#alloftheworld

Do you remember when your kids were teens and you would leave them at home alone, maybe for an hour or a weekend?  If so then you know that the most important thing that you wanted them to remember were your last words.

“I love you, remember your homework”, “I love you don’t forget to do the dishes and clean your room.”  “I love you, remember no parties and don’t burn the house down.” 

Some of Jesus’ last words to his kids, the apostles were read for us earlier.  Or at least a portion of those words, the part that Mark recorded.  If we want to capture all of those words we need to look in all three gospels and the book of Acts.  And when we put them together we get something like this:

But then after 40 days of miracles, and teaching Jesus has this to say to His followers: “And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.  But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power and will tell people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. These signs will accompany those who believe: They will cast out demons in my name, and they will speak new languages. They will be able to handle snakes with safety, and if they drink anything poisonous, it won’t hurt them. They will be able to place their hands on the sick and heal them.  With my authority, take this message of repentance to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: ‘There is forgiveness of sins for all who turn to me.’ You are witnesses of all these things.

Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone, everywhere. Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved. But anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Those fragments by the way are found in Matthew 28:19-20, Mark 16:15-19, Luke 24:47-49 and Acts 1:8-9. 

This is week one of our “Hashtag This” series and over the next couple of months we will be looking at various phrases and words in the bible that would warrant a Hashtag. 

And perhaps you are wondering:  What is a hashtag?  According to Wikipedia: A hashtag is a type of label or metadata tag used on social network and microblogging services which makes it easier for users to find messages with a specific theme or content. Users create and use hashtags by placing the hash character (or pound sign) # (also known as number sign or octothorpe) in front of a word or unspaced phrase, either in the main text of a message or at the end.

So, in this case each of those scriptures might have included the hashtag #gointoalltheworld

This is also week one of Partner Month at Cornerstone.  Each October at Cornerstone we highlight various partners who we have chosen to work with to change the world.  In today’s case you will hear from Selinda Van Horn who represents GP or Global Partners, which is our sending partner. 

And the reason that we have partners at Cornerstone can be summed up with #gointoalltheworld.

The words that were read for us earlier are in reality the mission statement of the early church.  You know what a mission statement is right?  It is when you have boiled the purpose of your life or the life of your church down to a concise statement of purpose. 

Over the past three Sundays we’ve looked at why Cornerstone is what it is and why we do things the way we do. 

And it ultimately goes back to our mission statement.  Cornerstone Wesleyan Church exist to reach pre-Christians through dynamic worship and relevant preaching, bringing them to a life expanding relationship with Jesus Christ and guiding them into a practical holiness as evidenced through the fruit of the Spirit.  That is our mission statement, the short version is Cornerstone Church exists to reach pre-Christians, the even shorter version is Cornerstone exists to help de-populate hell. 

And if Cornerstone Wesleyan Church does not reach pre-Christians through dynamic worship and relevant preaching, bringing them to a life expanding relationship with Jesus Christ and guiding them into a practical holiness as evidenced through the fruit of the Spirit, then we have failed to do what we set out to do. 

The greatest measure of our success is how well we fulfil our mission statement.

But it’s more than that for you and for us because along with the mission statement that we have for our church is Christianity’s mission statement which was given to us by Jesus: “Christianity exists to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded.” 

If we are not doing that then we have failed, so let’s look at the mission statement of the church.

1)  What Is Supposed to be Done There has to be a reason why the church is here and why the Lord leaves us in the world after we get saved.  I mean let’s think about it, the world is cold and uncaring, full of pain and grief and heaven has none of that. And so isn’t that where we really ought to be?  But that isn’t where we are. 

So, why are we here and not there? In John 20:21 Jesus, tells His disciples why they are being sent out John 20:21 “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.”

 So we are being sent by Christ in the same way that Christ was sent by the Father, and why was that?  Apparently to help depopulate hell.  John 3:16 “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Winning the lost is the bottom line that’s why we are here, that ought to be the mission statement of every Christian and every Christian Church, to reach the lost. 

It was Charles Spurgeon who wrote:  “If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.”

Sounds like Spurgeon was committed to keeping people out of hell.   

But more than that Jesus reminds us in John 10:10  . . . I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.   So how do we not only help people obtain an eternal life when this life is over, but make the life on this side of eternity a full life, an abundant life? 

