At first, I thought it was just my imagination, but then Angela mentioned it and I started paying more attention. And I’m not sure what to make of it. Maybe you noticed it as well. This year it seemed that more people were wishing me Merry Christmas, in stores and on the phone. On Christmas…
A Christmas Carol Stave 5, Christmas Eve
Here we are it’s Christmas Eve, which brings us to the end of our A Christmas Carol Series at Cornerstone. Through the past four weeks we’ve been using Dickens’ most famous story as a frame work for the Christmas story. If you aren’t familiar with A Christmas Carol, it is divided up into five chapters…
Dream Time
What could God do with Cornerstone if we let Him? You know, if we just got out of His way. As I’ve been working on the recommendations in the Maximizing Impact report, I’ve been asking myself that question. And not just that question either. I’ve been asking, “How can we be the church that God…
A Christmas Carol, Stave Four the Future
It was December 19th, 1843 and the Christmas Novella that Dickens had been working on for six weeks was finally released, to immediate success. By Christmas Eve all 6000 copies of A Christmas Carol had been sold out. And they weren’t cheap, the little book sold for five shillings which we are told is the…
A Christmas Carol: Stave 3 The Present
He had become a celebrity, there was no other word for it, he had toured with his wife across the United States and Canada and crowds flocked to see him. During his time in the U.S., because of his celebrity status, he was granted an opportunity to address Congress on international copyright issues. As a…
Do They Hear What I Hear?
Do you hear what I hear? Actually, the question should be, do they hear what I hear? The other day while strolling through Walmart I heard a traditional Christmas Carol being played and if people had listened they would have heard of a virgin birth, celestial choirs and the birth of Jesus. But how many…
Happy Birthday
Is it my imagination or are there more Christmas lights up this year then there were last year? Angela and I were commenting on it the other night, it seems like every street is trying to outdo the other, at least in Kingswood. The displays range from the understated and tasteful right up to, good…
A Christmas Carol: Stave 2 Our Past
As a child he was a voracious reader and his favourite book was The Arabian Nights, which he read over and over again. For a while his family was able to afford to send him to a private school where he flourished, but that was short lived. He was twelve years old when his…
A Christmas Carol: Stave 1 The Intro
When Angela and I first got married she told me that one of the things that she did with her dad each Christmas was to watch A Christmas Carol. But it had to be the Alastair Sim one from 1951, and not the colourized version either. The movie was first released in the UK under…
The Old Old Story
This year will mark the 24th year that I’ve preached the Christmas story at Cornerstone. And every year the challenge is; how to make the same old story new and fresh. Well, the reality is, the story doesn’t have to become new and fresh, the story is fine, it’s just the presentation that has to…