I had a great weekend, but it’s one of those Mondays where I have a million things to do and not nearly enough time this week to get them done. Here’s a quick rundown on my world.

• Another good weekend at Cornerstone.  We started a new series at Cornerstone based on a survey we sent out where we asked people to rank different tough topics they wanted to talk about.  The top 5 topics picked were: Christians and Alcohol, How do I know God’s will, Are we living in end times, Bible Translations, and Discipleship and Evangelism. I was really surprised by some of these, but we will definitely have fun approaching each one from a Biblical perspective. We might even add in an extra week to cover some of the other topics that were written in.
• We kicked off the series with tackling the issue of Bible translations. I think this one surprised me the most, but judging from the conversations after the message, it really is an important issue to tackle. People are confused with the sheer number of different translations, and our area is full of King James Only churches who are less than gracious to anyone using a more modern translation. I don’t mind when churches stand by the King James version because they prefer it, but when they turn it into a matter of sin, I take exception.
• During the first service, I looked up at the clock and realized that I had less than 5 minutes to wrap things up. Although we are pretty flexible on time, we can’t go way over because of starting the 2nd service.  The problem was that I was only half way through my notes.  So I told everyone to check out my blog this week and I would share the info and resources that I skipped. BUT, I have changed my mind. After seeing how much interest there really is in this topic, I am going to tackle part 2 next week. Let’s just say that this week was your introduction.
• The sermon audio and video will be up in a few hours, so check out our sermon page to catch part 1. The online message is from our 11am service so it’s a little more organized since I knew I couldn’t get through all of it.
• After the second service, we were able to head over to Hillsville and catch Decemberadio in concert. They had an afternoon concert at the Carroll County Fair. I was pretty disappointed in the turnout for the concert, but the band did awesome as always. We’ve gotten to know them over the past few years and I would love to host them again for a local concert.
• And we wrapped up Sunday evening with a great night of youth meetings. It was our first official youth meeting this year where we really started teaching. Our Sr. High group is taking an in-depth look at the process of inspiration, preservation, and translation of the Bible that I covered on Sunday morning. We had a great time together, and I learned that when someone asks what a word means, you better be careful and check out urban dictionary first
• Overall it was a great weekend. I felt like I got hit by a truck when everything was said and done, but that was just the typical Sunday Holy Hangover. God is good.

Now for this week, I have several website projects to wrap up, another sermon to prepare for, and we are thinking about taking off for a few days as a family. We’re watching Hurricane Earl to see how it will affect our travel plans. Pray that it turns northward very soon.

It’s been crazy for a few weeks, but I am excited as we enter the fall. I love the start of college football season. All throughout the summer, teams are preparing and getting ready. Game plans are drawn, players prepare, leaders are selected, and the excitement builds until the kickoff. At that moment, the players move from the sideline to full participants in the action.

In the life of our church, summer can be a little slow. People are enjoying the beautiful weather outside and traveling, and every week there are numerous families on vacation. But once school starts back, it’s game time. I’m excited about several new things kicking off this fall at Cornerstone.

• We’re starting a new LifeGroup semester this fall. We have several new leaders and groups which will provide a great opportunity for all the new attenders to get plugged in and join the game.
• Our youth ministry takes a little bit of a break from our large meetings during the summer so we can focus on smaller groups. But now that school has started back, we are ready to go full speed ahead. We kicked off our new youth year with a cookout Sunday at the church with over 50 teens. Our Jr. High group has definitely got some energy this year. I’m tired of seeing churches set low expectations for their teens, and I believe that we will so this group of students accomplish incredible things for Christ in their school this year. We are going to challenge them to get serious about learning from God’s Word and obeying Christ.
• Our next sermon series is going to be a lot of fun, but it will definitely cause some people to be a little uncomfortable. We’re taking votes now for a series called You Asked For It and it will be focused on tackling tough topics from a Biblical perspective. And it starts next week.
• And finally, September 6th is circled on my calendar. The Hokies will be kicking off in a top ten match-up against Boise State to start the season. I’m hoping it will be an awesome year for Frank Beamer and Virginia Tech. GO HOKIES!!

