Children’s Ministry
Authority & Centrality of Scripture
We believe that God breathed out the Scriptures to be the rule of faith and practice, so our teaching only carries value and authority to the degree that it conforms to Scripture. Since God’s Word teaches that it “is able to build [believers] up” (Acts 20:32), our children’s ministries strive to keep Scripture central. We seek to model and teach submission to God’s Word in understandable and applicable ways.
Parental Responsibility
We believe that God entrusts parents with the responsibility to regularly teach His truth to their children. Deuteronomy 6:7 reads, “You shall teach [God’s words] diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” The New Testament shares the same emphasis, commanding parents to “bring [your children] up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). The local church must support—not control, replace, or subvert—this God-given parental responsibility.
Church Integration
We believe that God intends for edification to occur across generational boundaries. Titus 2 describes the local church as a cross-generational experience with older believers teaching younger believers. For this reason, the children’s ministries at Cornerstone exist as part of a larger body and not as a separate entity. We work to keep these ministries integrated into the entire church body.
Children’s Church
During the last congregational song before the message, children in K3 – 1st grade are invited upstairs for age-appropriate Bible instruction. This time is purposefully designed to be:
God-centered
We believe that children need to learn from an early age that God is the focus of our worship. In order to accomplish this, our children’s church is designed so that every element is centered on pleasing and glorifying God.
Worship-driven
Our Children’s Church ministry is not intended to entertain children. We believe that children, just like adults, are responsible and able to worship God. Therefore, we incorporate praying, singing, and listening to the Scripture being taught.
Child-focused
Our Children’s Church is designed to help each child understand what it means to worship God. In order for our children to worship with understanding, we take the elements of worship and explain and model them in a way that a child can comprehend. Each week we go over the different ways we worship God and explain how those ways look.
Sunday School
After the morning worship service we have Sunday School for all ages. These classes are divided by grade and are intended to give our children a better understanding of the overall message of the Bible. Our Sunday School program can be described as:
Biblical
Our Sunday School curriculum systematically covers the Old Testament historical books, the life of Christ, the birth and growth of the church, and lessons from the book of Revelation.
Purposeful
We seek to magnify God by studying His character in Scripture and glorify Christ as the pinnacle of God’s redemptive plan.
Gospel-saturated
We strive to show that each part of Scripture points to Christ as the only way of salvation.
Cornerstone Kids
During our Wednesday night Prayer Meeting, children in K3 – 6th grade meet for a focused time of Bible training. During this hour we seek to:
Instruct Biblically
Each Wednesday night our children learn about the life of a missionary and how they can share the gospel with others.
Equip Practically
One of the goals of our Cornerstone Kids program is to equip our children to resist temptation and stand against the unbiblical thinking of our day. We do this through spending time each Wednesday night memorizing Scripture as a class and learning doctrinally rich songs.
Teach Deliberately
Since we desire that each child be personally engaged during the lesson time. we have built into each lesson questions and discussion points that encourage thought and application.
Disciple Intentionally
In order to encourage individual discipleship of each child, classes are kept small. In this way teachers are able to relate personally by building relationships and challenging the children spiritually.
Nursery
Qualified
It is our goal to provide a nursery staff that is excellent and responsible. All of our nursery workers are members of our church, have been certified through MinistrySafe, and have undergone security background checks. We train our workers individually and follow clear policies and procedures for every situation.
Safe
Keeping children safe in our nurseries is of utmost importance to us. We use a check-in/check-out procedure that is secure and ensures that only a parent/guardian can pick up a child from the nursery. We also use a pager system so that parents can be contacted immediately if needed.
Purposeful
The nursery ministry provides an environment for parents to be able to focus on the worship services. Children ages 0-2 enjoy age appropriate toys and books and our toddlers follow a schedule that include singing, a Bible story, and a snack.