Well, Jesus offered a couple of suggestions in his teachings when he told the disciples in Matthew 5:13  “You are the salt of the earth.” And so we are told that we are to be an influence in the world, both preserving it and flavouring it as salt, and then Jesus added to that in the next verse when He said Matthew 5:14  “You are the light of the world.”  So we are to light the way and brightening the world as light. 

2) Where It’s Supposed to Be Done 

 Jesus told his apostles in Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”   Today that might sound like this;

Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Halifax, throughout the Maritimes, in Canada, and to the ends of the earth.”

Basically that means everywhere.  Too often we qualify the word missions by adding either foreign or home to the beginning of it.  But the church only has one mission and that is to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything that Christ commanded.

We have an obligation to reach people where ever there are people.

That means that we have an obligation to reach our next door neighbour, to reach the guy across the street, to reach the lady on the other side of town, those in Quebec and California as well as those in Ghana and Haiti.

And it needs to be intentional.  It won’t just happen.  If we don’t plan a way for it to happen then don’t count on it happening.

At Cornerstone reaching the lost is a priority, not just in Hammonds Plains which is our Jerusalem, but also in our Judea, our Samaria and to the very ends of the earth. 

And early on we realized that we wouldn’t be able to fulfil all of that mission by ourselves.

3) Who is Supposed to Be Doing It If we were to look at who was there on the day of the ascension we would discover the eleven remaining apostles, but the great commission had to have been for the entire movement at that time, it wasn’t enough for those eleven to be committed to evangelism without the rest of the group being committed as well. 

The great commission is meant to be a mission statement for all Christians.  It doesn’t matter what Christians call themselves, whether it be Wesleyan, Nazarene, Baptist, Pentecostal or whatever.  They have a common mission and that is, to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything that Christ commanded. 

For Christianity to survive, Christianity has to be committed to the mission of winning the lost. 

When we stop making disciples and stop baptizing people then at that point the Church will begin to die, and it will die within one generation.

But the great commission has to go beyond simply being for all of Christianity; it needs to be a burning passion for the Wesleyan Church.  Without the desire to win souls to Jesus Christ our denomination will become just another empty shell in the ecclesiastical wastelands of our country.

But the great commission has to go beyond simply being for all of the Wesleyan Church it needs to be for this church right here.  Without the desire to win souls to Jesus Christ our church will become just a service club, we’ll be like the Lions or the Rotary Club. 

Not that there’s anything wrong with the Lions or the Rotary club it’s just that they are not the body of Christ and we are, or at least that’s what we are supposed to be.

It would be so much easier to convince people of the value of evangelism if the Bible said that the only way that you could get into heaven is if you brought somebody with you, but it doesn’t. 
However, listen to the words of Christ in John 14:21 Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.”
You want to be loved by God and by Jesus?  Sure you do.  Well here’s the ticket all you have to do is to obey Christ’s commands and one of those is Matthew 28:19-20 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you.”

If that was a command of Christ and we don’t do it then John 14:21 says that we don’t love him, and only those who love Christ are loved by the Father and only those who are loved by the Father are going to get in.

4) How it’s Supposed to Be Done  The power of the Holy Spirit is the means; the method is not defined.   Deng Xiaoping said “It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.”  When we allow the Holy Spirit to take control of our lives neat things happen.  The Bible tells us in: Mark 16:17-18 (Jesus Said) These miraculous signs will accompany those who believe: They will cast out demons in my name, and they will speak in new languages. They will be able to handle snakes with safety, and if they drink anything poisonous, it won’t hurt them. They will be able to place their hands on the sick, and they will be healed.”

Now some people get really caught up in those particular things, but they are simply indications of the power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of those who minister.  It is a promise of enablement and protection. 

How many people who were serving evil now serve God?

When Selinda and Jesse move to their new field they are going to have to learn to  speak in a new tongue because their mother tongue is English. 

When Val, Joel and Dana were working in the clinic in Haiti last spring weren’t they placing their hands on sick people to heal them? 

I don’t think that you ever have to worry about me picking up snakes, and I think some churches try to prove the deadly poison promise with the coffee they serve.

Sometimes we get so caught up in how we should do it that we never do it.  It was Thomas Jefferson who said “In matters of style swim with the current in matters of principle stand like a rock.”

Do you remember when Nike used the phrase “Just Do It.”?  I would like that to be my message to the church, “Just Do it”  Listen again to the promise of Christ in Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Canada, throughout the Maritimes in Canada, and to the ends of the earth.”

There are two things that happen when the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, two evidences of his presence. 1) We receive power 2) We will tell people about Jesus. 

