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Lesotho Trip Report-Back

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On the weekend of 14 – 16 September, Mark Meeske, Dave Campbell and the Cornerstone Life Team went on a ministry trip to visit the churches in Lesotho that we work with there. They had a really great time encouraging and teaching the churches.

It was a cold weekend of snow with some Life-Teamers even getting snowed in after the team split into three to minister in various places. The snow prohibited the team from doing some ‘door knocking’ in some of the areas but altogether it was a wonderful time of building up our friends that we partner with in Lesotho.

Check out some of the photos.

Meet the Campbells!

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Dave and Sarah Campbell will be on eldership at Cornerstone until the end of this year. They’ve come all the way from New Zealand with their four children – Braden (8), Gracie (6), Luke (4) and Emily (1). It’s quite exciting having them as a part of the team for the next while.

Dave and Sarah hail from Horsham Downs Community Church (HDCC) in New Zealand. Many of you might know Bruce Benge who has visited us several times and is a good friend of Marcus and the team. Bruce leads HDCC where Dave and Sarah have been elders for the last four years.

Cornerstone is something of a different context for the Campbells in a number of ways which opens up some great opportunities for learning, which is partly why Dave and Sarah are here. They’ve embarked on something of a working holiday where they will be on eldership at Cornerstone while also enjoying what our beautiful country has to offer and visiting many of the churches here.

They’ll be visiting all the sites in the next while so if you see them, grab your chance to enjoy a good coffee with them and enjoy their much-loved New Zealand sense of humour! Dave really likes photography so that’s one way to get him talking!

Open Mic Night Was a Party

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by Phil Quinn

Last Friday, the Uptownies held an Open Mic Night – an evening where anyone could come and showcase their talents. The idea behind the event was to initiate our new venue as a place in which we can relax and have fun and be a source of life in our community.

So we declared the mic open and sat back to enjoy what would come of it. It was wonderful to see so many budding artists and performers looking for an opportunity to express themselves and it was great fun to cheer them on: poets, dancers, saxophonists, singers and rappers.  Our venue was packed out with Uptowners, visiting Bedfordviewers and students from the Braamfontein community.

The Life Team put on a dance best described as “mixtape”; Liziwe Fihlani from the Johannesburg Youth Orchestra performed a sax solo; and a young performer known as Kooch, hailing all the way from Cape Town, also put in an appearance. And these were just some of the highlights.

Draco, a rapper that used to work with Andy Sherman and who enjoys radio play was our guest performer. He was supplemented by our own Jonno Warmington and the Christ Revolution Dance Crew.

We finished off a highly successful evening with Jon Hing performing his famous MJ impersonation. It was a super event and we’ll certainly be doing it again!

The Exchange – 12 October

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with guest speaker Jedd Schroy from Paradigm Shift

A handout might enable the poor to survive one more day, but can they be given tools to escape poverty for good? Paradigm Shift is a ministry equipping South African churches by training them to provide business training, micro loans, mentoring and discipleship to the urban poor as an ongoing church-based outreach. By empowering South African churches to provide the poor in their communities with economic development and discipleship, the Paradigm Shift programme equips South African church volunteers to provide long-term solutions to the poverty around them.

Jedd Schroy is the Executive Director and co-founder of Paradigm Shift. Before Paradigm Shift, Jedd was a branch manager for a US-based Fortune 500 financial services company, served as the Director of Development for the National Association of Evangelicals and worked at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation in Washington DC. Jedd is an entrepreneur, having started and managed his own business. He is also an author and has been a guest speaker for the Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business’ MBA programme. Jedd has worked, studied and served in more than thirty countries.

The Exchange
Friday, 12 October
At Cornerstone Church Bedfordview
6:00am: Coffee
6:30am: Prompt Start
Followed by a delicious breakfast

Contact us or click here to find out more about The Exchange.

Key Women – 11 October

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Note that because of Equip we will be meeting on the second Thursday of October.

Join us for Key Women on Thursday, 11 October for next part of our Remarkable Women of Scripture series. Avril will be speaking on the Proverbs 31 Woman.

Key Women
Thursday, 11 October
The Lounge at Cornerstone Church Bedfordview
9:00am & 3:00pm

Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage Comes to an End

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Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage

The Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage course came to its end last night at Bedfordview and we’ve had a fantastic time with the series living up to its name!

