FAQ

We chose to call ourselves a “Living Library” to differentiate ourselves from the traditional church libraries that only carry Christian books. The term “living books” is from the 19th century British educator Charlotte Mason, used to refer to well-written and interesting books that offer rich content. These books teach about life, good character, and the human spirit. The opposite would be called “twaddle”, which are books that are empty or silly fluff. If our children's reading habits were a great feast, living books would be the main dish and twaddle would be the dessert: fine in moderation, but we want to encourage our kids to immerse themselves in the richness of good literature.

We are a ministry of Cornerstone Bible Church, a non-denominational church located in Lilburn, Georgia. Cornerstone Living Library operates under the direction and guidance of the CBC church leadership. You can find out more about CBC at their website.

Our aim is to glorify God through good and beautiful literature, celebrating what honors Him and providing a space for families to connect and be encouraged. Our current focus is homeschool families, providing the resources they need as they navigate home education in a culture that is increasingly hostile to Christian values.

We love the idea of public libraries and we aren't trying to replace them! However, we have noticed a trend lately of good, classic books being removed in favor of more recently published but lower quality literature. Public libraries often put more focus on the subjects of their books rather than ensuring that all the books are well written and worth reading. Since many homeschool curricula rely on classic and vintage books, many families are forced to buy all their books rather than having the option to borrow them. We aim to be a resource for those families. In addition to quality literature, we also want to provide families with books that are in line with a biblical worldview, so we can raise our kids in the same way. Many families appreciate having a place where they are comfortable with their children reading any book on the shelf.

We require anyone who wants to take a book home to become a member of the library. Many of our books are out of print and therefore not easily replaceable, so we want the added accountability of an agreement between us and our patrons that the books will be well cared for and returned in a timely manner. All members receive a login for our online catalog to be able to track checkouts, renew books, and place holds. Our membership period runs from August 1st to July 31st every year, and we try to keep it affordable for all families. You can read our contract at our website here. We do not require membership to attend our storytimes or other events.

We've gotten this question quite a bit and we want to assure everyone that our library is open to ALL people willing to drive to us! We see this as a ministry to all families, not just our own. The only thing we require is a signed agreement that you will care for the books you check out and return them in a timely manner – we do not require our members sign any kind of statement of belief or follow any particular method schooling.

We are open to any family who has a desire for beautiful literature! Since this is such a new ministry, we decided to narrow our focus to homeschool families as we work to build our library. This means our events are all during the schoolday, at times when homeschoolers are available. This is not to exclude anyone, but rather to help us as we learn and grow. We have plans to expand to include children from traditional schooling as well, but that will be in the future as the Lord leads us.

Thank you so much for your support! First of all, we covet your prayers! We are so excited for what God has been doing in the short amount of time that we have been open, and we want to make sure our focus is ultimately glorifying to Him.

We are under the umbrella of Cornerstone Bible Church so all donations go through the church and are tax-deductible (please contact us if you'd like a receipt). You can find more information about how to make monetary donations here. If you would like to make a book donation, please see our Donations page for more information. We also have an Amazon Wish list where you can see the specific titles we desire the most.

If you are interested in volunteering, please contact us and we will add you to our volunteer email list, where we regularly update you on opportunities.

You can also support us by helping us spread the word about our library! Invite your neighbors and friends, engage with our social media, and sign up for our mailing list so you're up to date with everything that is going on at the library.

Our library is located inside Cornerstone Bible Church, a non-denominational church in Lilburn, Georgia (Gwinnett County). Our address is 869 Cole Drive SW, Lilburn, GA 30047. We are across the street from Parkview High School and Camp Creek Elementary School.

Cornerstone Bible Church has a full lot and plenty of parking outside the church. There is handicapped parking available in that lot and in the smaller staff lot located on the other side of the church.

Yes, there is handicapped parking in our main lot and in the smaller staff lot. We also have handicapped accessible bathrooms and room in the library itself to navigate. The entire church is on one level so there are no stairs to navigate. Please contact us if you are in need of any specific accommodations.

We are open for drop-in visits on Fridays from 12-3pm and on Sundays for 30 minutes following the main service. We are open by appointment only on Tuesdays. To make an appointment, please send us an email. You can follow our calendar on our website for more information and for specific events.

If you are interested in becoming a member of our library, come visit us one day while we are open. Ask to speak to the librarian, and we will give you a copy of the membership contract. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Parents must stay with their children at all times when visiting the library.

We have a book return box outside the library where all books can be returned. If it is outside library hours, call the church office at (770) 806-0005 to set up a time to come return the books.

While Fridays are our standard day for all events, we offer two other times during the week for those unable to make it that day. On Sundays, we are open for half an hour immediately following the service (roughly, 12pm to 12:30pm). On Tuesdays, we are open by appointment – please contact us to set up that appointment. And finally, every member has a login to our online catalog. You can put books on hold and pick them up on a day that's convenient to you.