Recently I made an interesting observation in how my shopping habits have changed. I love to read and I love hanging out in bookstores. When you find a good book and a comfortable chair and simply relax with the smell of coffee in the air, you can spend hours reading. Most bookstores today have great children’s areas as well, so our family frequents many of the big bookstores.  But over the past few years, I’ve noticed that we really don’t buy anything at the bookstores. We pick up a kid’s book every now and then, but for the most part, we just hang out and discover books.

Now, I either order books for my Kindle, or I choose to order several at a time from Amazon or one of the other online retailers at much cheaper prices than the store offers. I simply can’t bring myself to pay full retail price for books. I try to buy a few books from our local small family owned bookstore, but most of my purchases are now online.

So here is the question for you to think about: Can bookstores stay in business considering all the new electronic reading devices? Can they afford to keep such high inventories of books when people can order books online and have them shipped overnight cheaper? What are your thoughts? Leave a comment and let me know what you think

Christ is risen, and that changes everything. We worship Jesus who reversed the irreversible by defeating death.  The resurrection is the dividing point of history, because we have been given life. The grave no longer is something to be feared! This Easter at Cornerstone, we celebrated that new life in Christ. I wanted to share a few things about our weekend at Cornerstone.

• This was the first week we went to two Sunday morning services. It was a big step of faith because it required more people serving and getting involved. I appreciate all of our volunteers who sacrificed and served in so many ways. We have a great group of people who want to see our community transformed for Christ.
• The greatest comment from our response cards came from someone visiting from out of town. Here’s what they said “I was only visiting for the weekend since I live in (…)  You were all so welcoming! I am from the north and not used to being so welcomed by other believers. God Bless you!”  I love it when people feel welcomed because it allows us to challenge them with truth from God’s Word.
• We had our biggest crowd with more children and young families at our 9:15am service. That surprised me, and it will be interesting to see if that changes next week.
• Both services were full but not crowded. I was excited to see that we still have room to grow even with our largest attendance ever this weekend. Next weekend we will start offering three services every week! 9:15am, 11am, and 6pm
• Our worship team did an awesome job as usual. I don’t think there is another church our size in the entire country that has as much musical talent as we do!
• I was also excited to see lots of new faces and families worshiping with us this weekend. And of course, it’s always amazing when you see people place their faith and trust in Christ and cross over from death to life!
• Not excited to see that our offering was low again this weekend.  Our local economy is really struggling and it has definitely affected the giving at church this year. We have to start making some tough decisions in our budget.
• We started a new series this week called One Month to Live.  We are challenging everyone to ask the question “What changes would you make in your life if you only had one month to live?” That question is powerful, because it forces us to look at our priorities and values in life.  Can you honestly say that you are living passionately for Christ? The truth of the resurrection changes everything. It causes us to change the way we live and change the way we love others.

Nothing can be the same again because of the resurrection. I encourage you to watch the video below to think about how the resurrection has changed your life.

Resurrection: Rob Bell from The Work of Rob Bell on Vimeo.

At the heart of the historical Jesus story is the provocative, compelling, subversive, beautiful insistence that nothing can ever be the same again, not after resurrection.

I never like waking up to a phone call. I always wake up with my heart racing, wondering if something is wrong. This morning I received a call that a fire had started downtown just a few buildings away from our church. All the buildings are connected, so we didn’t know what to expect. By the time I arrived at the church, smoke was rolling out of a building just three doors down from the church and flames were coming through the roof.

It didn’t look good for a while, we loaded up several of the instruments and valuables from the church, expecting the worst, but our local volunteer fire department did an awesome job of keeping the fire contained. I’ve grown up around the fire department with my dad and brother both long time members. We also have several firefighters in our church. It was great to see the teamwork and effort from a group of people who continually put their lives on the line to serve others.

