OUR VISION
We’Ve relocated to 10th & Rockford while we renovate the Harvard space to serve our long-term mission.
After years of praying and planning to be a multiplying church, we are taking our first big steps in that direction.
What do people need to know?
The long-term vision is for us to be a multiplying, resourcing church.
Rather than growing large in a single location, we want to deliberately strive to maintain human-scale churches. We will do this through launching new churches (and even helping relaunch existing churches). We feel invited to agree with God about what he seems to be entrusting to us, and that’s the responsibility of being a multiplying, equipping, resourcing congregation for the sake of others.
Buildings are just tools; not a vision of their own.
We have purchased two buildings; but those aren’t the church. The church is the network of friendships under the lordship of Christ. The buildings serve the mission of the church in a strategic way. As we move toward being a multiplying church, the investment in buildings represents in an investment in flourishing Christian communities in different parts of town. But we must always remember that buildings are not the mission or the vision of the church.
We’re making some big changes to the Harvard space.
We are making changes to the building to create enough wiggle room that we can breathe, but not so much that we lose a sense of intimacy. We’re tearing down the current lobby and ground-floor kids wing to create a new lobby with sufficient bathrooms and expanded (and more secure) kid classrooms. We’re creating dedicated areas for Cornerstone Students and church staff (staff is currently off-site), and making alterations to enhance the sacred nature of the sanctuary. We’re also adding a greenspace and playground.
We’ve already done a lot to the Rockford space to get it ready.
To prepare to receive the current Cornerstone congregation, as well as the future congregation that will worship in that space after Harvard renovations are complete, we’ve done a lot of work. This includes major roof repairs, HVAC upgrades, new flooring and paint in the Cornerstone Kids areas, sanctuary upgrades and a whole lot of infrastructural improvements that most people won’t see, but will feel.
This will be a big year, starting in August.
Our last Sunday worshipping at Harvard before renovations is August 11th. Beginning August 18th, we will worship at 10th & Rockford through Summer 2025. Demolition and construction at Harvard begins in early September. Sometime in summer 2025 (after Harvard renovations are complete), most of the congregation will move back. Some will remain and enter into a “quiet period” as a new Cornerstone congregation prepares to launch in the fall of 2025.
We’re studying and ironing out details for the new congregation.
The congregation that worships at 10th & Rockford after most folks move back to 41st & Harvard will be connected to the rest of the church through shared budget, governance and mission. But it will also have some of its own personality, including its own pastor who preaches every week and unique missional opportunities to serve the needs of the surrounding area. In the same way that parents birth, raise and launch children (hopefully as mature adults), we hope this new congregation will someday be strong enough to launch on its own as a separate Anglican Church in C4SO, and we are developing a timeline with key benchmarks to assess when that would be and how best to move that direction.
With God’s help, we will do this together.
The spiritual, logistical and financial challenges of pulling this off require many people playing an active role. All are invited to pray, to serve, and to give as we strive to cultivate communities shaped by the gospel for the renewal of all things.