Striving to live out the Gospel.
Upholding The Apostolic Mandate
The church, for too long has existed in a polarized climate that distinguishes between two different mandates, the one spiritual, the other social. The result is that the church has neglected and become indifferent to the basic duties of human charity simply because of its religious orientation. Yet a fully biblical paradigm of ministry is one that is responsive to human well-being, dignity, aspirations, and justice. Our insights need to be guided and correlated by a theological understanding of the Church.
The Church is in many respects analogical to the two sides of a coin. It is a true witness when it is concretely and historically recognizable in the world (existential/empirical) and normative to the extent it remains connected to biblical truth (quintessential). This means that a wholly existential/empirical perspective is intrinsically iconoclastic while a wholly quintessential framework is at best provocative. Neither is the only option in our practice of doing church in the twenty-first century. Any discussion of what the Church “concretely is” or “is becoming” must be guided by what the Church “really is” or “ought to be.”
Upholding The Apostolic Mandate
Jesus was not simply interested in telling self-contained stories about the kingdom, rather he demonstrated that the kingdom had arrived in very practical ways. His kingdom perspective awakened faith and brought wholeness. Following in the footsteps of Jesus means that our being church or missiological integrity requires that the deed without the word is dumb; the word without the deed is empty. Words interpret deeds and deeds validate words.
At Cornerstone Christian Center, San Bernardino, we aspire to care for people, know, equip, and unleash them to live out the Gospel. We will invest all we have to that end. We are a community of imperfect people seeking to take the transcultural teachings of Jesus to heart, and into the world. We allow the Gospel to penetrate our imperfection and our differences. It changes everything about the way we live, the way we are, and how we see the world. As individuals, we intentionally choose to lay aside our differences to have communion with each other and with God. As a community, we strive to live out the Gospel.