You can see the back entrance of the church in the picture above. Cornerstone is the building on the left. I am thankful and blessed to let you know that the church sustained no damage at all and there were no injuries. Misty, our children’s director at Cornerstone, runs a cosmetic business that was next door to the fire. Her business sustained some smoke damage, but no fire or water damage. Below is a video from channel 10 news that shows the fire from the front of the church. I just keep thinking, it could have been much worse …

Please pray for the families who were living in the burned apartments. Thankfully they are safe, but it looks like they lost everything.

Lately, I have noticed something that seems to be on the increase.  I am concerned with the boredom of an entire generation.  Check out the facebook and status updates of young adolescents and you’ll be sure to see the infamous statement, “I AM BORED.” I am sure that this isn’t something entirely new, but I do see it as a growing problem. In the midst of incredible advances in technology, entertainment, and communication, teens and children are complaining that they simply have nothing to do. With a 5 year old, 9 year old, and 11 year old, it’s a phrase that comes up often at our house. If we hear complaining about boredom at our house, the first step is usually cleaning their room or reading a book. But even with consequences, our children still want us to entertain them and help them find something to do.

I think this problem has huge implications for the church as well. If the younger millennials grow up in a society where they are constantly entertained, it will affect how we reach them. We must start getting to the root of the problem. One area of concern is the pace of our society. Everything is based on instant gratification and no waiting. From fast food to movies on demand to instant messaging, everything has been geared toward providing them what they want when they want it.  I still have hope, but it will require action on our part.

At the risk of sounding old, I actually remember before we had game systems, cell phones, and home computers. As kids, we spent much of our time simply being kids, playing and enjoying our time with friends. As adults, I feel we have a responsibility to help guide and direct the younger generation to learn how to live life to the fullest. I think we can teach and model some important truths.

So What’s the Cure?

• Let’s teach them to develop a Holy curiosity – When you look at the world with wonder and anticipation, you simply cannot become bored. When you explore and learn, you will grow in maturity and in knowledge.
• Let’s teach them to be still and know God – If we cannot teach our children to slow down, what will happen as they grow older? Jesus spent regular time in silence and solitude with God the Father, and we need to do the same thing. It brings us into God’s presence, it allows us to avoid stress by bringing our requests before God, and it strengthens us with the power of the Holy Spirit.
• Let’s teach them to use their imagination and creativity - I’m afraid we are preventing them from finding solutions to their problems. When they are bored, they can become incredibly creative. It’s in those times when they come up with new ideas and new ways of doing things. Let’s not stifle their creativity. Instead encourage them to discover something to do when they are bored.
• Let’s teach them to serve others – At the root of boredom is selfishness. Everything is focused on my needs and wants. When we find ways to serve others, it helps refocus our priorities on the two greatest commandments. Loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving others as ourselves.
• Let’s teach them the power of reading the Bible and other great books – I am thankful that my children love books. I love seeing them pick up books, but still way too often I hear the phrase “I am bored.”  I want to create in them a love of reading. It’s amazing what they can learn from great stories. And I especially want them to spend time reading their Bible. It is such a great joy to hear them reading Bible stories to each other.

I encourage you to join in the conversation. What else would you add to this list?

Let me just start off by saying, it was a great weekend. I wanted to share a quick update about some of the things happening in my world.

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  I love this sign

  Snow, ice, and cold temperatures.  That’s pretty much summarizes the last two months. Although everyone enjoyed the snow at first, it’s starting to wear out it’s welcome.  At least the kids finally were able to play basketball this weekend. The games have been canceled for the last several weeks, so they were glad to get back on the court. We have had snow on the ground here since the week before Christmas, and school was out again today. The sun did make an appearance and the snow is finally starting to melt, but that poses a problem for all the leaks we have in the roof at church.

