Christmas Came One Night x 10

God showed Himself strong...

• close to 6000 people attended 10 performances
• the performers were enabled through each performance (despite one illness requiring a visit to the ER for dehydration)
• the set continued to rotate on cue
• many heard the gospel for the first time
• many re-evaluated their life purpose
• some made decisions to follow Christ!

Upward

Upward Basketball, the community basketball outreach to children K-5th grade

• has 100 more enrolled this year than last year
• has resulted in a great partnership with First Evangelical Free to make this growth possible
• some of the coaches serving this year came to Christ through serving in the previous years in Upward!

Drawn to Christ

• A TSC student shared Christ with an uncle who was going to leave his wife. He responded to the gospel and has returned to his family!
• International students heard the gospel for the first time at Thanksgiving meals all over the region. Pray for those seeds to grow.
• Several thousand will hear the gospel at the upcoming Christmas production. Pray for the message to be clear and to fall on receptive hearts.

Seeds Planted

And God produces the growth:

• 3 more internationals came to Christ last week
• 49 people met on Saturday to explore the possibilities of a West Des Moines church plant
• after the message on 2 Corinthians 6, several spoke of their need to break the yoke with those who have been leading them away from Christ rather than urging them onward in their walk with Him
• a staff member's neighbor, often drunken, came to church for the first time last weekend and thought the message had been planned for him

God's Word is producing fruit by His Spirit. Let's pray for more and more!

More New Life!

We are seeing God's Spirit at work...

• Escape 22, our high school ministry, had 160+ students at their weekend retreat at Hidden Acres. As Paul Sabino shared the gospel and the reality of heaven and hell, many students gave their life to Christ...many more than the 5 that Josiah, Paul's 9 year old son, was asking God for.
• A TSC leader has prayed with 6 international students to receive Christ in the past week!
• IFC has 140-150 internationals participating in the Thanksgiving dinner outreach during this next week.

Please continue to pray for more and more fruit and that the fruit would remain.

New Life

The Body of Christ is growing...

• After Paul Sabino spoke this weekend from 2 Corinthians 5 on what it means to become a new creature in Christ, he received this phone call from a 9 year old who had been in the service...

"Pastor Paul, when I saw that there was communion this weekend, I was offended because I knew that I couldn't participate. But then when you began to talk about how to have a relationship with Christ, it was as if time stood still. I knew that I could give my life to Him right then...and I did!"

Sports and the Gospel

The latest men's outreach, a men's dodgeball tournament, drew 130 men last Friday evening to the Ames Middle School. In addition to having a blast watching the unexpectedly agile win games and the rest get creamed, at least 40 men who have never attended Cornerstone were able to hear the gospel for the first time.

On another front, the Iowa State women's soccer team invited our TSC Women's director, Jill Paullus, to lead Bible studies for any team members who wanted to participate. Almost the entire team was attending these studies by the end of the soccer season.

Upward Basketball has sent informational flyers home to every student in the Ames school district. Those stories are yet to be told...

Transformed?

After this weekend's message, a visiting Chinese student asked, "Is it true? Can I really be transformed?" And then, one story after another about God's amazing transforming power...

• Bob, a member of the Communist Party, a father who is Muslim, a mother who is Buddhist, excited about the number of arenas he has been given to reach out with the gospel truth
• A neighbor invited to attend an Intro to Cornerstone class, finds her God-story written in class as she asks Christ to be her Savior
• A Salt Company student thanked by visiting parents for reaching out to their son with the gospel...the son that they had been praying for, crying out to God for other believers to reach out to him.

The Salt Company Fall Retreat

The Salt Company had 360 students at its annual fall retreat this past weekend at Hidden Acres. As guest speaker, Ed Noble, spoke on drawing close to Jesus in personal prayer time, the students were given the opportunity to seek God individually... and a new level of humility and brokeness were the result. God is drawing our students to Himself in holiness.

