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Connecting Point  We are part of God's family! God has called us to be connected, dependent, and related to one another. In gathering together at Cornerstone Covenant Church, we find answers to the needs in our lives. So please take a moment to look through our site to find your role in our family and how we can be of help to you in your spiritual journey.

The Goal of Covenant Small Groups at Cornerstone

Sometimes we mistakenly think the Christian life is primarily about entrance to heaven. We're content with conversion when God is calling for transformation. Rather than expecting the kingdom of God to revolutionize lives today, we hope it will happen in heaven tomorrow.

Somewhere along the line we swapped out Jesus' gospel-through him we can be transformed into citizens of the kingdom of God, right now, today-for a gospel of heaven's minimum entrance requirement.

When Paul writes about being "morphed" in Romans 12:2, he gives a command, but in passive voice. He doesn't say, "Transform yourself"; he says, "Be transformed." We can't make transformation happen ourselves; it is something God does to us. But what then is our role in it-personally and in our churches?

1 Corinthians 9:25 says, "Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever." Here is the reason many people give up on transformation or accept boundary markers as pseudo-transformation: we spend ourselves trying to be transformed, when the Bible calls us to train to be transformed.

There is an enormous difference between trying to do something versus training to do it. Take for example a marathon. How many of us could run a marathon right now? Even if we tried, really, really hard? But many of us could run a marathon eventually, if instead we trained for it.

Too often in our churches, people hear us talk about what an amazing person Jesus is. They leave thinking, I've got to try hard to be like him. We're unwittingly setting them up for frustration. When the trying proves ineffective, they eventually quit or rely on external trivialities to pretend they're transformed. Authentic spiritual transformation begins with training, with discipline. As we train ourselves in godliness, we begin to overcome the limits of sinful patterns. The purpose of that discipline is always freedom-training myself to be free of the obstacles that hinder my transformation.

Training means arranging life around those activities that enable us to do what we cannot do now, even by extreme effort. Significant human transformation always involves training, not just trying. That is the goal of Covenant Small Groups. We can only be transformed when we spend time training.