• We had a great Valentine’s dinner at the church Saturday night. Fun times and great food.  And I can’t forget to mention that the guys won the quiz challenge
• I arrived at church Sunday morning to find my entire office covered in sticky notes.  Several of the youth woke up at 4am on Sunday morning and spent several hours sticking up over 10,000 post it notes. Everything was covered, even the bathroom. It was quite impressive. Now I’m just wondering what to do with all of them.  Check out the pics.
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• Sometimes, my job as a pastor is to get out of the way of the Holy Spirit, and this was one of those weeks. I stayed up late into the night finishing up my message and tweaking it, but ended up not even preaching it. It was a powerful service in many ways. Our Sunday night worship team switched with our Sunday morning team and did an awesome job. And then Sam shared a story about the heartbreak that one of his former business partners is going through. We showed a video of his story, and then using skype, we patched him in live to our service. He shared about his wife dying of cancer, and what true love really is about. We are launching a series called Love Is…, and the story of Rogers and his wife was heart wrenching. The band came back up and did a couple of powerful songs, so by the time I got up to preach, I knew there wasn’t much that needed to be said. I shared 1 Corinthians 13 and challenged everyone to live it out this week and to remember the love that God has shown us. We’ll pick up the series next week as we continue to look at what true love is. The Sunday evening service was just as powerful. It was great having the Sunday morning band experience the evening service and they did an awesome job as always. I shared just a little more, but again, there wasn’t much to add after we watched and heard such a moving example of love.

We are in the middle of a harsh winter in the mountains of southwest Virginia. Starting the week before Christmas, we have had snow almost every week. This picture is the road that goes by our house. It has stayed covered with snow and ice for most of the past month. The schools have missed days and weeks at a time, and it doesn’t look any better in the foreseeable future.

We are digging out now from about 9 inches of snow with more sleet and freezing rain to come. While I’m happy that I have a 4-wheel drive F-150 pickup, it has still been tough getting around. But the snow definitely can wreak havoc on schedules and church activities. We have already missed two Sundays due to the snow and this week may not be much better.

So here is my question. What does your church do when it snows? I know some churches are adamant that they will be open no matter what. Some close at even a hint of snow in the forecast, but what should be the deciding factor? Anne Jackson had a great post posing a similar question and it really made me think. For me, it is always a tough decision. I have tried to delegate it to others, but it is usually a collective decision. Our decision is usually based entirely on safety. Even if we tell people to be careful and stay home if the roads aren’t safe in their neighborhood, many still feel obligated to come. Especially those who are serving. We don’t want to put them and their families at risk. I would feel terrible if someone was injured because of a decision we make.

Why do we feel pressure to have church every week? I enjoy meeting together and I truly miss having church services, but for many churches, the answer is simply money. If your church is operating week-to-week on a budget, then missing a week can really affect paying the bills. Luckily, Cornerstone has built up a reserve for times like these so we can continue on without ministry being affected. We trust and pray that God’s people will give generously when they get back to church. Here are a few other things to consider:

• If you have services, then you are responsible to clear walkways, sidewalks, steps, and the parking lot to ensure the safety of those who come. I talked to a pastor this week who had someone fall and break their hip due to ice in the parking lot. The first question the insurance company asked was if they had someone professionally clear the parking lot and sidewalks.
• If the local police have asked people to not travel due to bad road conditions, then please honor their request
• If you do have services, why not simplify and meet with children and adults all together. Combine services and don’t try to do everything like it’s always been done.
• Why not utilize technology and share a video message or audio message with your church online
• Why not provide resources or encourage people to have church in their homes or communities. Share resources or ideas for children to study as well.

This past week, we tried something a little different. Here is the email we sent out. We pointed people to other churches who had online experiences, and we encouraged them to worship as families. At our house, I got out my guitar and we had church together as a family, and it was an awesome time. What other ideas do you have for when services are cancelled? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Dear Church Family

1. If you have missed any of the past weeks from our current teaching series, we would like to encourage you to go back and listen to them online here.

