Moving Forward

Greetings Everyone!
We enjoyed another great day of praise and worship here at Cornerstone Church. I hope it was the same for those of you who read this blog but live away from Cornerstone. This past Sunday we learned about the hazards of trying to play God in the lives of others. While it is true that we have a responsibility to be discerning about things that are right and wrong we do not have the responsibility nor the right to be someone elses judge. James 4:12 makes it very clear that there is but one Lawgiver and Judge and He is God not you or I. I think that Paul summed up our role as followers of Christ in this matter when he said in Ephesians 4:15 that we are to speak the truth in love. The problem with judging is that it has that note of finality to it. When I chose to judge someone I am basically writing them off and saying, "There is no hope of change in you." If I believe that then I believe that not even Jesus is able to change that person which I wholeheartedly disagree with. I believe that no one no matter who far gone they may appear to be are beyond the reach of God's amazing grace. I do not want to be in the place of writing off another person's eternity.

This coming Sunday will be a special day at Cornerstone for several reasons. First of all this will be our annual Celebration of Ministry Sunday. This a day each year when we come together to celebrate God's work in our lives as a church over the past year. Our church year officially ended the last day of February but for the past ten years we have used the first Sunday of May to Celebrate those things God did in us and through us during the previous year. I will also be sharing the vision I believe God has given me for the coming 12 months of 2007/2008. We are continuing to strive towards the fulfillment of our vision as a church to become a people who have a "Passion For The Purposes". Our vision as a church is to become passionate about the five purposes for which we believe God has created us. Those purposes are Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Ministry, and Evangelism. In this report I also get the privilege of presenting the highest award our church offers, the Pastor Appreciation Award. This award goes to the person who has been the greatest support and encouragement to this church and it's pastor. I look forward to presenting that award again this year.

One of the fun things that will happen in this service is our annual power point presentation of photos from events of the last year. This is always one of the highlights of the day. We will be able to make CD copies of this presentation available to anyone who desires one this year due to new capabilities we have in our computer system.

The other special event of this Sunday will be the Special Announcement I have been talking about for several weeks now. I will be sharing that announcement with the church at the end of my message so I certainly hope that everyone who calls Cornerstone their church home will be sure to be here for that announcement. Please remember that if you ever miss on of our worship services that they are always available on our online sermon player. You can even download a copy to burn on to a CD to take with you while you are on the road.

Well this has been a little longer post than usual so I will go ahead and end it now. Good to share with you again as always and i look forward to sharing with you again.
Pastor Sheldon

Simple but Powerful

This past Sunday at Cornerstone we were privileged to have with us Charlie Campbell of "Always Be Ready" ministries. Charlie is a former pastor at Calvary Chapel in Vista CA. and now has been able to commit his full time effort and energies to his "Always Be Ready" ministry. Charlie teaches on a number of different topics most dealing with Christian apologetics. This past Sunday at Cornerstone we asked Charlie to speak on the topic of "Answer to Skeptics". Charlie has written a book on this topic and also has this presentation on DVD. We were all impressed and encouraged by his simple yet profound presentation of how to answer the five most common questions that skeptics ask about Christianity. Questions like "Does God exist?", "How can you know the Bible is true?", "How can a loving God send anyone to hell?" and more. If you missed the service this Sunday I encourage you to visit Charlie's web site www.alwaysbeready.com There you will find a full listing of all the books and materials Charlie's ministry has to offer. Be watching your calendars because we are definitely planning on having Charlie back with us again probably in the late summer of early fall.

Well it would seem that many of you are quite anxious about this "Special Announcement" I mentioned on Sunday April 15th. Well you will have to wait to find out what it is but if you want to know when it is going to take place just scroll down a little on this blog and you will find a counter that is counting down the seconds before I make this important announcement. I hope that you will plan to be with for Sunday May 6th when this special announcement is made. It will certainly be an exciting time here at Cornerstone.

These continue to be very exciting days around the Cornerstone campus. If you live in the Chino area and are looking for a great church to be a part of I encourage you to check us out. Our web site is listed on my blog so you can find out more about us there. You can also listen to one of my recent sermons by going to the bottom of this blog and selecting one of the sermons on our sermon player.

This Sunday at Cornerstone I will be sharing a message entitled, "Are You Playing God?". What is it that Christians do when they try to play God in people's lives? That will be the focus of our attention this Sunday so I hope you can join us. If not be sure to check out the message on the sermon player.

Until next time. Have A Great Week!
Pastor Sheldon

Virginia Tech

I am copying and article I wrote for my churches weekly newsletter. Those who happen to read this blog might find some help in these words.


I know that you will not receive this message until Wednesday evening or Thursday but as I write for this weeks newsletter I am still somewhat stunned by the events at Virginia Tech University. We will be holding a special time of prayer on Tuesday evening for those who lost their lives and their families. This is a tragedy beyond comprehension. I think that only thing that comes close are the attacks of 9/11. How can any individual walk into a room full of people, innocent people and open fire indiscriminately killing all they can? It just doesn't make sense. Yet it happens and even though it does not happen on quite the scale of this sadly this is not so much of an isolated event.

