As we celebrate this year’s homecoming, it is appropriate that we share a little history about how we got started.  Cornerstone Baptist Church was established by eight charter members and held its first organized service on August 5, 1990 with Rev. Clarence Workman serving as pastor.  This service was held at the home of Harold and Faye Grubb.  On August 10, 1990, Cornerstone Baptist Church was chartered with the State of Ohio. 

After a couple of weeks, we had outgrown the basement and needed to find a larger place to hold services.  The decision was made to renovate the partially completed garage at the home of Gary and Shirley Whaley.  On September 2, 1990 the church moved to the Whaley residence.  The church continued to grow and remained at that location for the next ten months.  At its peak of 60 attendees, all of the rooms except the master bedroom were being used 3 times a week. 

In April, 1991 the church had an opportunity to buy the existing property from the American Legion.  The church had difficulty obtaining financing because we had not been established for more than a year.  In order to proceed with the purchase in June, 1991, several members took out equity loans on their homes and we obtained a loan from a member’s relative.  Approximately $10,000.00 and many volunteer hours were needed to turn the bar-like facilities into classrooms and a sanctuary for worship.  In December, 1991 we were able to get a loan, in the name of the church only, from Huntington National Bank to pay back all of the original investors except one.  That last investor was paid off in January, 1994 when a new loan with Huntington was made. 

The church was established on the Freewill Baptist doctrine.  In order to more clearly reflect to the general public which type of Baptist we were, we changed our name with the Secretary of State in April, 1995 to Cornerstone Freewill Baptist Church.  Finally, in December 2000, the name of the church was officially changed to Cornerstone Christian Church to reflect the denomination change to Independent. 

Rev. Clarence Workman was the pastor when the church began and Rev. Gary Whaley, who was one of the original founders, started as a deacon and very quickly became the Associate Pastor.  In the fall of 1999, when Clarence decided to step down as pastor, Gary became the pastor.  The church was established with eight people and has grown to average attendance in the morning worship service of 45-55 people.  Over the years, the attendance has fluctuated from 30 to 65, with a core group of members averaging 8 – 10 years at the church.  In the past few years, we have been very fortunate that God has sent Tom Lopez, Pastor of Evangelism and Tim Strawn, Pastor of Christian Education to fill these very important positions.  We are very blessed to have three Godly men who are spirit filled preachers too. 

While the original location served us well, it had limitations on our growth.  The municipal parking lot across the street was available as well as limited space next to the building, which is shared with the Chamber of Commerce.  This became a safety issue with the road being between the church building and the parking lot.  The church had a vision for a larger property and God provided the opportunity to purchase our current 5.991 acre tract with the idea of building soon.  Again, God provided a banker, who became a very good friend and we were able to build a sanctuary (now the Fellowship Hall), 2 classrooms, an office and a nursery in January 2003.  Soon that became too small and God provided another financial opportunity to cover part of the cost to expand the new sanctuary and classrooms.  The current building structure has allowed us to hold events and reach our community. 

During the past thirty four years, whenever there was an obstacle that seemed impossible to overcome, God has made a way.  We had minor issues such as picking out the color of chairs, paint and carpet without a church split to coming up with over $40,000 that our builder embezzled and our members had to finish the various jobs, from HVAC to finish carpentry and painting.   It has been a wonderful experience sharing our Christian lives together and want to thank God for His blessings and for all of you that helped make Cornerstone what it is today.