Cornerstone Church (Cornerstone Nashville)
Cornerstone Church (Cornerstone Nashville), a non-denomnational church in Nashville.
726 W. Old Hickory Blvd
Madison, TN 37115
Sundays | 8:30AM & 10:30AM
October 29
Cornerstone Church is a very welcoming church inside-to-outside. From arrival to departure there are staff and volunteers to ensure you aren’t alone every step of the way. This church hasn’t lost the human touch in it’s use of systems and technology to create a vibrant worship experience.
From parking lot entry one is guided to parking as a first time guest. The parking lot and building are both big. The first time guest parking area is opened up car-by-car as needed. Once I was outside of my car, there was someone to guide me in to the entrance – they walked me there from the parking lot – and the sign inside says ‘here for you’ as do the many greeters.
Once inside at the ‘here for you’ sign, you can enter the sanctuary. The sanctuary has a ground level and stadium level. There is a screen on the ground as well as two on the sides. From anywhere in the sanctuary, you can see the visuals which is important once worship begins. I was greeted a few times as I sat waiting for worship to begin at this non-denomnational church in Nashville.
As worship began, the Cornerstone Church team managed to fit an unusually large number of worship team and ensamble team members on the stage to lead worship. Words appeared on the side screens. The words appeared at an incredibly solid pacing, one I believe that is hard to achieve consistently. Best practice is to fire the next verse before the current verse ends but that’s very difficult to do consistently yet the Cornerstone team seemed to do it without a problem. As worship ended, the congregation was allowed to be seated for the next segment.
The next segment was tithe and offering / announcements. Guests were encouraged to get a card to fill out however I could not find a pen in any of the seat backs. It did create for an awkward moment. I did notice they asked for very minimal information on the card which in best practices allows for a greater number of them to be turned in – the less you ask the more likely someone will not abandon it while trying to fill it all in. Then came an unexepected segment – a volunteer recognition.
A volunteer recognition followed with a volunteer named ‘Ronald’ from their media /tech team being recognized. Media / Tech volunteers seldom get recognized at churches – or even noticed because of the nature of their work being out-of-sight so it was refreshing to see Cornerstone recognize Ronald. I’d also argue it was well deserved based on the presentation I experienced sitting in the congregation. After Ronald was recognized, the service smoothly transitioned into the message.
The message was delivered by the lead pastor. The message was largely on Lazarus / the grave cloths but from an application standpoint touched on community – being a part of a local church. The speaker was fairly gifted, charismatic, energetic, and well prepared. The local church part came in when he stated, “A significant reason we need to dig our roots deep into a local church is because Jesus uses people to unwrap us from our grave cloths”. At the conclusion there was a time of prayer / alter call and then prayers for the next service. New visitors were encouraged to go to the Welcome Lounge.
At the welcome lounge I was greeted by a staff Pastor. The conversation was brief but it was nice to be able to meet outside the sanctuary. After the brief exchange, I headed out where I saw the expereine wasn’t over yet at this non-denomnational church in Nashville.
Once outside I was surprised to see a golf kart taking people around. This was a very interesting thing to see since the parking lot is pretty big. This is a service I had not seen very often. It was…pretty cool!
Cornerstone Church is a pretty big church but it seems to do what it can and do it well in terms of media presentation, touchpoints, and first time guest services. Offering a first time visitor hands-on help seems to make sure people at the least don’t get lost in such a large building. It has definitely though through things like visuals, volunteer recognition and flow to make the service fairly smooth yet seeker friendly.