If our lives do not exhibit power and we are not witnesses than it would appear to be very obvious that the Holy Spirit has never come upon us.

As far as evangelism on a personal level that is all of our responsibility, you can no more shirk that than you can walk past a drowning man and not throw him a rope. 

But on a broader spectrum there are those who God has called to reach people where you can’t.  And that’s why we have partners.

We realized very early in our existence that we couldn’t do it all, and in many cases there were already people doing it.  Which is why we have chosen to partner with organizations like Soul’s Harbour, World Hope, Compassion, Open Doors and Global Partners in order to change the world.

After all “Christianity exists to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything that Jesus commanded.”

God Loves Our Worship

In all my years of ministry I haven’t found anything that can make church people as cranky as the music.  Seriously.  Thom Ranier a church growth and health consultant wrote “The comment ‘someone complained about the music at my church’ is a universal phenomenon of our age.”

If you’ve been with us over the past couple of week’s we’ve been going down a path entitled.  Why We Are. . . and we started two weeks ago by looking at why we are focused on the lost.  We are by definition what some folks would call a Seeker Sensitive Church. 

That is why we do what we can to make the unchurched, the de-churched and the pre-churched comfortable in our service.  That’s why we have an one-hour service.  It’s why we try to incorporate music that at least sounds like it was written in this century and why we try to explain churchy terms and concepts and preach and teach toward the end of making the message relevant to people today.  To answer that all burning question that people ask during sermons:  So What?

And the reason we do that is because God loves lost people.  God loved lost people enough to be willing to give his Son.  And Jesus loved lost people enough that he was willing to give his life.  And so we asked the question, if those two statements are true than what are we willing to give to reach the lost?

Last week we looked at the story of the children who were brought to Jesus and how the disciples tried turning the parents away and Jesus got a little cranky and told the disciples, “Let the children come to me, don’t do anything to stop them.”

And we looked at why Cornerstone invests so much time and energy into our children’s ministry.  And we do that for the future of the church.  The church, this church and the church universal is always one generation away from extinction. 

And without children the church will only exist until they close the door after the last funeral.

But more importantly, the reason why we invest so much time and energy into our children’s ministry is because we aren’t just impacting the future of the church we are impacting the eternity of those kids.      

If we believe what we say we believe about there being a heaven to be gained and a hell to be shunned I would think there would be people knocking down the doors to help insure that our children would have an eternity with God. 

We aren’t just offering a program to keep the kids occupied while you are in real church, our staff and volunteers are impacting their todays and their forevers.

And that brings us to the scripture that was read earlier. 

Jesus was asked by a man what was required for eternal life, and this was his answer:  Matthew 22:37-38  Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'  This is the first and greatest commandment.

Jesus said that is the most important commandment, if you can only do one, this is it.  This is the one that you don’t want to miss.  'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'  So we were created to be loved by God and our purpose in our lives is to love him back.  He should be the most important thing in our life. 
If we have to pick the one item that we couldn’t or wouldn’t do without it should be God.  
And there is a word for what we do when we love God that way and that is “Worship”.  We worship God.  Goes all the way back to the first book in the Bible, Genesis 4:26 When Seth grew up, he had a son and named him Enosh. It was during his lifetime that people first began to worship the Lord.
If we go all the way back to the beginning of the story you realize that Adam and Eve were created to be in fellowship with God.  There was a direct connection and they deliberately rebelled and walked away from the relationship.  And after they were banished from the Garden of Eden we have no idea what type of relationship they had with their creator. 
But it’s not very long into history that we read those words about their grandson Enosh, it was during his lifetime that people said “We need to have that relationship with the one who created us, we need to connect with him again.”  And they began to worship God.  But what does that mean? 
Does it mean that they started having church and part of that was the “Worship” service?  Did they have drums and guitars and keyboards and sing songs by Ren Collective and Chris Tomlin, or did they have an organ and piano and sing hymns?  Was it contemporary worship or more traditional worship? 
And by the way, the term “Contemporary Worship” is often misleading, in more cases than not it means that churches sing songs written somewhere between 1970 and 2001.  But the word contemporary as defined by Collins English Dictionary means 1. belonging to the same age; living or occurring in the same period of time2. existing or occurring at the present time3. conforming to modern or current ideas in style, fashion, design, etc4. having approximately the same age as one another

In his book The New Traditional Church, Tony Morgan makes a great point when he wrote : “If most churches truly wanted to be contemporary, Sunday would have a lot more hip-hop and R&B (have you listened to the Top 40 lately?).”  That was an aside.

