Stephen (steve) Cornell's Blog (11)

The year of 2004 was the last year denominational credentials were extended to me as an "unassigned worker". That basically meant that those credentials allowed me to minister to churches in a certain geographical area as opportunity arose. I had great desire to do just that thing. However that was the last year I received that scrap of paper. What I got in the mail the next year was a "dear Steve" letter releasing me from the bonds of denominational obligations. I have been doing… Continue

Back a few months ago, I mentioned the concept in the Bible of the Jubilee as it relates to economic cycles and our present economical state as a geopolitical nation.



Well, after musing and mulling, in other words, meditating (Hebrew-chewing the cud), I have come to the conclusion that one thing that helped pull the trigger on our economic downturn was the whole marketing emphasis of the American business scene.



Remember, I spent ten years in the industry of marketing over… Continue

It has been a couple months into the new year, so More than time for an entry!



What is the state of the ekklesia or at least the forms of it that I intermingle with? After some sickness and struggle one of the groups expressed to me a sense of spiritual warfare. This group meets in the home of the HR director of my place of employment. Her husband used to be a youth pastor with the AG. She is launching into a time of fasting and prayer. And to read her e-mailings, so are a few of the… Continue

Hey,

Check out the following websites reflecting new Simple Church groups starting up in my area!
www.cometothealtar.com, and www.sonrisetoday.net. Our group has been visiting and encouraging these folks as well as others in the area.

Blog...Family Christmas letter?



Well, I thought maybe it would work...

This was the year of reclaiming our home for our nuclear family. We have had a Grandpa or a Sister or Brother-in-law or child living with us for a while now and it seems a little funny with "just Us". Still we are blessed by God to be able to have a home which we are not now in a "crisis" over a mortgage situation like many Americans. And I am employed and have been for a year and in an organization which I… Continue

I have spent the last few days at work doing counseling of at least four co-workers and praying with three of them. This is a second-hand store I do managerial work in. The organization was a religious spin-off of Methodists and has become a not-for-profit business where it is run on non-biblical sounding biblical principles. They've transformed the work ethic of Christianity and call it core values and guiding principles. I'm just glad I can find what the Father wants me to do and do it there.… Continue

Well, if you give me a chance to compose a snappy title, I will!



But, years ago, a fellow doing youth ministry read a book called, "Open Church". He was working within a baptist denominational setting but increasingly dissatisfied and that book got him saying, "this is it". He knew right then that he needed that much ballyhooed paradigm shift.



I ran into him during a 6 month stint of unemployment which allowed me to attend a ministerial meeting and eat lunch with him. At… Continue

Here is a statement. Let the gathered believers mull it over in that internal "mullifier" and see if it rings true to you.



My journey in life was unique to me, yet the same God was consistently involved in that journey as is in yours.



In 1990, I was about to embark on a six-year leg of institutional ministry that would see me ordained and also begun on a train of experience and thought which led me to the conclusion that the institution was the biggest problem with the… Continue

In Leviticus 25 and Numbers 36, two books of the Old Covenant with Israel, a unique practice was revealed and would have made Israel an economic example among nations

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God gave Israel the Jubilee. This was to be the ultimate Sabbath of Sabbaths. It would mean the recycling of the whole economy. On this planet where Mighty Oak trees decay to become fertilizer for a new generation of Oaks (if humanity allows it) and whole continents get rides on plates down into the planet’s core for… Continue

You should know right up front, that I have been a denominational, institutional, pastor. There, I said it! Like any good 12 step meeting, we begin with a confession!

I became a pastor like others have. After confessing faith in Jesus Christ at age 12 and being baptized as a believer in the Circleville, PA, Nazarene Church, I went on into Adolescence as a believer going to church services with my family, who were also believers attending with other believers at that same building,… Continue

That God was at work was evident in history and specifically a few years back in Bradenton, Florida. Three couples in a brand new AG church plant were hard at work being cell leaders and as it became clear to them that each cell was in fact the essential ecclesia (not just a part of a church but church itself) they stood out from the norm and became something else. What it was that they were becoming was not even clear to them. They found themselves isolated from the larger institutional… Continue