Family,

It’s been a little more than two months of us trying to adjust to this new normal. Your patience and grace during this road trip in uncharted territory has been refreshing. In an attempt to keep this update brief, we’ll move right into providing you information about where we are and how we plan to move forward through the summer as we look towards reopening our facility some time in the future.

I was talking with Pastor Bob the other day and he ended our conversation with a short, yet profound phrase.

“A little more time will answer a lot more questions”

That’s probably the best summary for what you’ll read below.

Online Gatherings – New Meeting Schedule

Beginning Sunday May 31st, we’ll be having weekly online worship gatherings (usually around an hour in length). They’ll be taking the place of the various Sunday events we’ve been doing over the past few months.

Over the past few months, our goal has been to prioritize your attachment to the church over merely attending an event. To that end, our schedule may have felt a little disjointed. Nevertheless, over these past 60 days we’ve seen a huge increase in your attachment to one another. Mission accomplished!! We’ve seen it happen as you’ve plugged into virtual groups and we hope to continue to see it more and more.

As we’re moving into the third month of this new normal, we’ve been helped (by conversations with many of you) to think about how to best use this next season. We feel that a consistent weekly worship touch point will be helpful. Our time together will feel a lot like our Easter Service. There will be a live stream with an open Zoom link for any members and regular attenders who want to see one another and connect before and after service. As stated above, the services will be roughly an hour in length and can be streamed via our website, Facebook Live & YouTube. If you’d like to watch the service at home from your smart TV or apple TV you can just subscribe to your YouTube channel. Once you log in to YouTube on your TV, you’ll see how to watch our service each week. (Don’t try to search for Cornerstone Church on YouTube…turns out there’s a million of ’em with a much better YouTube presence than we have)

Just a reminder, this upcoming Sunday will be our corporate prayer gathering–zoom information to follow in a separate email.

Plan to Reopen: Under Construction

I’m not a handy-man at all. There are certain household projects that I can undertake on my own. 99% of them come from IKEA. If there’s anything else that needs to be done around the house, I make sure it gets done by calling in the professionals. I’m still leading, I’ve just learned that it’s foolish for me to try to lead outside of my area of expertise.

I bring all of that up to say that our plan to reopen our church building during a pandemic isn’t a DIY project. To date, no one has released a manual with 15 steps carried out by the two little Scandanvian men that IKEA uses for their manuals (I hear that even they’ve been furloughed). To that end, we’ve determined as pastors that this is a time where we call in the professionals.

My education’s in theology. I didn’t go to school for how to operate and manage groups in a climate of infectious disease. However, there are other people in our church who have pertinent experience and education in how to manage groups in a climate of infectious disease. So our update to you is that they are hard at work producing a comprehensive plan for when and how we will reenter our facility and begin to conduct corporate worship gatherings.

We’ve constructed a Leadership Team of gifted and experienced individuals that will help us think about how to move forward. The team will be led by Leang Chhun. He’s worked for over a decade on quality and process improvement in hospitals. The team is rounded off by a number of other individuals, I’ll include a few below:

• Colin Emerson – spent the past five years in quality and process improvement in hosptials, giving primary attention to the Emergency Departments
• Elizabeth Warthen – Registered Nurse who has worked on numerous projects to improve the quality of care in acute care settings.
• Ashley Carr – Lead Facility Management & Upkeep @ Cornerstone Church
• Will Murphy – Physician Assistant in the Emergency Department of Atlanta Medical South
• Shannon Whitehead – Church Resources and Communications
• As well as a few others

Our team is stacked. We basically have the ’98 Chicago Bulls when it comes to how a church should reenter during a pandemic. Right now, they’re reviewing a number of plans with the goal of refining, evaluating, and producing a comprehensive plan for what reentry into our building looks like for us.

We want to prioritize safety for ALL of our members and guests. To that end, success will be measured by the creation of a good plan, not a quick one. We want to get back together soon, but more importantly we want to be sure that our reunion is safe! They’re working diligently and we’ll do our best to keep you updated on the progress.

For the time being, we should plan to treat the next two months like the previous two. If things change, then we’ll adjust that timeline. If things seem a little more uncertain….then….we’ll adjust that timeline. We’re grateful that God has gifted the church with a variety of giftings. Our way of thanking God for the support He’s granted is by relying on it! That’s what we’ve been doing. That’s what we intend to keep doing.

As stated above:

“A little bit more time will answer a lot more questions”

Thanks again for you patience. As always, if there’s anything we can do to serve you, please don’t hesitate to ask.

With Love,

Your Pastors
John Onwuchekwa | Richard Mullen | Moe Hafeez | Bob Selph | Jared Dawson

The post COVID Update – Summer 2020 & Our Plan to Reopen appeared first on Cornerstone Church ATL.

Have you experienced loneliness in this Coronavirus season? I have.

Loneliness is one of those emotions we don’t want to experience. In one sense it can drive us into despair and make it hard to engage with anyone. Have you ever experienced the desire to not be seen by anyone? The hit song titled “Me, Myself and I” by Beyoncé expressed this very sentiment. The hurt brought on by an unfaithful partner and seemingly irrational behaviors that often accompany it, can make anyone want distance between themselves and others. Most people don’t want to be seen in such a vulnerable state.

On the other hand, loneliness can also make us a little overly interested in the attention of others. Have you ever seen someone you could just tell was desperate for attention? Both of these responses to our loneliness are a form of escape, and they keep us from dealing with the inner longing we each have to be fully known and fully loved.