The problem is that we limit worship either to what we do in church or narrow it down even further to half of what we do in church and then we make it the least significant part.  And so we have the “worship”, that is the singing part of the service and it is the prelude to the important part which is the “preaching”. 
Sometimes you will hear people say, “I really enjoyed the worship this morning.” And what they mean is that the music spoke to them.  And that’s not bad, but it is personal and while it may be a part of what worship is it certainly isn’t all of what worship is.  When we limit worship to music then it becomes very personal and anything that is personal we become defensive of.
And that’s why musical styles in churches can sometimes result in conflict, because it is so personal.  When we say that we don’t like a particular type of music then those who like that type of music take it personally. 
In other words, if I don’t like singing traditional hymns in church then in some people’s minds I’m saying singing traditional hymns in church is wrong and so by implication that means that I’m saying that those who prefer singing traditional hymns in church are wrong as well.
Understand that was just an example, there are a lot of hymns I like, and I enjoy singing them at the Berkeley and at Beulah Camp, but it’s not a part of what we are trying to accomplish at Cornerstone. 
But if I didn’t like hymns, it would just mean that I personally don’t enjoy that style of music.
I don’t like classical music or rap music, I don’t like reading poetry, or putting anchovies on my pizza. And if you do like classical music or rap music, reading poetry and eating anchovies on your pizza you probably aren’t offended because I don’t.  But worship is more personal than just our preferences.
So when we narrowly define worship as one style or type of anything it puts God in a box.
Worship can’t be defined by style because style is too individualistic.  And so worship music is really a mis-definition because it’s only worship music for some and for others it just plain annoying. 
Neat story, that I’ve told before.  There was an elderly pastor on this district by the name of Walter Fernley, he passed away about five years ago and his wife passed away a couple of years before Walter.  Mrs. Fernley’s first name was Mabel but everyone called her Mabs.  One day Walter asked Mabs to say grace at dinner, which she did, very quietly.  To which Walter commented, “I couldn’t hear you.”  To which Mabs replied “I wasn’t talking to you.”
So when you say “I didn’t enjoy the worship this morning”, the response is “We weren’t singing to you.”  
I don’t think God has a preference for any one style of worship music.  I think that we offer our worship to Him and if we do it with the right motives and a pure heart then He goes, “Thank you, that was so cool.” 
Because as good as it might be on any given Sunday at Cornerstone ,God has heard so much better.
Think about it twelve hours ago he heard the worship team from Hillsongs Australia sing, and two hundred years ago he heard Beethoven play his fifth symphony and three thousand years ago God heard King David sing an original arrangement that that we call the 23^rd Psalm.
And you understand that heaven is filled with music that God hears all the time.  It’s actually country music, it sounds a lot like Willie.  
But we are God’s children presenting our gift of worship to Him.  When your child gives you a gift that they made themselves do you say, “Well it’s nice but it’s not very good compared to other art I’ve seen.”  No you say “Thank you, that is so cool.”
So if worship isn’t what we do in church, and it isn’t just music, what is it?
Paul was writing to the early church in the book of Romans and this is what he said  Romans 12:1  And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.
So look at the last line, This is truly the way to worship him. In other translations it reads “this is your spiritual act of worship.” What is your spiritual act of worship?  To offer your bodies as a living and holy sacrifices.  But what does that mean?  Well there are three things that we need to note about that statement.
1) Worship is Something You Give  We are told to give our bodies and when you give something it is voluntary.  From day one God created mankind with this incredible gift of free will.  He didn’t create us to blindly serve him without thought or choice. 
In 1942 Isaac Asimov wrote a short story called Runaround and in it he introduced us to the 3 laws of Robotics which state  
1. A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Those laws were fiction of course but God could have put very similar restrictions on humanity.  But then we would have been robots and not people and God wants us to choose to worship him and so he allows us to choose whether or not we will obey him and whether or not we will worship him.  He wants it to be a conscious decision where we in effect say, “I offer this to you” 
Francis De Sales  summed it up when he said  “There are no galley-slaves in the royal vessel of divine love -- every man works his oar voluntarily!”
Of course free will is a double edged sword, author P.J. O’Rourke commented “One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's license.”
Nobody else can worship for you and if you don’t take that step there is nobody else you can blame for it not happening. 
