Over the last few months, we have had several of our elders at Cornerstone share messages on Sunday morning. I think it’s great and I wanted to share we feel it is important to expose the congregation to teaching from different people. For many churches and congregations, there is a unwritten and unspoken expectation that the pastor should be preaching every week unless he is near death. The expectation is that they should be preaching because that is what they are paid to do. However, if you want your church to be healthy, there will be times the pastor needs to step away from the pulpit and let others preach. Here’s why.

Rest

I know what many people think, pastors don’t work hard enough to need rest! I’ve heard it and experienced the perception that pastors don’t really do much during the week. Nothing can be further from the truth. I think I can uniquely respond to this since I’ve worked both in the business/manufacturing world and in the ministry. The two fields are very different.

Preparing for a sermon each week is a responsibility that you cannot take lightly. Just imagine having to write and prepare a 5000 to 8000 word essay each week, and then present it in front of a group of people who expect it to be life-changing and incredible each week. It is the preacher’s responsibility to read the text, research the meaning behind the text, and then present it in such a way to help people see the need of the Gospel in their lives. But in addition to preaching they have many other roles: counseling people in crisis, coaching leaders, meeting and encouraging people in the church, hospital visitation, and just leading the church.  The biggest difference between the corporate world and the ministry is that you simply cannot leave everything at work. You have to always be ready, and most pastors work far more than 40 hours per week. I don’t share this to complain, because I fully believe this is the life that God has called me to, but I do share it so that you know that pastors are under incredible stress. The statistics on how many pastors leave the ministry are mind-boggling, click here to see what I mean.

Pastors simply need time to pull back and spend time with their families. Most people don’t realize how busy pastors are on the weekends, so by letting others preach you are giving them a chance to spend a normal weekend with the family on occasion.

Planning and Preparing

Pastors need time to plan and prepare. Time where they can slow down and simply listen to God’s voice and direction for the church. It is great to have weeks where the pastor can focus on prayer and study, without the added responsibility of putting together a message. There are events that need to be planned, upcoming sermon series to map out, calls that need to be made, administrative details that need following up, and people that need to be discipled. In a healthy church, the pastor needs time to lead, and stepping away from the pulpit on a regular basis helps the pastor and it helps the church.

Leadership Development

Ephesians 4:11-12 tells us that our job is to equip the saints. As a church, we will have a far greater impact if we continue to develop and train gifted teachers. This doesn’t mean just anyone can stand up and preach on Sunday mornings, but for those who excel in teaching in our LifeGroup system, this is a great next step. 1 Timothy 3:2 lists one of the requirements for elders is the ability to teach. Although this can take other forms such as writing or one-on-one teaching, several of our elders have the gift of public teaching. For me, it helps to know we have guys who are solid in their theology and can stand up and preach boldly. I can guarantee that most gifted pastors weren’t great public speakers when they first started preaching. It takes time and it takes practice to become comfortable preaching in front of a crowd.

We also need to realize that people respond differently to preaching styles. While one person may love my style, another may very well be reached more effectively by someone else. I pray that we don’t turn church into an “Idol” style competition where preachers are judged on style rather than substance. Unfortunately, that is what happens far too often in the church world. People pick and choose what church to attend based on the personality of the pastor, and then they complain whenever anyone else shares from the pulpit. It shouldn’t be that way!

Here’s what you need to ask each time

• Is the Word of God preached?
• Is Jesus lifted up?
• Are believers built up?
• Is the Gospel clearly proclaimed?

We just got back from a trip to the Seacoast DreamCenter at North Charleston. We took our older teens and a few of our college students and spent four days helping and volunteering. It was an incredible experience, and I’ll try to share about a few of our experiences over the next week here on the blog. Our goal was to simply be servants, to help in any way possible and to see what we could learn from them about reaching our community. We spent the week doing a wide variety of work. Here’s a video about what the DreamCenter is doing.

Here are a few of our experiences from the week.

• We did painting and cleaning work around the DreamCenter
• We helped pack and organize backpacks for their back-to-school bash
• We toured Water Missions International and learned about their ministry
• We did landscaping work and built a new walkway (in 100 degree heat )
• We helped with their food pantry, clothes closet, and free medical clinic
• Some of our group helped lead worship for their celebrate recovery ministry
• And we were able to visit an assisted living facility and minister to the people there
• And of course we had a little down time at the beach

It’s that time of year again when the churches of our community come together and reach out to our community. This year, two separate events are combining forces to bring Felts Park to life. I’m really excited to see the unity and cooperation between churches to make this a reality. Three big events are taking place over the next few days. Here’s a quick rundown

Saturday – Hallelujah Luau

What started as a community pool party has turned into an all-day fun-filled event for families. They will have free food, games, and music from 1 to 6pm on Saturday. At 6pm, it will transition to a Youth Explosion. This is a great night for our teens. The band CommonGround will be here plus free food and minute to win it games.

Sunday Morning – Community Wide Church Service at 11am

Join us as we come together with hundreds of people for a huge church service! Can you imagine four different churches not having service in their building and coming together for one combined service? For me, this is so exciting to be a part of. Click here for details.