New Life in Christ

This weekend Cornerstone celebrated 21 baptisms! Included in this number were 2 of the 15 visiting Chinese students that IFC has been reaching out to since their arrival in the States. Isn't it great to see God birthing new life through a local church with a global vision?!

God is growing His church!

What a joy it is to see healthy ministry growth on every front!

• The Salt Company started off the year with 750 students at the Thursday night meeting in the gym. (Up from 7 when Jack Owens started the student organization 35 years ago!)
• The Freshmen group had 300 at their Sunday evening kick-off.
• D6 was packed for an exciting kick-off this past Wednesday.
• Escape 22 and 180, our junior and senior high ministries, each had 150 students
• The weekend worship services have grown 15% over the same period last year

Join with us in thanking God for hearts that are hungry for Him. Pray that He will find yielded hearts through which His work can continue to move forward unhindered throughout central Iowa!

Gearing Up for the Fall

5 Services will begin on the weekend of August 18/19...

• Sunday worship will have services at 9:00a and 11:00a in the auditorium, and 9:15a and 11:15a in the gym.
• To make this new schedule work, it will be more important than ever that people arrive on time to services. We will need to close the auditorium seating at 5 minutes after the start of each service and begin ushering people down to the gym for the next services.
• These are growing pains. In Troy's words..."It will be chaotic. But what a great place to be!" God is doing great things!

Kids Camp is underway...

• More than 100 children are at Hidden Acres this week for Kids Camp.
• Pray for Paul as he teaches, Mandy as she leads the counselors, the counselors, and the kids!

Mission teams are coming back...

• The Panama highschool team, the Thailand college team, the college Zambia team and one of the community Zambia teams returned this last week.
• The second Zambia team will be returning tomorrow...along with Pastor Jeff.
• Come out this weekend to the services to hear what Pastor Jeff learned in Africa as he shares "Lessons from Africa" with us. Isn't it great to be part of "a local church with a global vision"?

Your Move is Moving On

Pastor Troy and Mike just returned from meeting with our architects in Utah. Here are a few of the highlights:

• One of the lead men at BGW (Building God's Way) said "God is clearly at work in this project. I've rarely seen a church that looks so healthy."
• Steps were taken in the initial selection of materials.
• BGW's vision for making the whole building process a ministry to those involved has inspired our team.

This is our second week of Vacation Bible School:

• Many wondered if two weeks were really necessary...and they are! We are experiencing a 30% enrollment over last year.
• Experienced teachers turned to Mandy in the first week and said "I can't believe that someone has finally figured out how to make this fun for teachers...thank you!"

Junior Highers Going Deeper with God

In the last two weeks, God has shown Himself strong in the lives of junior highers:

• 23 incoming freshmen served on a Native American reservation sharing the gospel of hope
• within the last month, this same tribe had lost 7 individuals to suicide within a 24 hour period
• the tribal president gave them permission to share Christ and His Word freely on the reservation!
  
• 43 junior highers spent a week at Student Life camp
• the hallmark of their time together was unity
• 4 gals and 1 guy came to Christ
• they spontaneously prayed with and for one another for 25 minutes and rejoiced!
  

God's truth changing lives...

God stories heard in the foyer in response to the clear teaching of the Word:

• "I needed to hear the truth - not have people tell me things were OK in my life when they really weren't. I needed to know how to get on track with God. That's what I'm hearing from the messages each weekend. My life is changed!"
• As one of our pastors called a young man to repentance, he said "I know I'm calling you to a hard thing." With tears in his eyes, the young man responded, "It is a hard thing, but it's exactly what I need to hear. I want to know what God wants me to do."
• "I've never understood the Bible before. Now I'm beginning to understand. I want to know God the way my friend does."

The Home Front and Beyond...

After 25 years of being a believer, Pastor Jeff Dodge is rejoicing to see God moving among his extended family. Pastor Tom Nesbitt has led two of Jeff's nieces and one nephew to Christ...and that is just the beginning!