I am sure that the question will be asked, "How could God allow this to happen?" Or stronger yet,. "If there really is a God how could He allow this?" Honestly the answer is not hard but it is not the answer that many want. The answer is that although God has not set this world spinning and then gone off to attend to other business or worse yet, gone to sit in His recliner watching it spin out of control. God is not off on that "distant star" but He is an intimate and involved God. Unfortunately in some ways for us God has chosen to make us people with a free moral will. That simply means that as much as these events break the heart of our Creator He cannot manipulate events without turning us into a huge miniature train set. If God removed our free will we would just become nothing more than a model train set that God used for His amusement. That is not what the Bible teaches us. From the very beginning He has given us the right to chose to ignore Him and to do whatever pleases us no matter how wrong it might be. But He has also given us the capacity to chose to do what is right and to honor and glorify Him. Of course this cannot happen apart from a personal relationship with His son Jesus Christ. You see, the hope of our world is still Jesus. I am sure that in the aftermath of today's crisis there will be calls for more gun legislation. Sadly there are those who mistakenly feel that more laws will change people's behaviors, it will not. Those who chose to live moral and ethical lives don't need more laws, it is the law breakers who need the laws and yet they are the ones who ignore those laws that were made to curb their sinful lives.

I know that it will sound far to simplistic for some but I will say it again, Jesus is the Answer! I think it was St. Augustine who said that our hearts cannot be at rest until they find rest in Him (God). People will go on senselessly killing others with guns or words until the sin that invades our hearts is removed and only Jesus Christ can effect that removal. Until then we as God's people must continue to be the salt and light of this world. We must continue to, without shame or reservation proclaim the saving power of Jesus to a world desperately lost in the darkness.

I am sure that everyone reading this has already, but will continue to join me in prayer for those who are left behind to deal with this most tragic lose. Even in this God's grace is sufficient. As I have been saying repeatedly the past weeks in my preaching, "For every human need there is a supernatural resource to meet that need." God is that resource and He wants to make Himself available to all who need Him.

Sincerely,
Pastor Sheldon

Real or Ideal?

James told us in his letter that we were to consider it all joy when we encountered various trials or trials of many kinds. Is that what is "real" for us as Christians (because they were the ones he was addressing) or is that merely the ideal we are supposed to "shoot" for? I propose that it is the "Real" and not the "Ideal" as some may propose. We are treading on dangerous ground when we put ourselves in the place of determining whether or not God really meant what He said in the Bible. I am not sure that I am qualified to say to God, "You really didn't mean that so I can ignore what those verses say to me." When we start take that that sort of position in regards to the Bible then where does it stop? Does that mean that when Jesus told Nicodemus that we must be born again that maybe God really didn't mean that either?

I will grant you that finding joy in the middle of problems or trials is certainly not easy or automatic, but I am fully convinced it is not only what is possible it can be a present reality. This was the topic of my message on Sunday April 15th. If you were not able to be in the service with us or are visiting this blog from "afar" I encourage you to check out our sermon player at the bottom of this blog. From there you can listen to this message, download it and burn a CD, podcast it, or even print a hard copy. it is quite a versatile tool. You can also listen or the other things I mentioned to previous sermons.

This coming Sunday at Cornerstone we will be having a special guest speaker. His name is Charlie Campbell and he comes to us from Calvary Chapel in Vista California. Charlie has a ministry called "Always Be Ready". He will speaking to us this week on the topic of answering the questions of skeptics. He has written a marvelous little book entitled "One Minute Answers To Skeptics' Top Forty Questions". He will be speaking in our morning worship service that begins at 10:45 AM. We will be giving away a copy of his book to each person present so we encourage you to come and to bring a friend.

If you live in the Chino area and wish to know more about Cornerstone I invite you to attend a class I teach called C.L.A.S.S. 101 - Discovering Cornerstone. In this class I teach the core values of our church and what our vision is to fulfill The Great Commission in the Chino area and beyond. The class lasts from 4:00 - 7:30 PM with a full dinner served midway through the class. If you would like to attend this class please contact my office as soon as possible this week so that adequate preparations can be made for each person attending. You can get all the contact information you need from our web site which is listed on the right hand side of this blog. Also if you need child care let me know and we will also make arrangements for that.

Have a Great Week in the Lord!
Pastor Sheldon

A Great Day!

What a Wonderful day of Worship we had at Cornerstone today. It was wonderful to see so many new faces in our congregation. We continue to see God send new families to our church. I have been struggling through a battle with allergies the past few days and I was not feeling very well today. Between my stuffy head and constant cough I wasn't sure how well my voice would hold up but God helped me through that as well. We had a few people respond to the invitation to know Christ so we thank God for those transformed lives. Now we need to help these new believers get their feet on solid ground by helping them in some basics in Discipleship.
Next Sunday I will be sharing a message about how God's word shows us that we can actually profit from our problems. James tells us to consider it pure joy when we encounter problems. Not something that is easy for us to do but God tells us it is possible so we will explore His word to see how and why.
I hope you all have a great week in the Lord!
Pastor Sheldon

Easter Greetings!

Greetings everyone! HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED! Here we are again at the special time of the year for all who call Jesus Christ their Lord and Savior. I hope that everyone will take the opportunity to find yourselves in a worship service some where this Easter and that you will take an unsaved friend with you. As with Christmas, Easter is one of those times when people will go to church who will not normally go. So this is a great opportunity to take them to church with you so they can hear the good news of the resurrection and find Jesus as their savior. At Cornerstone Community Church where I am pastor I will be sharing a message about the second chance God gives to us all. The resurrection really speaks to a second chance at life. My prayer is that people who only come to church at Easter time will hear God giving them another chance to know him.
I have been off the blog for a while because the last time around the comments were a little more than I cared for. I hope to make this blog an enjoyable non-controversial blog so if that is what you are looking for when you blog then i hope you will stop by often.

Pastor Sheldon