cornerstone community

director of mission

Peter Volkofsky

Elizabeth-Barratt Browning once wrote,

"Earth's crammed with heaven and every common bush a-fire with God. Those who see take off their shoes, while the rest sit around and eat blackberries."

Your neighbour is like that burning bush and you never know what might happen if you take your shoes off, so to speak - maybe they'll be inspired to take their's off too.

It's the sort of thing that happens all the time in the story of Good Friday - people everywhere are taking their shoes off: Peter the failing hero, Pilate the boss-man who's taken out of his depth in a conversation with his victim, a hardened soldier, a dying thief and the suicidal Judas, all of whom, in one way or another can't help feeling some sort of deep belonging to Jesus.

This surely feels like the God who is the true Mother-Father of us humans. At one of our most ugly moments, it emerges after all, that Heaven has thought of us, understands us and actually likes us.

Mission is simply a matter of tuning in to this music of heaven that's happening somewhere in the soul of every person you meet and then responding to what's already going on, like a musician joining an orchestral movement or a footy player coming off an interchange bench.