When A Church Has No Interest in Entertaining Nominalism
Leisa got connected to Cornerstone Community Church in January 2022 after she saw an ad for Alpha. At the time, she did not have a relationship with Jesus. After an initial meeting with Pastor Kyle Donnelly, Leisa agreed to host an Alpha group in her home. The group was made up of Leisa's friends, that include drug addicts, alcoholics, and those recently released from jail. According to Leisa, over the previous two years, more than ten people died in her house because of drug overdoses and incidents of violence.
About a month after Leisa began to host the Alpha group, she made Jesus her King. Two months later, she was baptized at Cornerstone. She now gets a ride every week and attends that church regularly. It's very common to hear Leisa yell at her friends, "Get your ass to Bible study!" She's a work in progress, she loves Jesus, and she's walking out the role of the evangelist in her community.
Called to Cornerstone
Kyle Donnelly arrived at Cornerstone Church in Lively, Ontario, in December 2018. He moved from an established church in the Ottawa Valley to the Sudbury area with his wife and two children to become the lead pastor at Cornerstone. This was his first lead role.
The Regenerate Experience
To say that arriving in a new community and role is challenging and overwhelming is an understatement. Kyle says, "Although I felt called by God, knew that I had been mentored well, and was certain that this was a step of obedience for my family and me, I still had many moments of questioning why God had asked me to be here. Despite all the early challenges, I was extremely thankful for one tool that I could utilize: the Regenerate program."
Regenerate is a radical resource for vitalizing health and growth.
Regenerate emphasizes turning a plateaued leader or a declining church around and moving them back towards health and growth.
Regenerate essentially has three stages:
Discovery – mentoring in personal and congregational assessments and discovery of your local passion.
Development – assisting in creating a laser-focused vision unique to your context so that you may move forward.
Deployment – empowering you to move your dreams to the front of the bus by creating energized teams that drive the process forward.
My experience with Regenerate is unique. The process began before my arrival, and the former pastor, who began the process, transitioned during the church health assessment stage. Mark Collins, the Regenerate director, shared how he wrestled with whether he should continue. I'm so thankful that Mark chose to continue the process. After all, Cornerstone would receive prescriptions without having a lead pastor.
Upon my arrival in Lively, I had an incredible level of insight into the health and DNA of our church. Without this process, it would have taken months or years to gather this amount of information and the next steps. It allowed me and our leadership to increase our effectiveness immediately.
How we shifted the focus to doing anything short of sin to reach people
One of the first steps we took as a leadership team was defining our vision, mission, and values. We believed that God was calling our church – our divinely-called assembly – to use our uniquenesses, giftings, DNA, to reach people that no one else was reaching. God has a unique purpose for these unique people in this unique community and time.
So, we gathered as a leadership. We prayed and studied together as a church for several weeks. We shared what we were passionate about, the desires of our hearts for our community, and what we believed God was saying. At the end of this process, we discerned that God's vision for Cornerstone was to INVITE PEOPLE TO TAKE STEPS CLOSER TO JESUS, and the mission is to LOVE GOD, LOVE OTHERS, AND MAKE DISCIPLES.
I know that that sounds churchy. It's almost cliché. But we take it very seriously. And it means that we are not interested in entertaining nominalism. Every single decision and step we take must pass the mission and vision filter test. We will remind people regularly that being a part of Cornerstone means that they live this out in their own lives. Christian disciples are committed contributors to a mission. So, if they'd like to sit and take in a nice and encouraging talk for 20 minutes once a week, we'll happily help them find somewhere else to make that happen. But that's not who we are. God has directed us to reach the lost; anything short of living that out is disobedience to our Heavenly Father.
I know. That sounds harsh. And if you met with us, it would sound more gracious than it looks when only written, but it's what drives us. And stories like Leisa's mark our walls because we genuinely are willing to do ANYTHING short of sin, including running Alpha groups in crack houses.
Staffing
Cornerstone isn't a huge church in a huge community. So, our team is relatively small (but is growing). We made it clear who we are and what we're willing to do to obey God's leading, and we set the expectation bar very high because nothing matters more than this mission. We invited those who could embrace this to join us and those who couldn't choose to move on. We maintained this standard in our search for the right people even when others said they didn't exist. If God has called us, He will call others to be a part of it – and that's what happened.
Cornerstone Community Church is a testimony that small churches in small communities with small budgets can have 'big vision' and big expectations in a big God with incredible results.
Kyle will be sharing his story at the Church Vitalization Summit on August 30, 31, and September 1: 10:00-11:30 AM MT. Get your FREE pass to the Summit here.
Bob Jones is the founder of REVwords.com, an author, blogger, and coach with 39 years of pastoral experience. Bob is also an Advance Coach with the ABNWT Resource Centre. You can connect with Bob here.