Fresh Vision

Yesterday I had the privilege of getting away with my church leadership team for this new church year at Cornerstone (2008-2009). It has been a while since I have done this with my leadership teams but it is something I feel is worth while and something I felt was needed for this time in the life of our church.

I was VERY encouraged by the discussions I had with my leaders. It seems that we are all hungry to see God do new things in our lives as a church body. I shared a devotional thought from Deuteronomy 1:6 where God said to Moses and the children of Israel that they had stayed at Mount Sinai long enough, that it was time to break camp and move on to receive God's promise for them. It is SO easy for all of us to get comfortable with where we are, to allow "good enough" to be good enough. I am sure that the Israelites felt that even though Mount Sinai was not exactly paradise that it was good enough. They were not living in the lap of luxury but they had what they needed. Things were OK, but God had so much more for them and the only way they could receive it was to take a risk and move on to new places.

I think these next 12 months and beyond will be exciting times at Cornerstone, but I am sure they will be challenging and probably a bit scary at times as well. If the definition of insanity is correct, "To keep doing what you have always done but expecting a different result" then I do not wish to be insane. Change for the sake of change is not good but change for the sake of reaching new places in our relationship with God and in our ministry as a Church body is necessary. I look forward to see what God has in store for me personally and us as a church here in this community God has called us to serve.

Pastor Sheldon

John 3:16

Well it is Monday morning and I have been working on my sermon for Easter. It's a little unusual but I like to have my sermons done two weeks in advance. This allows time for my worship leaders and myself to consider the theme of the day and how to structure the service and its elements to most effectively reach the people who attend.

This Easter I am preaching a very simple message from a simple yet profound passage, John 3:16. I am pretty sure that John 3:16 is the most well know verse in the entire Bible. We see the verse all the time at sporting events like this guy. But do we really understand the magnitude of what God is telling us in John 3:16? I am not sure that we do so I hope that through this message I will be able to share this profound truth of God's love for ALL OF US in such a way that people who come to our Easter service this year will understand this love and open their hearts to Christ. I hope that all of you who read this and attend other churches will also see those you care for come to Christ this Easter.

God Bless,
Pastor Sheldon

A Beautiful day!

Well it is another beautiful day here in Southern California. The only problem with today is that it is daylight savings time and because we are supposed to set our clocks forward this is the one Sunday of the year when a lot of people tend to miss church. They forgot to set their clocks or they stayed up to late last night and losing that extra hour of sleep just is too much.

I am anticipating a great day of Worship! Today I am preaching from Philippians 1:10-11 and looking at the results of our spiritual growth. According to Paul those results should be Discernment as we noted last Sunday then today we will explore the three other things Paul says will result in our lives as we grow in Christ. If you are visiting my blog from out of this area you can hear my sermons by scrolling down to the bottom of this page and clicking on our Sermon Player.

I hope that where ever you are today you find yourself in a worship service celebrating God's goodness and grace and that as you leave you find yourself better prepared to share this good news with others as you enter this new week.

Have a GREAT day!

Trying To Get Back In The Saddle

Hello Everyone!
Well I sure haven't done well keeping my blog up to date. I guess I just lost interest, but like it or not I am going to see if I can get things back up and running again. I guess posting the great video World Vision did for us with our Faith In Action Sunday in November 2007 inspired me to get back in the game. I don't know that I will have a post every day but I hope to make several posting each week so if you can stop by now and again to look and see what's up.

I hope you all remembered to set your clocks ahead since we have daylight savings time coming a bit early this year. Of course if you didn't then you got to be really early for church which is always encouraging to us pastors!

If you haven't been by my blog lately and are not a part of this church then you may not know that for the past eight weeks we have been in a sermon series in the letter Paul wrote to the Philippian church. This is a series with a start date but no real end date. I am not going to force this series through in 8 or 10 weeks (obviously). Instead we will just take our time and learn all we can from this great letter. If you want to hear or read one of these sermons go to the bottom of this blog for our sermon player. There you can hear a sermon or even download a hard copy of my manuscript.

This week (March 9) we will continue looking at what I believe Paul said would be the results of spiritual maturity in us. Last week I talked about this "discernment" Paul mentioned and this week we will see what he meant by Purity, Blamelessness, and the fruit of righteousness. Be sure to listen online if you can't attend. I am having a Great time preparing and sharing these messages. This series has given me a new passion and excitement for sharing God's word.

Have A Great Day!
Pastor Sheldon

Be The Church

In November 2007 my church along with New Hope Christian Fellowship and Valley Christian Church here in Chino got together to cancel our regular Sunday morning services to go into our community and Be The Church. This video produced by World Vision is the result of that days ministry to our city.