2. Take the time to have a family worship service at home. Involve the entire family with singing and devotions and a time of Bible study.

3. Tune in to one of the many online church services from around the country. Some of the ones that we recommend are Lifechurch.tv (9:30 and 11am), Seacoast Church (9:30 and 11:15am), Newspring Church (11:15am and 6pm), and Northpoint Online (6pm). Lifechurch also has an excellent children’s website for activities and lessons to do at home.

4. If you are a regular giver at Cornerstone, we ask that you continue to worship by giving your normal tithes and offerings online. This may be a good week to check out the online giving options at our Cornerstone website. Our expenses don’t go away on snow days. If you are not comfortable with online giving, of course you are welcome to simply catch up next weekend. Our weekly operations budget has been down over the last month or so with the weather, the holidays, and possibly extra giving to AEP . We appreciate your generosity in advance as we continue to combine our resources in order to pursue the vision God has given us for reaching the twin counties.

We hope and pray that you and your family stay warm over the next few days and stay safe if you absolutely must head-out. We can’t wait to see you next Sunday!

Enjoy your time in the snow!!

I had a great weekend.  Here’s a quick recap:

Church Camp

Friday night, I traveled with Scattered, our young adult praise team to a little Methodist church camp near the Tennessee/Virginia state line.  They had invited us to come lead the service one night at their camp.  We had a little trouble finding it, so they had to come find us, but we made it there and had an incredible night of worship and teaching.

• In the short time we were there, I felt we connected with the teens.  I wish we would have had more time just to hang out and get to know them, but I am glad they felt safe enough to respond.
• And respond they did, we had a number of youth come forward during the invitation to talk with counselors.  God’s spirit was moving and working in their lives. I prayed with an older teen who God was really dealing with.  I will continue to pray that this camp will be a turning point in his life.
• And finally, it was pretty funny to see all the younger girls go crazy over our band.  Not sure that their minds were focused on Christ after the service, because they were flirting pretty hard with our guys.   And here’s the best quote of the night from the girls, “the guys in the band were good and cute, and the pastor, he was good, but not cute ”

One Prayer: God is Love

We continued the One Prayer series by showing a video from Craig Groeschel, pastor of Lifechurch.tv.  He has ministered to me through his books (I’ve read them all), and through his messages.  I listen in to their online church services every week, and I have heard Craig speak at Catalyst as well.  I have a huge amount of respect and gratitude for their church as they develop and utilize new technologies for sharing the message of Christ.  From YouVersion to babelwith.me to ChurchMetrics to sharing their graphic resources for free, Lifechurch.tv has been a huge example of a church that is Kingdom minded. Craig’s message was powerful and it really connected with our church.  If there are those that doubt the effectiveness of a video sermon, then they should reconsider.  It’s not something that I would want to do every week, but for our church, this One Prayer series has shown that it works.  After the first few minutes, people don’t even realize they are watching a message instead of hearing it live.

Baptism

And finally, we concluded the weekend, by having a baptism celebration on our church property.  It was a great day, the rain held off, and we were able to baptize six people. It’s always special when you baptize the parent of a teen. I have seen so many examples over the years of teenagers bringing their parents to Christ.   I’m looking forward to many more baptism services in the future.   I’m excited about preaching next week, and I am definitely on a “spiritual” high right now.  I see evidence of God moving and working all around, and it both excites and scares me.  Our God is an awesome God!

I attended the first meeting of a new local Christian Writer’s Group last night.  Even though I am not a writer in a traditional sense, I wanted to attend and join this JoyWriters group.   I enjoyed the stories and encouragement that Christian author Nancy Hoag shared.  But last night made me ask the question, “Is blogging the same as writing?”    The answer may not be as clear as you think.

