Uncategorized | by Pastor Adam Sinnett

We exist to build a great city through the gospel for the glory of God. This means our aim is to not merely build a great church, but a great city. Our welfare is deeply connected to the welfare of the city. We love Seattle and want all who live here to know their Creator, Jesus Christ. We are doing this by planting communities of Jesus-followers that enjoy God, redemptively engage the city and reach the world. We have a big vision, but to get there we need your help.

This is a great time to consider year-end giving or further involvement in 2011.

Pray.

We need prayer. For all our preparation, we cannot succeed without God building his church. Jesus promises to build His church and he does so through the faithful work, service and prayers of His people. There is much spiritual opposition, relational tension, financial strain and physical hardship involved in planting a church. Please join us in daily prayer to our God who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask, think or imagine (Eph 3:20). You can keep up with our prayer updates here. We’re still in process of finding 100 people to pray for us daily for one year. Let us know if you’d like to join the front-lines prayer team.

Join.

Whether you already live in Seattle, or Orlando, perhaps God is moving you to join us downtown Seattle. Are you a dreamer, builder, missionary, or faith-filled risk-taker? Pray about joining us, even moving, downtown. Some of you should consider raising support and becoming an integral part of this new work. You can learn more about our vision here.

Give.

Our aim is to be self-sustaining by the fall of 2014. Until then we are dependent on outside financial partners. In the life of a young, urban, missional church in a challenging context, every dollar makes a difference. Would you consider regular monthly giving over the next three years or a one time gift? You can learn more about giving options here.

Let’s build a great city together, through the gospel, for God’s glory, in 2011.

News | by Pastor Adam Sinnett

The city is a creation of God, not an invention of man. The city is intended by God to be a place of safety, justice, culture-making, and spiritual seeking. Yet, under sin, it is a place of violence, lawbreaking, pride, and religious pluralism. God intends to fix this.

The world to come is pictured as a perfect city. (Rev 21:1) It is a city in which God is at the center and life is as it should be with no suffering, no tears, and no sin. It is a city of equality, justice, and beauty, centered around Jesus Christ. It is a city where God is with God’s people in God’s place forever. If we’re honest, this is the city we all want and it begins now, in part.

God is already at work creating this new city in our midst by redeeming, forgiving and adopting people by faith in Jesus Christ. Together these people form a new society, an alternate city, a church of broken people rescued by grace. Together, these followers of Jesus are intended by God to serve as a foretaste of the world that is to come, to bring the City of God into the City of Man, by showing the world what life should, and one day will, look like.

This Sunday, December 19th @ 5:00pm, we will be hosting our third preview gathering for friends, supporters, the curious, the skeptical, saints and sinners alike. No pretension, no religiosity, no bait-and-switch. Just real people, exploring real issues, and worshiping a real God. More info here. We hope to see you there.

Community, Uncategorized | by Pastor Adam Sinnett

Just six months ago we gathered a small group together in a conference room in downtown Seattle to pray about planting a new church. The name was undecided, the values unarticulated, and the exact timeline unknown. Yet, the vision was clear: plant an urban Gospel-centered, Jesus-loving church in the city, for the city. There is little that has not changed since then. God has been gracious to us. These prayer updates are intended to recount God’s grace and invite others to support this new gospel work in prayer. You can read our last prayer update HERE. You can also receive email updates of new blog content by entering your email in the “Subscribe to Updates via Email” box in the right column.

Here are some snapshots of the last two months:

Growing Launch Community

Biblically, the church is a group of people, not a building or institution, who have been forgiven, redeemed, and adopted by God through Jesus Christ. Therefore, churches, though led by pastors, are planted by teams or communities of people who have experienced this true life in Christ. We call this initial community our “launch community”. Church planting is a bit like this video; the real momentum happens as more people follow Jesus’ lead in getting involved. Over the last two months we’ve seen the largest numerical growth in our launch community yet. We are literally holding a moving party every other week as people move into the city. It is very encouraging to see others step out with us, in faith, to see the gospel take root in the heart of Seattle.

First Two Preview Gatherings (Oct 24th & Nov 21st)

This fall we’re hosting three preview gatherings (10/24, 11/21, 12/19), two of which have already occurred. During these gatherings we’re unpacking a short series, The City of God, examining what it means to be a people, rescued by the grace of Jesus, who are sent to love, serve, and challenge this city. Our first two gatherings have gone well. We’ve learned a lot already. We’re leveraging these larger, public gatherings to cast vision, build our communities, continue fundraising and networking, and iron out production/logistic wrinkles. We have one more to go on December 19th and are tentatively planning on moving to a more traditional weekly gathering format on January 16th.

Pumpkin Patch, Bubble Tea, EMP, UGM, etc

Since we first started meeting we’ve had a two-fold strategy that consists of gathering on Sundays (for vision, prayer and worship) and connecting during/throughout the week (for community, mission, and service). It’s been an eventful fall from participating in First Thursday ArtWalks in Pioneer Square to happy hours to Bubble Tea in the International District to serving at the Union Gospel Mission (UGM) to visiting the Experience Music Project. These times help shape us as a newly forming community, while providing many opportunities to invite people in and get to know our city. Follow us here at the blog, under events, to find out what’s happening this week.

Monthly Prayer Meetings

God tells us in the Word that He answers prayer (Mt 6:8; Mt 21:22; Mk 11:24; Lk 11:9-13; James 4:2; 1 John 5:14-15). We believe Him. Prayer is not only an expression of faith, but a cultivator of faith. So, this fall we’ve added a monthly all-church prayer night to our regular rhythm of life together. We always devote significant portions of our time together to prayer. But, these evenings provide extended, focused time to pray for one another, our neighborhoods, and our city. These evenings have already become a vital component of our church planting “strategy” (Pr 16:3; 19:21) and will be for the foreseeable future.

