Dear Friends,
What an incredible Advent Season it was at Cornerstone! The Shirleys loved being with our Cornerstone family worshipping King Jesus. I hope that the holidays were a time of relaxation and fellowship for you and your family. And now, Happy New year! I'm looking forward to what all the Lord is going to do with Cornerstone in 2015.
I wanted to take the time to update you on several items that affect our church family.
First, what better way to begin a new year than a resolution to commit to a life of discipleship and growing closer to Christ with a small group Bible study. Our adult women's and men's ministry Bible studies are up and running this new year. I would love to see you be a part of one of these groups. We would also like to help you get connected. Please email the church office if we can help you.
Second, I wanted to update you on future plans for our church's facility needs. As it stands now, the Session and Diaconate have decided that First Cumberland will no longer meet the needs of our growing congregation. The leadership and people of First Cumberland have been most gracious to us, allowing us to use the facility and grow our congregation. However, it is now time for us to begin actively seeking another location where we can grow the ministry of Cornerstone and make the next step forward as a congregation.
You may be asking, "Why do we need to go somewhere else?" Let me list a few reasons for you.
- As you may know, we do not currently own the facility in which we are meeting. Therefore, we are unable to make changes to the current facility.
- We feel that it would best serve our congregation to have a later service than 8:30am. Right now this is not a possibility due to the needs of the host church.
- Due to several high-water marks in our worship attendance over the past six weeks, we are almost out of parking.
- We are maxed out on education space with no room to grow our adult, youth and children Sunday School space.
- On several occasions these past six weeks, we have filled the sanctuary to capacity with no room for visiting families to sit together.
I wish that I could tell you right now that we have a place to go and that we can't wait for you to see it, but that is not the case today. What I can tell you is that we have a committee that is very actively looking at different locations and scenarios that can accommodate our church's facility needs. In the coming weeks, as we formalize details, we will present to the congregation a plan for our immediate needs.
In the meantime, please pray, pray, pray and pray some more. The leadership is praying for God's wisdom and direction on this matter, and we are praying that He will do far more than we ask or can even imagine in this process (Ephesians 3:20). Please join us in prayer for God to show us where to go and where we need to be.
The journey of faith is not always easy, but let us all unite our hearts and pray, by faith, believing that the Lord will lead His church and that we will follow His leading.