I view blogging as more of a spiritual journal of my journey through life.  For the last several years, I have chronicled the ups and downs of my life.  I have written about leaving the engineering world to move into full-time ministry.  I have shared about the use of technology in church.  And I have shared my struggles and successes along the way.  I hope I have grown in my writing ability.

As a student, math and science were my best subjects.  But I always enjoyed writing stories.   When it came to reports and essays and poetry, my heart just couldn’t get excited.  But when it came to writing short stories, I always felt I had a story to share.  Maybe that is why I love teaching so much.   When I preach and teach, I share stories from my life.  People don’t want to hear illustrations from people they don’t know or can’t relate to.

But back to the question.  While blogging is definitely writing, it does have differences.  Writing for a blog forces you to be concise, not detailed.  There are many different ‘styles’ of blogs, but most bloggers post often.  Typically blogs are full of ideas and unformed thoughts.  It has been interesting to see people like Seth Godin and Tony Morgan develop these ideas and thoughts into books.    But blogging can make you a lazy writer.  Since you are writing frequently, it becomes easy to skip the proofreading.  My desire is to grow in my skills as a writer, communicator, leader, and preacher, because I know that as Christians we have a message that the world needs to hear.  As 1 Corinthians 10:31 tells us, whether we write with pen and paper, or keyboard and screen, we should do everything with excellence to the Lord.

Even though I live in the mountains, I really love South Carolina low-country cuisine.  One of my favorite dishes is She-Crab soup.  Unfortunately, you can’t find it too many places up here in the mountains (although Goobers52 does have it in Mt. Airy)

So for our soup and salad luncheon after church Sunday, I fixed a huge pot of it.   I had so many requests for the recipe that I thought I would share it here.  It is a artery-busting, calorie-popping delight.  I did leave out the Sherry, because it’s a little hard to go shopping for wine if you’re a pastor in a small town   And we couldn’t find fish stock, so I substituted vegetable broth with the juice from some cans of crab meat.   I went by this recipe from Allrecipes.com

Enjoy!!

In thinking through the vision and mission of Cornerstone, I find myself looking and learning from churches all over the country.  At the risk of making a broad generalization, I wanted to share something that concerns me about the future of the church in America.

It seems that many mainline and traditional churches have created programs, structures, and sermons that emphasize knowledge over obedience.  You see churches full of people who know much about the Bible, but don’t live empowered lives.  The three point sermon with a quick challenge at the end is not enough to teach people how to live their life as a disciple.

But on the other hand, many contemporary seeker churches have emphasized obedience over knowledge. They throw in a few verses, but the main focus is on how to improve your life.  You see people full of enthusiasm until trials in life hit.   If you do not have strong roots, it is easy to give up and lose hope.

Now I know there are many great churches, both traditional and contemporary,  that are exceptions to this rule. And the good news is that many newer contemporary churches have recognized this problem.   I want Cornerstone to be a church where knowledge and obedience are taught.  Where we are not afraid to tackle deep theological truths, but where we also talk about the challenges we face in our lives.   God’s Word is active, it’s living, and it can change lives.  Let’s teach knowledge of the Scripture, knowing that it empowers us to stand up against the temptations of Satan, and let’s teach people how to live and love like Jesus.

It was another day where I saw God move and work.  This will be short because I’m getting very, very sleepy …