Last night was about staying married without killing your spouse. Some of the main points revolved around forgiveness (always a difficult one!) and how men and women have different ways of encouraging each other or giving credit to each other.

Generally, men tend to think that a big favour or ‘surprise’ earns them more points with their wives, but wives don’t count it that way. Random, regular acts of kindness work better than big, sporadic acts of kindness. Women, in general, don’t like everything to be a surprise – most of the time it’s better to tell them what you’re planning and when. Think about a ‘surprise date’ and how often that doesn’t work! She would have wanted to know so she could get a haircut and so on.

Humourously enough, the bonus about telling your wife about some big date event is that as she tells her friends about it, her friends’ husbands automatically get minus points!

The differences between men and women and the way each of us think has really been a fantastic help throughout this course.  Check out feedback on all the evenings at the links below:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Thanks to all those involved in making these special evenings – the food was outstanding and we had a really lovely time.

Cultivating Community in a Growing Church

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TITLE: Cultivating Community in a Growing Church
PREACHER: Mark Meeske
DATE: 19 AUGUST 2012 – Sunday AM

Download MP3 message audio
(Right Click the link and choose the ‘Save As’ Option)

Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage, Part 3

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by Ryan Strydom

Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage

The third part of Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage at Bedfordview was that part of the course that dealt with the subject of sex. Mark Gungor, the host of the series, got a bit serious about how the mainstream media, from talk show hosts to Hollywood to the newspapers we read, effectively punt so many lies around sex that are patently false. The trouble is that so much of what we’re told is just not true, with even liberal circles beginning to realise that things such as porn are having a major negative effect on the lives of men, women and on marriages across the world.

Gungor raised some good points that just made common sense. If couples want good sex lives it makes sense for them to focus on each other (especially the men), not on porn or the millions of other things that the media encourages. In the end he gave some advice on how couples can have better sex lives – namely, how the husband can focus on his wife. At least those were the most important points that I took out of the evening!

Loved the food, once again. Looking forward to the final evening this coming Sunday which includes a romantic dinner.

Note: There is childcare for ages 3 and up.

Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage
Dates: Sunday evenings of 29 July, 5 August, 12 August, 19 August
Time: 6:00pm
Cost: R200 per couple for all the evenings. Cost includes snacks and a romantic dinner for the last evening.
Where: Cornerstone Church Bedfordview –  Benard Road East, Bedfordview, Johannesburg
Info: Email info@www.cornerstonechurch.co.za or call 011-616-4073

Register: You can register for this event in the following ways:
• At the info desk at Cornerstone Church Bedfordview and paying in cash.
• By filling out the form here and sending your EFT payment confirmation to info@www.cornerstonechurch.co.za

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Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage, Part 2

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by Ryan Strydom

Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage

The second part of Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage at Bedfordview started off with Mark and Colette Meeske asking select couples a few questions to see how well they know each other. It was great fun as we saw some of the couples answer the questions horribly wrong or brilliantly on target! They were light-hearted questions that included the colour of each others’ toothbrushes, what fruit best describes their spouse, and even what fruit best describes their sex life. It was really fun to witness, especially if you weren’t up on stage answering the questions!

We then headed into the second part of the Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage DVD as Mark Gungor (the host of the series) continued to explain the differences between how men and women think. This time he focused specifically on how women can change how they analyse men’s motivations and how changing their approach helps to enrich a marriage. It was, as expected, quite funny!

The food was once again enjoyable and made me wonder what we will expect when we reach the final evening, which ends off with a romantic dinner.

There are two evenings left of Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage (the series ends on 19 August) but there is still space for anyone to join in half-way through. The cost is R200. Check out all the details below.

Note: There is childcare for ages 3 and up.

Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage
Dates: Sunday evenings of 29 July, 5 August, 12 August, 19 August
Time: 6:00pm
Cost: R200 per couple for all the evenings. Cost includes snacks and a romantic dinner for the last evening.
Where: Cornerstone Church Bedfordview –  Benard Road East, Bedfordview, Johannesburg
Info: Email info@www.cornerstonechurch.co.za or call 011-616-4073

Register: You can register for this event in the following ways:
• At the info desk at Cornerstone Church Bedfordview and paying in cash.
• By filling out the form here and sending your EFT payment confirmation to info@www.cornerstonechurch.co.za