Mission: Outpost

Since launching publicly on October 16, 2016, the clear and evident grace of God on Cornerstone Church-Detroit has often been overwhelming. Time and time again, through providence and provision, The Lord has confirmed His presence with us.

By God’s grace it seems just as my wife and I were merely dreaming in our living room of one day planting a church, God swiftly transformed our hearts’ burden into a diverse, Christ centered, discipleship focused, church-planting family. One whose impact is rippling through our city and beyond!

In less than two and half years, we baptized nine Believers. We have welcomed over 35 adults into church membership at Cornerstone, and many have taken major steps in their faith journey.

With the aim of serving and discipling people of all ages and life stages, we have developed flourishing discipleship groups for men, women, pre-teens and teens; hosted and led by gracious church members. In 2020 we also kicked off a revamped children's ministry with the hiring of our new Children's Ministry Director, Kelsey Lambrecht.

We have planted deep roots in Northwest Detroit. Since our beginning, we have partnered with local schools, The City of Detroit, other churches and orchestrated many service projects and mission trips.

For example, in 2016, before our public launch, we commercially cleared, boarded up and secured 13 abandoned homes in our community with the assistance of several partnering churches through the Project Nehemiah initiative. In 2020, in partnership with one of our supporting churches, we hosted a mission trip where we served two local elementary schools and several other urban churches; clearing lots, painting classrooms and sharing the gospel.

We have organized and facilitated a number of community events through Acts29's Church in Hard Places initiative, focusing on a variety of topics from Urban Evangelism to Urban Apologetics.

Additionally in April 2020, while witnessing the ravaging impact COVID-19 was having on our city we set out to bless those who had been hit hardest. We began our Cornerstone Cares program, offering prayer, counseling and financial support to residents of Metro Detroit. As of February 2021 we've been able to raise close to $40K specifically for this effort, and support dozens of individuals and families struggling with employment, housing and homelessness, medical expenses, educational expenses and food insecurity, as a result of the pandemic.

Despite still being in our infancy as a church, we have already seen our vision to plant other churches come to fruition and we continue to be a hub for urban church planting through Church in Hard Places.

In 2018, our first Church Planting Resident, Drew Ansley, and his family were sent out to plant Refuge Church in Southwest Detroit.

In 2020, we formally began our Pastoral Pathway Residency, commissioning four men into a discipling relationship with our church with the aim of seeing them enter pastoral ministry. We've already had one resident, Joshua Manning, begin the process of planting Patmos Church, in Cleveland, OH.

In 2021 I was selected to lead Urban Strategy for all of Acts29, where I will continue my passion for identifying, evaluating, and coaching urban church planters. I have been blessed to regularly contribute articles on ministry and church planting to Acts29 as well as The Gospel Coalition.