• I hate making decisions about whether or not to have church. The snow was pouring down, but the forecast wasn’t calling for much accumulation.  By the time church started it was gone.  We made the right call.
• Because of the snow, I was expecting a light turnout.  Some of our regulars stayed home, but we had a number of new guests.  Every week, we see new faces.  The word is getting out that God is doing some incredible things through the people at Cornerstone!
• I preached on a tough passage this morning in 1 John 3:1-10.   I said what I needed to say and I let God take care of the rest.  People need to make sure that they are truly children of God.  God calls us to radical obedience, not a safe and comfortable life.
• After church, we loaded up a van and hit the road.  Our young adult praise band, Scattered, led worship for a youth rally in Weber City, Virginia.  I was able to bring a short message about faith.   I am so stinking proud of our teens at Cornerstone.   They are incredible musicians, but they have a passion and love for sharing Jesus and I am seeing them grow more every week.  They were even invited to play at a summer camp in June.  They really sounded good.
• I also appreciate the youth that traveled with us to setup and tear-down and run all the technical stuff.  It was a very challenging room for acoustics and they pulled it off with no time to spare.
• I am also glad my family traveled with me tonight.  It was awesome to let my kids see the passion and worship that occurred tonight.  Not only that, but they got to spend time with their dad on a Sunday, something that usually doesn’t happen much.  I would encourage anybody to take their family with them on as many business trips or ministry trips that they can.   We made this trip extra special because we traveled on to Pigeon Forge tonight to stay at a new hotel with an indoor waterpark.  All day tomorrow we be splashing and having fun as a family at Wilderness at the Smokies.  This place looks awesome.

This is already longer than planned, I’ll share more details when we get back to the big city of Galax.

It’s been a while since I’ve shared on a Sunday night.  I’m usually wiped out from preaching and teaching most of the day.  But I’m so excited about what God is doing at Cornerstone that I have to share it!

• I am married to the most incredible woman in the world.  Seriously, Jenni is awesome.  We had a great date night Friday night and she does great on the weekends with the kids when I am at the church.   I am blessed to have a supportive wife who is crazy in love with me.
• After shaving this week, I think it may be time to grow back the gotee. I have had about 50 people tell me I look like I’m 25.  At my age, I don’t think that is a compliment anymore.  See here for a pic.
• Preaching the same message on Saturday nights has really improved my message on Sunday morning.  When I preach I typically have more notes and illustrations than I will use, so it helps me to focus in on what I need to share.  It also gives me more rest and I can wake up ready to go on Sunday mornings.  But we are also at the point where we need to add a 2nd Sunday morning service.   Preaching three times should be interesting.  I wonder if the 3rd will be easier, or if I will be wiped out.  I guess will be finding out soon.  Which brings me to …
• Church leaders typically say you need to add a service when you’re at 80% capacity.  When you have more people than that, it feels overcrowded and people have trouble finding seats.   Currently we have a small intimate worship setting.  We have about 165 chairs around the stage and then a few more tables and chairs over in the cafe area where you can still see and hear the message.  For the last month we have averaged around 160 adults in the Sunday morning service.   So instead of 80%, we’re more like 100%.    We have some people sitting in the floor and some hanging out in the cafe, but it is packed.  It brings excitement to see that many people there, but it does feel crowded.   Our biggest challenge in adding a second service is finding the right teachers to partner with us for our Cornerstone kids.   We have a ton of kids for a church our size and it takes a number of committed volunteers to make everything happen.  Continue to pray that we will have additional volunteers catch the vision for what God is doing at Cornerstone!
• I’ve been searching for a good curriculum to use from time to time for our youth ministry.  I still teach our youth on Sunday nights and it helps to have something to start from.   Most of the ones I have found are either 1) very long 2) very cheesy, 3) very shallow, or 4) very expensive.  I tried one tonight that overcame all 4 problems.   It was a youth video from Lifechurch.tv.  They provide their youth teaching videos for free.  Tonight we used a video about being a fully devoted follower of Christ.  It was about 15 minutes long and it was excellent.  They also provided some discussion questions. This really fits well with my teaching style.  The videos were well done, and they served as a great springboard for discussion.  I plan on using them more in the future.
• I love teenagers!  I spent time today counseling a couple of guys who are facing some rough decisions.   And then one of the youth sprayed me tonight with some nasty cologne.  I guess you take the good (counseling) with the bad (cologne) 
• And finally, I am loving the new blog using wordpress.  I wish I would have made the switch much sooner.  I’ve got a few more things I want to unveil here on the site in the future.