And that applies to what happens on Sunday as well.  We can decide to not enter into worship during a service because the music isn’t to our taste or we find it too loud or not loud enough, or it’s not our favorite worship leader, but understand it will be our choice.  We do what we want to do. 
2) Worship Involves Who You Are We told to give our bodies, not anybody else’s body, but our bodies.  And that simply means that you are to give “You”.  While we are here we are here in our bodies, if we are going to do anything it will be done with our bodies. 
Every once in a while someone will tell me, “I can’t be here next Sunday Denn, but I will be here in Spirit.”  Do you know what that means?  “Nothing, zip, nada.”  If your bodies not here then youur spirit’s not here, they are interconnected and they go together.  In this life you can’t have one without the other.
And so by asking for our bodies God is in effect asking for all of us.  So understand you will be worshipping something and that will be indicated by what you are doing with your body and where your body is.  It defines our priorities. 
If you tell me “Denn I really want to be at church next Sunday but I have to be at . . .”  What you are saying is “I really want to be at church but I want to be at . . . more.” 
Because, ultimately  “We do what we want to do.”
So when we offer our bodies we are offering ourselves in a practical way to God, it’s not just something that happens here in our mind, kind of like a card I sent to my best friend one year for his birthday, on the cover it said “When it comes to gifts it’s the thought that counts.”  And inside it said “And I thought about getting you a gift.”   And it’s not just what happens here in our heart, where it is a good intention. 
When I was growing up my favorite Aunt would often remind me that “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”  And Margaret Thatcher said “No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he only had good intentions. He had money as well.” 
So it’s not enough to think about worshipping God or even wanting to worship God if we don’t actually worship God.  
3) Worship Demands Something.  Every decision we make involves a positive and a negative, when we say yes to one thing, we are saying no to something else.  And it isn’t simply a matter of choosing between what’s good and what’s bad.  That would be too easy. 
As a pastor I will sometimes hear people talk about how much they love Jesus, but they never offer anything back, no time, no service no gifts.  It was Michael Novak who wrote “Love is not a feeling of happiness. Love is a willingness to sacrifice.”    Remember how Paul said we were to offer ourselves to God?  A living and holy sacrifice.
And that often means choosing one thing over another. 
And by the way, another aside here.  On the other side when you hear someone saying they are going to choose the lesser of two evils, remind them that the lesser of two evils is still evil.  That was a bonus, had nothing to do with the message.  Now back to our regularly scheduled Sunday morning message. 
And so worshipping God, offering your body to Him will require a sacrifice.  Sometimes it’s small.  Maybe it means being in church instead of sleeping in or mowing the lawn.   
Maybe it means lifestyle choices.  I will do this thing and will not do that thing.  Or perhaps there is a relationship that drags you down and puts you in situations where you know as a Christ follower you really shouldn’t be. 
Jesus was talking about situations like that when he told his disciples in Matthew 5:29-30  If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.  And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. 
He was so serious about that statement that he repeats it in Matthew 18:7-9  "Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!  If your hand or your foot causes you to sin cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.  And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.
Now, Jesus didn’t poke anybody’s eye out or cut off anybody’s hand or feet.  He was talking about removing yourself from situations and relationship that would cause you to be disobedient to what he is calling you to do.
And there are some of you here today who know exactly what I’m talking about.
Your sacrifice might be reflected in how you use your volunteer hours.  Every one of us has to decide for ourselves where we will give our time.  Because we only have so much time to give.
It is reflected in our giving, because I understand that when you choose to give to God’s work you are choosing to not use that money somewhere else. 
But ultimately those decisions are life changing decisions because when they come together they are saying “I will put God first in my life.  Before my family, before my career, before my recreation, before habits.”  And that’s not easy, and that’s probably why Jesus said in Matthew 10:38 If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. 
Because Jesus knew that what he was asking of us wouldn’t be easy, he knew that it would cost something, he knew that it would require a sacrifice.  If it doesn’t cost something, then it’s not a sacrifice. 
It’s been forty-five years since Wilbur Reese wrote these words, inflation has probably increased the price but the sentiment is still the same.
Three Dollars Worth of God
I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep,
but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk
or a snooze in the sunshine.


