Our History

CORNERSTONE CHURCH HISTORY

Where we come from…..

‘Cornerstone’ began around-about 1991 in the Anglican church. There was a move of God’s Spirit in the church of St. John the Baptist, in Mossley, chiefly through the ministry of the then vicar, Hadge Hughes. Lots of people moved into another level of walking with God. Then, when Hadge left the Anglican church to join the Baptist church, a good number of folks were left with the decision of whether to stay at St. John’s or to continue to explore the spiritual territory that they’d discovered, as a separate entity. There was much prayer, and plenty of dreams, visions, and ‘words’ from the Lord; and finally some thirty of us decided to part company (amicably) with the rest of St. John’s congregation.

Thus, in October 1993, ‘Living Stones Christian Fellowship’ (the original name of ‘Cornerstone’) was born!

We met for a while in The George Lawton Hall, then moved into rented shop property on the corner of George Street; then to an old mill building on Smith Street; then to the cellar premises of 9b Arundel Street, all in ‘top Mossley’. Then, in March 2011, we moved to the premises we meet in at present, Baden House, on Carrhill Road.

Where we are now…..

Well, physically, as was said above, we meet at Baden House. Because we’re not the only group to use the building, this means having to ‘set up shop’ on Sunday morning (and any other times we want to have meetings or events) and to ‘break up shop’ when we’ve finished. We can’t leave stuff in situ as with our previous three locations. It’s a bit like being back in the George Lawton Hall again!

We do believe though, that it’s a Holy Spirit inspired move. We have more of a sense of being a community of ‘travellers’, rather than ‘settlers’! There’s a sense of ridding ourselves of encumbrances, and focusing anew on the Gospel, and spiritual and numerical growth.

Where we are going…..

That’s a difficult one! None of us can see the future, unaided by the Holy Spirit. We can only testify to a great sense of freedom, and an exciting sense of anticipation for what the Lord wants to do, in and through us. We believe that He has ‘plans to prosper us and not to harm us; to give us hope and a future’ (Jeremiah 29:11); but we also believe that we need to call upon Him and pray, and seek Him with all our hearts (Jeremiah 29:12-13).

We believe that He is addressing us anew; and challenging us anew, to impact the community around us, to His Glory!

Where we find ourselves (update!)

In 2013, we began an outreach in the town. We opened a charity shop/drop-in centre on Stamford Street called 'The Lighthouse'. For three years, this ministry has had a positive impact on the community, and many people have been helped by it, many continue to use it as a haven, and quite a few have come into the church family through it! Our original agreement with the landlord was that we would have use of three rooms at ground floor level: The 'shop' room, a room behind that, and a back room that gave access to the rear of the premises. For three years we've only had minimal use of the two rear rooms, but at the end of May '16, we set about making the whole of the ground floor 'liveable'! We finished the transformation and re-opened 29th August Bank Holiday Monday 2016.