The best way to stay updated about our library is by signing up for our mailing list. You can also follow us on Facebook or Instagram.

We are more than just a library for Christian literature – we have books on a variety of subjects, both nonfiction and fiction. We try to be a resource for homeschool families to be able to incorporate living books in all the subjects in school, as well as “fun” books for children who just want to read for fun. While we have both Christian and secular books, we try to make sure our books don't have content that would be opposed to our biblical worldview.

We do have books for adults! Cornerstone Living Library was born out of an existing church library, and we still have many books from that original collection. Most of those books are from a specifically Christian perspective. We have quite a large collection of theology books, both for clergy and also for the layperson wanting to deepen their understanding of God. We also have a wide variety of Christian Living topics, including Marriage, Parenting, Home Life, Grief and Suffering, Interpersonal Relationships, Money, and Emotional/Mental Health. We have a specific section of homeschooling resources for parents, along with some curriculum, and Adult Fiction which includes the classical literature. Our intention is for teens to be able to find resources in the adult section that might not be age appropriate for younger years, but we believe still have value.

It might seem that all books can easily fall into categories of either “living” or “twaddle”. However, the truth is books are really on a spectrum. There are of course the extremes – some books are amazing and some are really... not. But many books could go either way, depending on who is doing the evaluating. We try to keep most of our books in the “living” side of the spectrum, but that doesn't mean we don't have some that are more “twaddly”. There are a variety of reasons we might have chosen to keep that one, and it's possible that in the future if we run out of shelf space, that is one that will go first to make room for a better book. Also, we want to say that we don't think twaddly books are inherently bad to read! There is a time and place for them, just as with most anything else. We hope our families enjoy all the books, as a rich feast laid before them.

We try to be selective in the books we have on our shelves. However, with as many books as we have, we know there are likely a few that have slipped through. If you notice something concerning in a book you've read, PLEASE bring it to our attention. We try to keep a Parent Guide on our website to help with content considerations, or we might withdraw the book completely.

There are sooo many books on our wish list! We are constantly adding to our collection. If there's a book that you think we need, please let us know! That can help us decide the priority we should place when buying specific titles. Or even better, if you'd like to buy the book and donate it to us, we would LOVE that! That will allow children to continue enjoying the title for years to come.

Absolutely! We love and appreciate donations so much. If you have just a few books, you can put them in the Book Return bin outside the library door. If you have a larger amount, contact us at library@cbclilburn.org to arrange pickup. We are accepting children's titles, and prefer them to be hardbacks and written before 1980. Right now, the only curriculum we're accepting are unit studies and other material that wouldn't be needed to be checked out for an entire year. We also would love (clean) teen fiction and classic literature that is commonly read in high school. We aren't looking for adult nonfiction unless it's related to homeschooling. See our website for more donation ideas. We do have an Amazon wish list if you'd like to know what books we're looking for. We also accept Amazon or Thriftbooks gift cards.

Books are checked out for a three week period at a time, so the only curriculum we have is for things that don't need to be held longer than that amount of time. So, we have unit studies and other themed curriculum that doesn't take an entire year to do. We have some really cool resources and we hope they are a blessing to our homeschool families!

After much consideration, we decided to organize our library by subject/category rather than by using Dewey Decimal. We have tried to think like our parents and place the books in what we feel would be a logical place. We have larger categories (Bible, Arts, Science & Nature, History & Historical Fiction, Fiction, etc.) and many subcategories within those to help you find exactly the books you need. Another thing you might notice is that in our nonfiction, we have mixed the picture books with the chapter books. We also have sorted our history and historical fiction by date to help you more easily find books that fit with whatever time period you are studying. We are constantly tweaking our organization so if you have feedback based on your own experience as a patron of our library, we would love to hear it.

We want our library to not only be a resource for books, but also a community of homeschoolers. We hope you can see us as a valuable place to make connections and connect with other like-minded families! Therefore, we are excited to have regular events to bring people together. Right now, we are offering regular story times about twice a month, as well as other special events. We are trying a lot of different things to see what our patrons end up liking the most. Are you looking for something in particular? Please let us know! All our events are on Fridays at 1pm, and will be posted on our calendar. You can also sign up for our mailing list to keep updated about them.

The age range will vary by event. Right now, our events are open to all ages, with our storytimes geared to elementary ages. If we limit the age range for any events, we will be sure to communicate that clearly. We understand that homeschooling is a family affair, and therefore we expect families to come with all their children!

Events are open to all! Membership is only required for checking out books. Anyone is welcome to attend and participate in our events.

You do not need to RSVP to come visit the library on Fridays or Sundays, and you do not need to RSVP for storytimes. Other events may require an RSVP just for ordering of supplies, but most of the time that will not be the case. If an event has food (like a tea party), then PLEASE contact us at library@cbclilburn.org if you plan to come and have food allergies. We are happy to accommodate you as much as we can.

That would be wonderful! Please contact the library director Ashley at library@cbclilburn.org to connect about this.