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 September 1st to August 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 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.

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.

There is plenty of parking in the main lot outside of Cornerstone Bible Church. Our handicapped patrons may find the small staff lot located on the north side of the church easier to use - please feel free to contact us if you need any help with that.

We are open for drop-in visits on Fridays from 11-3pm and on Sundays for 30 minutes following the main service. We are open by appointment only on Wednesdays. To make an appointment, please send us an email. You can follow our calendar on our website for more information and for specific events.

To become a member, just stop by on a day when we're open, and ask us for more information. We have a contract that all our patrons sign and there is a fee that can be paid via cash, check, or online with a card. 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 drop-ins, 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, 12:15-12:45pm). On Wednesdays, we are open by appointment - just send us an email to set that up. 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!

Our library is organized by subject/category, in a way that we hope makes sense to homeschooling families. 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 like to offer different types of events to bring homeschoolers together over a love for literature. Some of our past events have included storytimes, book clubs, poetry teatimes, as well as Bilbo's Birthday Party and a Beatrix Potter Tea Party. We also offer regular weekly programs during the summers. The best way to be informed about our events is to sign up for our weekly newsletter, or check the calendar on our website.

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

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