In this season of working from home, a place where nobody sees what I’m doing, I’m noticing that my work sometimes feels meaningless. It can feel incredibly empty. A day comes and it goes and each day I slowly check off my to-do list. But as I find myself about 8 weeks into this shelter-in-place season, this practice of “responsibility” is no longer producing the sense of accomplishment it used too. It’s beginning to feel like a hamster wheel, and though I wouldn’t have first described it like this, it’s a lonely place. A place where a motivation of my heart to win the approval of others is being shown to me. Because I can’t readily win the approval of others, my work can feel empty. I would have never seen this, if we weren’t sheltering in place.  

There is no quick fix to the pains in our inner being. Jesus doesn’t look back at us and shout, “Hurry up! What’s taking so long?”But rather, He takes us by the hand and invites us to follow Him, but at a pace intentionally designed for us. He invites us to own our weaknesses, acknowledge them and allow His grace to close the gap. 

Even though loneliness is one of those emotions I’m more prone to run away from, rather than patiently process, I’ve come to understand it as a gift. You might ask, “How is it a gift?” I learned this from Chip Dodd’s book, “The Voice of the Heart,” loneliness is what helps us to identify that we need sincere friendship. Without loneliness we can’t have awareness of our need for deep friendship. It is the very act of acknowledging our loneliness that will enable us to move toward the depth of relationship we need with God and others. 

I’m married and even having someone as close to me as my wife, I still experience loneliness. She’s nearby practically at any moment, and although she knows me better than anyone else, there are some areas she just can’t understand. And that goes both ways. But there is one who can. God has sent His Spirit to be a friend to those who are His, and He always understands. You need compassion, He’s got you. You need affirmation, He’s got you. You need correction, He’s got you. You need ________ (you fill in the blank), He’s got you. He longs to be a good friend to every one of us who would ask for it. 

“I will talk to the Father, and He’ll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth.”

JOHN 14:16 (THE MESSAGE)

As we walk in friendship with Him, He’ll help us to see how we are to follow Him. He will guide us into the truth of how we are to live. He will affirm God’s love in us, empowering us to trust and obey our Heavenly Father. And we’ll be refreshed to know that we are fully known, and fully loved. 

Are you experiencing emotions that you can’t explain? Does something feel broken on the inside? Do you need help understanding what’s going on inside of you? Then you need to allow the Holy Spirit to be a good friend to you. Ask Jesus to reveal what’s happening and then open up to someone you trust who can help you process. Then watch Him move you into the very intimacy your loneliness is inviting you to pursue.

The post The Gift of Loneliness appeared first on Cornerstone Church ATL.

Let’s play a little game of WOULD YOU RATHER? (Remember that Game)

Would you rather live in a house w/ NO WINDOWS or NO MIRRORS?

It’s a pretty easy choice. I think most people rather live in a house with windows than mirrors. If your house was full of mirrors, you’d get tired of looking at yourself. You’d realize you need something else. A house of mirrors is fun at carnivals, but beyond that, being forced to live in a house with no windows is…well….prison.

Windows remind us that there is an outside world. Windows remind us that real and lasting joy doesn’t come from a world of selfie’s (constantly turning our attention on ourselves). Real joy comes from looking at something beyond us.

The Bible: Window or Mirror?

I use that opening metaphor to segue into what our biggest problem is when it comes to approaching the Bible. I think we often tend to approach the Bible like a house of mirrors. We think of it as a book primarily about us. We come to it mainly to see what’s wrong (or right) with us. So we come to it to constantly pick apart what’s wrong with us and fix it. Which may shed light on why it’s so hard to spend time in the Bible. For many of us it feels as enjoyable as living in a house or mirrors.

Through the years, I’ve found it’s more helpful to think of the Bible as a house with a window that overlooks an amazing view. A view of absolute perfection, grace and beauty. The Bible is like a window. You don’t come to a window for the purpose of looking at yourself (although you’ll catch some glimpses of your reflection from time to time). You come to a window to look through it to something else that is…not you. We come to the Bible primarily to see God.

In this sense, the Bible is a book for us, and not just a book about us. The Bible is a book about God. There is a different kind of joy that comes from waking up in the morning, knowing you have an amazing view of the sunrise and HUGE window through which to see it. That’s what daily Bible reading should feel like. That’s what we want to help you with this year.

Your Next Year

So here’s what we’re going to do. Starting Monday August 10th, we’ll help you walk through the entire Bible in one year. We have a reading chart that consists of 4 chapters per day (it should only take you about 12 minutes to read) and then we have an 8 minute daily devotional on our Windows & Mirrors Podcast that’ll help to put your daily reading into perspective.

That’s it. If you have 20 minutes per day, we want to help you understand the Bible over this next year. We want you to enjoy a beautiful view of God every morning!

Your Next Steps

• SUBSCRIBE to the Windows & Mirrors Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. The first few episodes are already up. You can go back and start with every episode that begins with the word SYLLABUS. It’ll help to give you perspective on what to expect over the next year.
• SUBSCRIBE to the Windows & Mirrors Reading Calendar. By subscribing, you’ll see the daily readings on your personal calendar so you never have to wonder where we are in the reading.

The post Windows & Mirrors: A Year Long Journey Through the Bible appeared first on Cornerstone Church ATL.