What we Believe

We are a mainstream Christian church believing and practising many of the same things you will find in other Christian groups around the city.


We have recently adopted a set of values which express our church ‘DNA’. These are:
 

Following Jesus

We are called to be authentic followers of Jesus Christ in today’s complex world. We seek to follow him as closely as we can depending on his amazing love and the power of the Holy Spirit. While we often fail in this endeavour we continue to encourage one another in this challenging and glorious calling.
 

Word and Spirit

We believe the whole Bible is God’s inspired word to us and we aim to order our lives and our church around its teachings as fully as we can. We believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, who makes the word come alive and applies it to our hearts. So, we seek to be a church that is shaped in its worship and witness by both word and Spirit.
 

Engaging in Mission

We aim to engage in God’s mission to the world, and especially to the places where we live and work. This involves both generous social action and sharing the life-giving good news of Jesus in disciple-making mission. We seek to be a ‘roots down, walls down’ church; that is, firmly rooted in the Bible and the good news of Jesus, reaching out beyond our walls to embrace people and communities with the transforming grace of God.
 

Embracing Adventure

Cornerstone at its best embraces adventure in the cause of the gospel. The church has been willing to do things differently and pioneer new initiatives in order to witness to the never changing gospel in an ever-changing world. The phrase ‘risky not reckless’ sums up how we want to live. We are not afraid to make and learn from mistakes, taking prayerful risks of faith for Jesus so as to share him more effectively.
 

Growing Community

Cornerstone is ‘one church, three sites, many gatherings’. We nurture community by our commitment to love and serve one another, building real relationships with weekly small groups being an essential in a large church. We aim to be generous in sharing time, talents and money to nurture authentic Christian community with God at the centre.
 

Faithful in Prayer

Dependence on God through individual and corporate prayer is integral to all we seek to be and do. We believe we have a prayer-answering God and so we are encouraged to give ourselves in praise and thanksgiving, confession and intercession. We pray for God’s kingdom to come ‘on earth as it is in heaven’ and for God to reveal how he wants us to be involved in his work.
 

We are a Baptist church. The most distinctive feature of this is that we baptise believers by full immersion. Baptismal services are hugely exciting and we encourage you to come to one!


We are members of the Evangelical Alliance which commits us to mainstream Christian belief. Consequently, as a church we believe in:

  • The one true God who lives eternally in three persons—the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
  • The love, grace and sovereignty of God in creating, sustaining, ruling, redeeming and judging the world.
  • The divine inspiration and supreme authority of the Old and New Testament Scriptures, which are the written Word of God—fully trustworthy for faith and conduct.
  • The dignity of all people, made male and female in God's image to love, be holy and care for creation, yet corrupted by sin, which incurs divine wrath and judgement.
  • The incarnation of God’s eternal Son, the Lord Jesus Christ—born of the virgin Mary; truly divine and truly human, yet without sin.
  • The atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross: dying in our place, paying the price of sin and defeating evil, so reconciling us with God.
  • The bodily resurrection of Christ, the first fruits of our resurrection; his ascension to the Father, and his reign and mediation as the only Saviour of the world.
  • The justification of sinners solely by the grace of God through faith in Christ.
  • The ministry of God the Holy Spirit, who leads us to repentance, unites us with Christ through new birth, empowers our discipleship and enables our witness.
  • The Church, the body of Christ both local and universal, the priesthood of all believers—given life by the Spirit and endowed with the Spirit's gifts to worship God and proclaim the gospel, promoting justice and love.
  • The personal and visible return of Jesus Christ to fulfil the purposes of God, who will raise all people to judgement, bring eternal life to the redeemed and eternal condemnation to the lost, and establish a new heaven and new earth.