I don’t want enough of God to make me love a black man
or pick beets with a migrant.
I want ecstasy, not transformation.
I want warmth of the womb, not a new birth.


I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack.
I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
I don’t think that’s what God was asking for when he asked us to be a living sacrifice.
What is it that you are giving up?  How are you making yourself a living sacrifice today?

God Loves Children

It was just about this time of year 22 years ago.  We had just moved to Bedford to start what would eventually become Cornerstone and I had to fly to Colorado to attend what was called “Church Planters Boot Camp”, an intensive week long training session that included men and women from around North America.

And part of the process was each church planter was assigned a coach who would work with them through the week and would provide additional coaching as needed.  My coach was a man named Jim Griffith, who had two things going for him, he had planted 5 churches up to that point and more importantly he looked like Tim Taylor who was riding high with “Home Improvement” at the time.

Because of my experience with Jim as a coach we had the opportunity to bring him to the district a few of years later to talk to church planters and re-planters.  I remember that because it happened during the Ice Storm of 1998 and it was a crazy drive to the conference and because of two things that Jim told us at that conference.  

The first thing Jim told us was “There are three ways to measure a person’s commitment to the vision, money, money and money.”  As a matter of fact, Jim said that when someone told you how committed they were to what you were trying to accomplish you had to quote the phrase from the movie Jerry Maguire, “Show me the money”. 

Not everybody will agree with that.

The second thing he taught us has proved invaluable through the years, he said “The person who will decide to come to your church the first time will be the wife, those who will decide to come back will be the children.”

Now I know that is a generalization and that all generalizations are wrong but bear with me.

He went on to say that if we were asked to meet with a family that we should go as a couple.  He said that the two guys could talk about anything, sports, hunting it really didn’t matter.  But the women would talk about the new church.

And we would do that, I would talk to the husband and Angela would talk to the wife and it would work.  I can imagine the conversation after words, she would say “Well, honey what did you think?”  and he would say “He’s an idiot, doesn’t know anything about sports or hunting and he’s a Habs fan.”  And she’d say “Angela told me what their church is like and it sounds amazing, I think we should go this Sunday.”  And they would.

And the second part of the equation was equally true.  We have discovered that life is too short to fight with kids about whether or not they wanted to go to church.

When you and I were growing up, kids were expected to be seen and not heard, to a certain degree.  We certainly didn’t have an opinion on things like where we would go to church.

But life has changed and the reality is that children often make those choices, or at least have a voice in the decision making process.

 And we have embraced Jim’s advice. 

From the beginning Cornerstone has tried to offer a top notch kids program, and it has cost us time and it has cost us money and it has meant that we have to constantly recruit the very best volunteer base that we can.  That was true when we had to find eight out of the sixty who called Cornerstone their church home and it is equally true today when we have to find eighty out of the four hundred who call Cornerstone their church home.

And so for the first twelve years of our existence Angela headed up our children’s ministry, you seeing a theme here? She also played piano and led worship and led our women’s ministry for the majority of those years.  A well trained monkey could have done my job, but without Angela there would have been no Cornerstone. 

For the past 8 years Marilyn has led the children’s ministry team.  And our children’s ministry is still a major priority at Cornerstone, in time, effort, money and volunteer commitment.

And the passage that was read this morning explains it even more than Jim Griffith’s words do.

We are in the closing chapter of the story of Jesus’s ministry.  He is making his last journey to Jerusalem.  A journey that will ultimately end with him nailed to a cross. 

And as he makes his way to Jerusalem he continues to teach and impact the lives of the those around him.  And we pick up the story in Mark 10:13  One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him.

We’ve all seen the paintings and pictures and there are a couple of problems with those.  The first is where did the Swedish kids come from?  Seriously.  The second problem with the picture is the age of the kids, you see the word that all three of the gospel accounts used for children actually refers to infants.

So this was kind of the equivalent of having your baby dedicated. And we don’t know why these parents wanted Jesus to bless their children.  Perhaps they had witnessed some of Jesus’ miracles.  Maybe they had seen Jesus heal the sick and figured that an ounce of prevention would be worth a pound of cure.  Kind of like having your children vaccinated. 

Or maybe they truly saw Jesus as God’s son and were looking for a spiritual touch from him, or maybe they were dedicating their children to him.

Or maybe they just wanted their children to be touched by someone famous.  The reason people let politicians kiss their babies.  

We don’t know the reasons, but we know that the disciples weren’t having anything to do with it and the bible tells us they scolded the parents for bothering Jesus. 

And I know the guys get a lot of grief over this, but let’s cut them some slack.  Everyone is a little tense heading to Jerusalem.  Jesus knows that the end is close and while the 12 may not have known the details they knew that something big was up.

