Paula is our part-time administrative assistant/finance/website guru, and I am full-time as the pastor.  Which makes it incredible that this weekend…
  • We saw the highest weekend attendance ever for Cornerstone.  I don’t talk a lot about numbers because I feel that too many times pastors use numbers to boast their own egos. But I want to share with those who attend Cornerstone what God is doing.  Every number is a person, a person who is being taught truth and being challenged to be more like Christ.   Our Saturday night attendance was right at 100 people counting children, and the Sunday morning attendance was around 250+ people.  WOW!!  That’s for a church who just 8 short months ago was consistently around 150 people.  We have literally doubled in size. We are at two services and realistically we should be adding a third very soon.  And yes, we are talking about bringing more staff on board very soon to help with this growth.   What’s holding us back?  We need people to rise up to the challenge to volunteer of their time, and honor God by giving generously to the work at Cornerstone.
  • Somebody attended this week because of all the comments on Facebook about our church.  We haven’t used direct mailers, we haven’t really advertised in the paper, we haven’t really done any advertising, but the word is getting out about what God is doing at Cornerstone!  The best advertising is people being touched and transformed by Christ, and sharing what they have seen and heard.
  • I love hearing stories of life change.  How families are talking about the Bible more than ever before, how marriages are being strengthened, how addictions are being overcome, how people are growing closer to Christ, and how people are surrendering their life to Christ as Lord and Savior.
  • Which brings me to the most exciting news from this weekend.  In our morning children’s service, 15 children raised their hands to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior!  15 children now know Christ because someone cared enough about them to invite them, bring them, serve them, and teach them.   Now we have the awesome responsibility of following up with these precious children.  What gets me excited is to think that two of my own children have accepted Christ since we started at Cornerstone. Lives are being changed!!
  • And we also had several hands go up during the adult service for people who wanted to surrender to Christ.  That never gets old.
  • As a side note, I am feeling more and more led to go to Nicaragua in a few months with our mission team.  Not sure where the money is going to come from though.
  • I had several people ask me about the trail and rock climb I mentioned in my sermon.  You can find the details about it here.
  • We had so may new faces there this morning.  And it was great to see some familiar old faces that haven’t been to church in a while.  I just hope I didn’t scare them all off 🙂
  • I had a great afternoon playing in the yard with the kids. They seriously wore me out, but we had a blast laughing and playing.  I am so blessed to have an understanding family and a family that truly loves each other.

Overall, I am busting with excitement and anticipation about what God is doing.  And mentally and physically I am exhausted and ready to get some sleep.  God is good, all the time,  and all the time, God is good!

Let’s celebrate the Risen Lord!!!

Mike

I am a former design engineer who now pastors Cornerstone Community Church in Galax, Virginia. I'm passionate about following Jesus and I love technology. I've been married to Jennifer for 28 years, and we have three adult children.

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