Sunday Evening through Wednesday Evening – Praisin’ in the Park

This is a community wide Bible School event held outside. Over 100 volunteers are helping make this an incredible experience for the children. It will be from 6 to 8:30 each night at Felts Park in Galax. See the video below for more information about this great event.

There are numerous companies providing great solutions for church management software. However, your options may be fewer in the future. Recently, Active Network has purchased both FellowshipOne and ConnectionPower, and will be adding some of the unique features of ConnectionPower into FellowshipOne in the near future. I’m thinking that we will see more of this as software companies realize that they can do more combined than in competition. This means that choosing a system is even more important now, because you don’t want to pick one that gets left behind (I just had to throw in a little evangelical humor there )

For our church, we’ve been using ConnectionPower for a while now, so this news is a little bittersweet. Even though a better product will be the end result, the system we are currently using is going away. That means that we will have to retrain everyone on a new system. At this point, we’re not sure what we will do. I want to wait a little and see how things work out.

I’ve always been impressed with Church Community Builder, and Elexio’s new system looks promising as well. BVCMS is also an open-source alternative that we will take another look at.

Are you using one of these systems currently? What are your thoughts?

for more information about the ConnectionPower Acquisition – see the press release here

At Cornerstone, we really have a passion for reaching out to our community. This past Sunday, we invited several local ministries to come and share about the work they are doing in the community. We shared about the story of Nehemiah and his process for developing a vision to make a difference and then we ended the service by issuing a challenge for everyone to find their passion in service. We want everyone to find their ministry either within the church or within the community and start sharing the love of Christ.

Here are just a few of the ministries and organizations that were either present or that shared materials with us. God’s Pit Crew, Willing Partners, Free Medical Clinic of the Twin Counties, Praisin’ in the Park/Hallelujah Luau, SOBER House, Tri-Area Pregnancy Resource Center, Feed by Seed, CROSS Ministries, Lean on Me Ministries, The Hope House, P.U.S.H. Ministries, Twin County Hospice, Mt. Valley Hospice, Waddell Nursing Home, Golden Living Center, Twin County Regional Healthcare, BackPack Buddies, and more!

I’m excited about introducing these ministries to our church. God is so much bigger than one church in one community. Let’s work together to advance the Kingdom. Here’s the video from our first service.

Most Gospel tracts seem stuck in the 70′s, but The Story is not only relevant to our culture today, it is based on solid theological ground. The Story is a 12-page, visual-narrative of the Gospel, designed for the unbeliever, and it can be purchased as a booklet or embedded on a website. You can see it on our church website at www.mycornerstone.org/salvation

I love the emphasis on the whole story of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, and it helps you share your story in light of God’s bigger plan for humanity. I plan on doing evangelism training this summer using The Story, and I really think their training material is perfect for use in many different settings in a church. I could see this being used in small groups, Sunday School, Sunday morning sermon series, or even special evangelism training seminars. If you are looking for a good resource to train people to share their faith, then I would definitely suggest you take a look at this.

Here is a video with more information about The Story. You can also click the booklet on the left to view The Story online.

Yesterday at Cornerstone, I shared about Abraham’s journey of Faith in Genesis 12-22. We can learn from Abraham about the importance of obedience and the power of grace. He was far from perfect, but yet God was patient with him. As Abraham faced each test, we see his faith increase and we see him learn to trust God.

But what saddens me about his story is what happens in Genesis 11:31-32 with his father Terah. Here’s the passage for you to read.

³¹ Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. ³² Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.

Terah left his homeland with his family on his way to the land of Canaan. But he stopped, he waited, he settled down. And he ended up dying in a pagan city named Haran instead of Canaan. For us, the lesson is clear. When we quit listening to God, it becomes easy to settle for less than His best. I’m afraid that far too many of God’s people end up in a place that God never intended. They become comfortable, they settle down, and they quit taking risks and stepping out in faith to follow Christ. My prayer is that we will never become so comfortable that we quit listening and following God’s voice.

Things have been quiet here on my blog over the past few weeks because I have been putting the finishing touches on Cornerstone’s new website.  Check it out below.

The new site is big, over 40 pages full of content and media, and it’s still not completely done. We are hoping to add some discipleship tools to help our people continue to grow in their faith.  Our church has not been afraid of utilizing technology and this is just the latest step in our journey to help make disciples and build community through the local church.

Tech Details of the Site

The new site is based on WordPress. WordPress has become much more than just a blog platform. It is now a powerful content management system and it keeps getting better with every new version. It is free and open source, and there are literally thousands of plugins available to add new features and capabilities.  I am hosting the site through my WordPress hosting service, which utilizes the rock-solid FireHost.com and includes nightly backups. We have also just started using Google Apps for our church for email and we hope to expand the use of it as well.

The site is based on the Moses theme by ChurchThemer.com. It uses custom post types in WordPress for news, sermons, and upcoming events. It also includes a custom image slider on the homepage that can have up to six rotating images. The theme really makes it easy to get started. There are multiple graphic styles to choose from, and the theme options quickly get the site ready to launch. We spent the most time on thinking through the layout of the site. We wanted it to be action-oriented, and designed to keep people coming back.

We are updating our print pieces to correspond with the new color scheme of the site. And the scheme matches the interior of our church perfectly. We really have a coffee house vibe going on, and this just reinforces who we are.