God continues to amaze me each year as we collect our Cornerstone Christmas Community Offering. This is the third year we have collected a special offering to give back to a ministry in our community. This year, we chose to help the Hope House, our local homeless shelter that provides transitional housing. They provide hope, and I am excited for Cornerstone to come along beside them to support their ministry.
Your generosity was incredible this year. We collected an offering of $17,790.94!! For a church of our size, that is an incredible gift. Our elders discussed what we could add to the gift, and we have decided to round up the final amount to $25,000. God has blessed our church, and we want to be a blessing to our community.
This past Sunday we had over 380 people in worship as we celebrated the birth of Christ! As a church, we have seen God move in incredible ways throughout this year.
Here are just a few of our accomplishments this year
- We started a new community meal ministry that provides a free meal on the last Wednesday of each month
- We had our biggest and best year yet for our community-wide Bible school, Praisin’ in the Park
- We continued seeing lives changed through our wonderful children’s and youth ministries, including a great youth camp at the beach for our older youth
- We took a large group to Nicaragua in June to minister with Because We Care Ministries
- We partnered with the Fire Department, God’s Pit Crew, and other local agencies to fill an entire tractor-trailer load for Oklahoma Disaster Relief
This is just a small sample of the ministry that takes place at Cornerstone throughout the year. If you are a part of our Cornerstone family, I want to encourage you to support our ministry and work. Your generous giving allows us to continue to be a church that gives back. We operate very lean, and we are committed to missions and local service.
Let’s Finish Strong
Please consider us in your end-of-year giving. We are actually stepping out in faith by adding to this Christmas offering. Going into the last Sunday of the year, we are still short of our final budget amount. We want to finish the year strong so we continue to reach out to our community. We appreciate your generosity!
Remember that gifts must be postmarked by December 31st to count as 2013 donations. You can also give online at cornerstone.fedesign.net/online-giving. You can visit the eGive site to find out the requirements for end of the year online gifts.
– Pastor Mike Morris and the Cornerstone Elders