High School Summer Trips

Cornerstone has 2 summer camping trips to Santa Cruz Island with their High School Ministry. Cost is $130 with a $30 non-refundable deposit due upon registration. Registration has begun! Sign up in Cornerstone’s main office or at one of the House Group meetings. 

A registration card and Cornerstone Medical Release Form are due at the time of registration.

The Simi High House Group trip is June 29-July 2.
(registration ends June 24)
The Grace/Santa Susana House Group trip is July 24-27.
(registration ends July 19)

Theology for Today

Reading the theologians of the past can be a rich experience.
We have a lot to learn from those who have gone before us. Yet like most good things, there is a potential danger. 

As we read godly men like Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards, St. Augustine, John Owen, and many others, we are drawn to the force and brilliance of their arguments. But we seldom consider the arguments and world views that they were addressing. Does it matter? Absolutely.

We admire their argumentation, we stand in awe of the impact they had on their generations, and naturally, we want to have the same sort of impact. So we imitate their argumentation and emphasize what they emphasized. But when we don’t consider what they were arguing against, we fail to recognize that we may not be called to answer the same questions.

What I mean is this. The great theologians of the past were answering questions. But the answers they gave would not have been helpful if they were not responses to actual questions—regardless of how brilliant those answers were. An ingenious explanation of the law of gravity is not a good answer to how to bake bread. So before we adopt the great arguments of the past, we must first consider which questions we have been called to answer.

Martin Luther said it like this:
“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point” (Cited by Francis Schaeffer in The God Who Is There). 

In 1863, a soldier fighting in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania would have been considered a hero. But a soldier fighting the same way in the same location today would not be a hero—he would be irrelevant. 

Should we read old theologians? Of course! We have much to learn from them. But we cannot afford to confuse their battles with our own.
If we want to impact the world as they did then we must know the Bible well and bring that knowledge to bear on the questions and erroneous thinking of the world in which live. 

And how do we know what questions need to be answered today?
We will never know until we walk out the front door and start conversations with our neighbors. Only then will we find that the Bible has answers for real life—it always has, and it always will.

BACCALAUREATE SERVICE

A Baccalaureate Service is a special time of prayer, worship,
and blessing for students as they graduate from High School.
If you have a High School senior who would like to participate
in the Baccalaureate Service, please contact Janette Phillips at 805.526.9885 or email her at phillipsfamily3108@yahoo.com for a packet. The service will be held on Sunday, June 14 from
2:00-4:00pm at the church.

LoVEFest ‘09

Lily of the Valley Endeavor (LoVE) is hosting a Christian concert
on Sunday, June 7 from 3:00-7:00pm at Gardens of the World in Thousand Oaks. Music will be provided by Brenton Brown and local Christian bands and worship teams (including Cornerstone). There will be great (and free!) food donated by several restaurants and a silent auction. Money raised at this event will go to the Lily of the Valley AIDS orphanages in South Africa. Tickets are $35 if purchased in advance ($45 at the door) and can be purchased by contacting Todd Tucker at the church office (ttucker@cornerstonesimi.com).

The Unleashed Are Made in the Furnace

Where I grew up, there was only one sport people really played–basketball. We played it, watched it, talked about it, and lived it. And the best thing for all of us was that we grew up when the NBA was in its prime.  My early years were dominated by the Larry Bird and Magic Johnson clashes, but that was just the prelude to probably the best player of all time–Michael Jordan. He changed everything!
 
For a kid that loved basketball, I think the word I am searching for to describe Michael Jordan was “magical” (kinda feminine, but I was in junior high). All of us wanted to be “like Mike,” as the Gatorade commercial went. Everyone used to wear bun hugging shorts, but Mike freed us from that nonsense and introduced us to baggy ones. Our socks went from tube socks that were pulled up to our knees, to ones scrunched down to our shoes. And we no longer wore Converse or Adidas; we wore Nike, specifically Air Jordan’s. None of us could dribble with our tongue in our mouths anymore because Mike¹s wasn¹t.  And suddenly all of us thought we could jump like Mike so we wore wristbands on our forearms to protect ourselves from the rim.
 
Everyone wanted to be like Mike, but the mistake we made was to think that if we wore the right clothes and equipment, or if we took on his mannerisms, that somehow we would be like Mike. The problem with this, however, is that we missed the fact that this is not how Michael Jordan became “Air Jordan.” We wanted to be like him, but we didn’t want to work hard in the same way that made him into the greatest player of all time.
 
Sometimes, I think Christians operate the same way in regards to being like Jesus. If you were to ask most Christians if they want to be like Jesus, the answer would be, “Of course!” If you asked them if they wanted to walk in the steps of Jesus, however, the answer would probably be, “No.” We want to look like him, but if it means pain or discomfort, we are always looking for another way. The problem is that there is no other way.
 
The writer of Hebrews made sure that we understand that those truly of the faith will suffer, but most important is that they will endure or hold on. This process not only proves our faith (1 Pet. 1:6-7), but it also starts to make us more and more like Jesus.
 
The apostle Paul put it like this for the Romans, “we rejoice in
our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character” (5:3-4). That word “character” was used during Paul’s day to speak of proof or approval. They used it specifically of refining silver. The silversmith would heat the silver
ore until it melted, and to the surface would come the dross or impurities. He would scrape the dross from the top, let the metal
cool, and then look for his reflection in the silver. He would do this over and over until he could see his face in the metal. Silver that most accurately reflected his face was the most approved or had the highest character.
 
This is exactly what God is doing in our lives. In life he is allowing the heat to get turned up, and when it does, to the surface always comes impurity and sin! The major issue, however, is not working harder, but trusting the work of the gospel more in your life. Faith!