In the church family... last week Cornerstone hosted Day Camp for children ages 4-7. In the words of one little guy: "I learned that not everybody knows about Jesus and I need to tell them!" Not only did they latch on to the need to share the gospel, but they also learned how to share and practiced it on the staff of the science center!

Further afield... a spontaneous international ministry is springing up in Texas led by former IFC students (the International Ministry of Cornerstone Church at Iowa State). International students are coming to Christ in the United States and then reaching out to other internationals in the U.S!

The auditorium stage could not hold them all...

This last weekend we had more youth on stage to be sent out to the nations than were in our youth group 5 years ago!

180, the junior high ministry under the leadership of Joel Vint, is sending

• 23 students to serve at the Lakota Indian Reservation
• 42 students to Student Life Conference to be more deeply equipped

Escape 22, the senior high ministry under the leadership of Cody Cline, is sending

• 22 students to come alongside the believers in Panama and Thailand, sharing the gospel and encouraging the local church
• 17 students to the Student Life conference in Wheaton to be more fully equipped

Our goal is that the next generation will rise up to serve God in a mighty way. Thank God with us for the evidence of His work in the youth at Cornerstone!

Cornerstone welcomes...

• Four new staff members for Cornerstone's Family Ministry. As the Director of Family Ministries, Paul Sabino, will be leading a team of Children's Ministry staff and 3 new summer interns to energize and equip parents to lead their families with joy this summer. Great plans are in the works!
• Ylli Doci, from Cornerstone Church of Albania met with staff this morning. God has begun to raise up another generation of believers from the initial 1994 gospel outreach who are now going out as missionaries to the surrounding nations.
• Pastor Troy Nesbitt's two new sons, Malachi and Trey. He went to Ethiopia and brought the nations back home. God has begun to melt their hearts with the unconditional love that they see in the Nesbitt family. The world is being reached...one person at a time.

“I will sing for joy at the work of Thy hands…” (Ps 92:4)

God continues to fill us with gladness by what He is doing in and through the people at Cornerstone:
• A married couple have experienced restored communication and understanding after several years of estrangement. Their relationship is a joy to see!
• A short-term missionary, Zach Ludwig, was given the opportunity to share the gospel to 300 people at a funeral in Zambia.
• Pastor Troy and his wife, Pam, were able to see the answer to the prayers of many as God cleared the way for them to adopt two brothers from Ethiopia.
• God continues to sovereignly make connections among the Body to encourage and comfort those going through trials.

Huge Thank You Weekend at Cornerstone!

• The 657th person to be sent out from Cornerstone to reach the nations for Christ was commissioned this weekend
• Over 500 youth gathered at the Anthem concert to thank God for His work in our world
• Parents and kids celebrated together at the first annual Parents vs. Kids contest...and parents rejoiced that they won!
• Over 250 D6 teachers and helpers were honored at a year-end appreciation BBQ
• 9 graduating Escape students were honored at a Senior Banquet

What a joy to celebrate with the family of God all that He is doing in and through His people!

We're Growing!

God is growing our church family! This past Easter weekend, 2,320 people gathered to celebrate our Risen Savior. We have become a church that draws those who are seeking a relationship with God. Pray for those many visitors (400 over our normal weekend services), that the clear teaching of God's Word will open their eyes to the reality of their need for Him and His love for them.

Architects at Cornerstone

As God grows us numerically, He is showing us the next steps to provide room for those that are coming. This past week, our staff met with an architect design team from Building God's Way. In four days of intensive design, they came up with a preliminary design that will give us 50,000+ square feet of additional ministry space. The new auditorium will immediately accomodate 1300 with the ability to expand to 1900. The two ends of the stadium seating level will initially be large classrooms. The large foyer space will include space for a cafe. A large equipping room (twice the size of our current one) will be available for youth ministry, the Light, etc. The nursery will be expanded considerably to allow for the corresponding growth needs that we will feel in this area as a result of increased attendance in the auditorium. The architect did an amazing job of watching costs and giving us more for the price...still within our budget!