Kids Music & Drama Bigger & Better than Ever!

I can hear them singing and crafting and snacking right through my office walls as I write this! This is not a complaint about thin walls, but rather a praise that 142 kids (the most ever in the history of M&D Camp at CBF) are super excited to be here and are having a great time! Not only are they preparing for Friday nights program (are you coming?) but they're learning God's word in a fun and exciting way. They're also making new friends, welcoming visitors, and deepening the relationships they came in with. Eddie Airheart and Eric Day and a host of adult and student leaders are leading the best M&D Camp to date. As a dad and uncle with 3 in my house who are attending this camp this week, I can attest to the full effort these kids are giving. It's the only week so far this summer where they have wanted to go to bed early!


Don't miss the exciting production from this year's Music & Drama Camp this Friday night in the Cornerstone Worship Center. (Come early, remember the access road in front of the property is now one-way heading south so you may need to leave a little early. Also, as you know from years past, every seat will be taken, so come early to be sure you don't have to be a part of the "standing room only" crowd :-)!

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All of the student helpers at this year's camp are also a part of our student ministry choir ("The Celebration Singers"). This group leaves next Wednesday for thier Mission Choir Tour through Missouri, Kansas, & Colorado. Saturday and Sunday are opportunities for you to support this group financially as they host a car wash (Saturday) and a bake sale (Sunday). Please be generous and help them get over their last financial hump before the bus pulls out next Wed. morning! And please pray for the trip and all of us who are leading it.

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The I AM teaching series on Sunday mornings has been very challenging and encouraging to me. I've been blessed to see the first two messages be used by God in powerful ways. Personally, I think this is a great series to invite someone who's never been to Cornerstone before to come and experience a Celebration Service with us. Please pray for this week's message as we study from John chapter 10 as Jesus shows us all just exactly how and why his is the door.

FIREFALL '08

Brothers and sisters,

Hebrews 12: 28-29 says, “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.””

God is on the move, and He is looking for those whose hearts are hot after Him.

We need revival. We need a fresh touch.

We need the fire to fall again.

I want to personally invite you to a church-wide worship event that, I pray, will become an annual gathering of God’s people here at Cornerstone. FIREFALL…a night of prayer, praise, testimony and refreshing…when we pour out our love and our request for revival to our great and gracious God, and where the only agenda is to see Him glorified.

Featuring our own Cornerstone PraiSingers Choir, our Sounds of Praise Band and members of the acclaimed Jubilation Jazz Band, FIREFALL will be a one-night only live worship event and a time to recharge, refocus and recommit as a church family…to say “Thanks” for all our Great God has done, both in our individual lives and the life of our dear Cornerstone family.

You will not want to miss this special night when we all assemble under one roof and together raise a voice of praise!

I look forward to sharing and worshipping with you at FIREFALL. Until then, keep the faith and walk in a manner worthy of the Lord Jesus.

Your brother in Christ,
Eddie Airheart
Col. 3:23

Out of this World!

Since the beginning of the school year, my daughter Mikaila and I had been saving and planning for our journey to Space Camp in Hunstville, AL with her 5th grade class from Indian Hills Elementary.

Two weekends ago we made the trip and had a great time! I had wanted to go to Space Camp ever since I was a kid so it took very little time for me to agree to tag along as an parent sponsor.

I had childhood dreams of being an astronaut. I was a "trekkie" from an early age. Then when "Star Wars" came out in 1977, my yearning for travelling among the stars went supernova! Traveling to Space Camp is probably the closest I'll ever get to traveling through outer space, at least this side of eternity.

"I know I could fly this Apollo thing!"

As I read and studied the artifacts, explored the museum displays, and watched the IMAX films on space travel, I couldn't help but wonder what had inspired these space pioneers to reach for the stars. Movies had inspired me, but before movies, comic books of space travel, and Jules Verne novels, what had inspired them? I concluded that it had to have been the profound beauty of the heavens themselves. The moon on a clear night, and the stars on a moonless night, have no problem declaring the praises of the artist of the sky.

The Saturday night of Space Camp, one of the parents on the trip asked me if I would be willing to speak at an impromptu worship time on Sunday morning to the group of students and adults from the NLR schools who came on the trip (3 charter buses, one RV, and several personal vehicles worth). I spoke to the aspiring astronauts & scientists that next morning, not as a "pastor", but as Mikaila's dad and fellow trip member. I was moved by all that we had seen and heard and by the wonder of the Creator who had put it all "up there" in the first place.

I talked about the beauty and awesomeness of all we had seen and how the early dreamers and explorers must have been motivated to enter into space much like someone admiring a great painting dreams of escaping into the art itself. I then read the following verses from Psalms:

8:3-4 "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?"

102:25 "In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands."

I reminded all who were listening about the great distances between the earth and the moon, between the earth and the other planets, and between our solar system and other systems that we had all studied over the weekend.

I then shared that as awesome as it would be for one of them to travel to these very stars, it's even more awesome that the creator, the artist of the heavens, has a love for each one of us that goes beyond all of these great distances!

I then read again from Psalms:

103:11 "For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;"

108:4 "For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies."

I then concluded with this challenge: "It's great to admire the art, but it's much greater to have a relationship with the artist. So keep studying and reaching for the stars, but whether you ever go there or not, reach out to the maker of the stars because He loves you, has gone to great lengths to show it, and he wants you to know him."

Do you know him?