And with the pressure of time they probably saw this as one more interruption that they didn’t need. 

I would suspect that if the parents had of been bringing sick kids to Jesus there wouldn’t have been a problem. Sometimes we are quick to elevate the physical needs of our children above the spiritual needs.  I have more people ask me to pray for their kids’ physical needs then I have people ask me to pray for their kids’ spiritual needs.  Just saying.    

Let’s keep reading in the story.  Mark 10:14  When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them!”

It’s not often that we see Jesus getting angry, other translations say that he was greatly displeased or indignant but you get the picture, he wasn’t a happy camper.  And he told the disciple to do two things here.  1) to let the children come and 2) to not to do anything to stop them.  

So what do we learn from the story?  Why do we need to go out of our way to insure that the children will come to Jesus?

The first thing is we need to realize that It is Important for our Children and the Children of Others 

As Christian parents we have the primary responsibly for introducing our kids to Jesus.  It’s not Deborah’s job in the nursery, or Marilyn’s Job in Cornerstone Kids, or Stefan’s job in Consumed.  It’s your job. 

And maybe you think that it’s best to allow them to make that decision without you, or to wait until they are older. 

Seriously?  We don’t let our kids decide if they will go to the dentist, or when they will go to school or to the Doctor.

It was Frank Sonnenberg who wrote “If you don't pass your values on to your kids, someone else will.”

And Lenin said “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.”

You have the primary responsibility to introduce your children to God, but we want to be here to help and to help with the journey.  And we need your help, not just with your children but with the children of others.

It’s easy to be passionate about what our kids are being taught but our responsibility has to go beyond just our kids.

Sometimes we have parents who will be willing to serve in Nursery, Children’s Church, Junior Church, Ignite or Consumed, that’s our youth ministry, as long as their children are part of the program.  But it can’t just be about your kids, there are other children as well who need to hear the story.  Other kids who need to come to Jesus.

And it takes special people to reach them.   You understand that not everybody at Cornerstone can teach children.  There is a process, and that is why we don’t advertise that we need volunteers.  Because we aren’t looking for warm bodies we are looking for ministry partners.

Before someone is asked to teach we discuss your possibility as a staff, then a personal invitation is extended, there is an interview, there are references to be checked and training that has to happen.  Police forms are filled out and checked.  Why? Because this is important.

We were in a church on vacation once and part way through the service the pastor announced that so and so was going to take the children out to children’s church.  A half a dozen kids got up to go out but so and so wasn’t there.  And so the pastor says “Is there anyone who can take the children out?” 

And nobody responded.  Now we knew the pastor so Angela volunteered and the children were sent off with a lady who had been in that church six times in her life.   That will never happen under my watch at Cornerstone.

But the question is still; why is it so important?  Because Jesus said  “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them!”

It’s Important for the Church’s Future

The church is always one generation away from extinction.  We attend churches while we are on vacation.  And more times than not they are small churches, because I remember pastoring a small church and how encouraging it was to have visitors. 

Just as an aside, do you visit churches while you are on vacation?  Or do you take a vacation from God as well?    Seriously there are all kinds of churches out there and most of the people who go to them don’t bite.  Or at least don’t bite strangers. 

There is a message about the importance or lack of importance of corporate worship that you are teaching your children.  That was an aside.

But all of those small churches were lacking one thing, children.  Oh there might have been one or two but primarily they were churches full of old people, and we’ve been back to visit some of those churches only to discover them closed.

And they weren’t always like that, if you look around the churches, which I sometimes do, you’ll see classrooms and toys and posters that remind you of a different time.  But that was then, and they didn’t reach out to families with children and what holds true for local churches holds true for denominations and for the church as a whole.

Our city is full of empty churches that were once full of families and children. 

If we don’t reach the next generation, there will be no future for the church.  Throughout the book of Acts in the record of the early church it talks about whole households coming to faith.  And in Paul’s letters he addresses both parents and children.

Why was reaching children important to the early church?  Because they understood that Jesus said  “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them!”

But It’s not just the future of the church,

It’s Important for Our Children’s Future 

If we believe what we say we believe about there being a heaven to be gained and a hell to be shunned then reaching children should have an eternal importance.

We are not just teaching your kids bible stories and morals; we are leading them toward a relationship with Jesus.  Why because we think it important that they go to heaven and not go to hell. And it should be important to you as well.

When you see the teens who are baptized at Cornerstone, they are often teens who have been brought up at Cornerstone, brought up being taught and led toward that relationship.

Jesus said in John 14:6  Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” 

I understand that Church isn’t the only thing in your family’s life, and I understand that church activities aren’t the only activities that you have your kids involved in. 

But listen carefully, their eternity won’t be determined by how high they can jump in basketball, how fast they can skate in hockey, how many flips they can do in cheer or how goods their marks are in school.  Their eternity will be determined by whether or not they know Jesus.  And while you can’t make that decision for them you can do everything in your power to make sure they have every opportunity to make that decision for themselves. 

Remember what the bible tells us in Proverbs 22:6  Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.

They will need to make their own decision, but we are responsible for directing them unto the right path to start with.  Why?  Because Jesus said  “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them!”

But it’s not just because for the church’s future or the future of our children.  L

Psalm 112:1-2  Praise the LORD! How joyful are those who fear the LORD and delight in obeying his commands.  Their children will be successful everywhere; an entire generation of godly people will be blessed.

It’s Important for our Children’s Children’s Future    You understand that the values that we pass on to our children, they will pass on to their children.

The Prophet Hosea was speaking of how the people of Israel had rejected God and the consequences of that decision for the next generations when he wrote Hosea 8:7  “They have planted the wind and will harvest the whirlwind.”

We are reaping the seeds that were sown a generation ago.  For two thousand years church was a priority in the lives of Christian families.  It was what they did on Sunday.  They worshipped together as a family.

Earlier I spoke about those churches in the city and around our country that used to be full, many of them were built for the children of the baby boom, but at some point church became less and less important for the boomers and because of that it became even less important for gen x and y and the millennials. 

In a moment of introspection, what values are you passing on to your kids about the value of church attendance?

Has church become the thing you do with your family when there is nothing else to do?  There are no games, no practice, no chores, no family visits, no camping?

And maybe you are thinking, “but Denn, if church takes priority over sports and other activities it will teach my kids to resent the church.”

Really?  What will it teach your kids when sports and other activities take a priority over church?

We have parents at Cornerstone who take their kids to cheer or hockey or soccer on Sunday and still get them to church, they might be wearing their uniforms and might be a little sweaty, but that’s ok, they’re here. And kudos to those parents.

  

It was Aristotle who wrote,  “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.”

And it’s because we hold the future of our grand-kids in our hands that Jesus said  “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them!”

If I was to ask you “Who was responsible for more people coming to Christ, Billy Graham or Edward Kimball?”  What would your answer be? 

Most of us are very familiar with Billy Graham and have never heard the name of Edward Kimball, so it seems the answer would be an easy one.  Edward Kimball was a Sunday School teacher and one of his students who he introduced to Jesus was a boy named Dwight L.  Moody. 

Yes, that Dwight L. Moody, the man who went on to become one of the most influential evangelists of the 1800’s.  And one of Moody’s converts was a man named Wilbur Chapman, who would also go on to become a preacher. 

In the late 1800s a professional ball player by the name of Billy Sunday committed his life to Christ, Sunday would eventually leave Baseball and become an assistant to Wilbur Chapman, who mentored the former baseball player and through that process Sunday became the Billy Graham of his day, or more correctly Billy Graham became the Billy Sunday of his day. 

At one of the meetings where Billy Sunday was preaching a man named Mordecai Ham turned his life over to Christ. 

You kind of see the pattern here right?   Yep, Ham also became an evangelist and it was during one of his meetings in Charlotte North Carolina that a young man named Billy Graham committed his life to Christ. 

Yep that Billy Graham, the man who is reported to have preached to more people than anyone in history including the Apostle Paul.

So, I’ll ask you again, “Who was responsible for more people coming to Christ, Billy Graham or Edward Kimball?”  The evangelist or the Sunday School Teacher?

And it is because of that that Jesus said  “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them!”

And maybe you are sitting there thinking “Denn, you are making us feel guilty.” 

Perfect, I love it when a plan comes together.  I don’t often play the guilt card, but this is of eternal consequence. 

Ed Stetzer, is a Baptist preacher with two master degrees and two earned doctorates, he has planted numerous churches, lectured around the world, I’ve heard him in Orlando and Sussex, and written 15 books on church health and church planting and is the executive director of Lifeway Research. And after years of research and study Stetzer has come to the conclusion that  “Too many churches love their traditions more than their children.” 

And so the question is: What do we love more than the children of Cornerstone?

And when you are thinking of your answer remember the words of Jesus who said  “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them!”