Man Camp 2010 w/ Taproot (Nov 12th-14th)

In September I was invited by Pastor Danny Braga at Taproot Church (Burien, WA) to speak at their Man Camp, Nov 12-14. It was a great opportunity for the men of Downtown Cornerstone and Taproot to spend a weekend together in the woods sharpening one another. I was humbled to be involved. I was also thankful for the opportunity to connect with another Acts 29 church that is several years further down the road than we are. Please take some time to pray for Pastor Danny and Taproot. God is doing some great things through them in the south-end of Seattle.

Relationships and Networking

I continue to meet with as many people as I possibly can to learn about what God is already doing in Seattle. He’s already at work in the city, going before us, and we’re humbled to participate. I’ve met some great people and have grown even more in love with this beautiful city. I believe that God is replanting his church in Seattle in this generation and we are just a small part of that bigger story. If you’re in Seattle and would like to connect, or know someone whom I should connect with, let me know.

Family Update

Honestly, the Sinnett family is doing really well. Macy is enjoying a preschool co-op on Capitol Hill, Carter is finishing his first round of swimming lessons in the Central District and we found out last week we have a baby girl (!) arriving in April. Jen is doing well with the pregnancy. There are, miraculously, no complications. Please pray there will be no bed rest required with this pregnancy as there was with Macy. Macy has also been seizure free. As our schedule has normalized, Jen and I are finally establishing a regular rhythm of weekly date nights. I also wrapped up another course for my Masters degree. We are blessed and very excited to spend the Christmas season in the city.

For December, please pray:

• We would continue to be a church marked by a deep love for Jesus.
• Many souls will be saved and lives transformed through this new gospel work.
• We’d experience favor in Seattle.
• All of our financial needs will be provided for.
• Jesus-loving, talented musicians and artists will join this work (!).
• A central, strategic, well-known, yet inexpensive, gathering location for us would open up for 2011.
• Seattle would be loved, served, challenged and changed through the gospel.
• Many Gospel-centered Jesus-loving churches would be planted.
• 100 people, outside the church, to pray for us daily.

Thank you for your prayers and support!

For the God of this City,
Pastor Adam

News | by Pastor Adam Sinnett

The city is a creation of God, not an invention of man. The city is intended by God to be a place of safety, justice, culture-making, and spiritual seeking. Yet, under sin, it is a place of violence, lawbreaking, pride, and religious pluralism. God intends to fix this.

The world to come is pictured as a perfect city. (Rev 21:1) It is a city in which God is at the center and life is as it should be with no suffering, no tears, and no sin. It is a city of equality, justice, and beauty, centered around Jesus Christ. It is a city where God is with God’s people in God’s place forever. If we’re honest, this is the city we all want and it begins now, in part.

God is already at work creating this new city in our midst by redeeming, forgiving and adopting people by faith in Jesus Christ. Together these people form a new society, an alternate city, a church of broken people rescued by grace. Together, these followers of Jesus are intended by God to serve as a foretaste of the world that is to come, to bring the City of God into the City of Man, by showing the world what life should, and one day will, look like.

This Sunday, Nov 21st @ 5:00pm, we will be hosting our second preview gathering for friends, supporters, the curious, the skeptical, saints and sinners alike. No pretension, no religiosity, no bait-and-switch. Just real people, exploring real issues, and worshiping a real God. More info here. We hope to see you there.

News | by Pastor Adam Sinnett

Dear our next potential worship leader,

We are planting a church in the heart of downtown Seattle called Downtown Cornerstone. We are very early on in the process of planting and need a worship leader yesterday. I know you’re probably looking for a church that can pay you, is located in a city that actually sees the sun periodically and has winning sports teams. Why? I don’t know. We have the great outdoors in our backyard. We have Vivace coffee and Top Pot Donuts. When it rains, it pours. When the sun is out (both days) there is no place more beautiful. We have Microsoft, Starbucks, Boeing, Amazon, and Real Networks. We’re the most educated, literate, and over-priced city in the U.S. We have great homegrown music. We recycle. We like baby seals.

We also have a tremendous amount of brokenness. We have prostitutes who were once little girls with the wrong kind of men in their lives. We have innumerable immature grown men who were once little boys with the right kind of men absent from their lives. We are a very tolerant people as long as you agree with us. We have a large homosexual population that have made Seattle home because they’re running from the Church. We have proud and self-righteous business people who make a living downtown and then safely retreat to the comfort and security of suburbia. We have proud and self-righteous homeless people who attempt to make a living downtown and safely retreat to the comfort and security of their cardboard homes.

We are also one of the only churches in downtown corridor that is remotely orthodox. Our area of downtown Seattle is littered with liberal mainline denominational churches, a multitude of emergent house churches and a couple who are on the same team. The last great decade for church planting in Seattle was in the 1880’s.

Fact: California has nicer weather, winning sports teams and surfing.
Fact: People will actually sing along with you if you plant in Texas.
Fact: Life and ministry is hard, expensive and more difficult in an urban context.
Fact: You will be called to do hard things.

You must know what it means to lead worship. I’m not merely looking for a guitar player or talented musician. I’m looking for a man who can lead an urban congregation in worship to their God in song week after week. I’m looking for a man who knows how to use worship as a witness to the non-Christians in church on any given week. I’m looking for a man who gets Seattle music. I’m looking for a godly, responsible, masculine, gifted leader who lives the gospel, enjoys God and loves people.

In order to not rob you of your treasure in heaven, we will not pay you. What we have, we will give. We don’t have anything. But, paychecks might (i.e. will) come in the form of dinner on Tuesday nights, change from the couch, and free tickets to the Mariners.

I also commit to personally taking an interest in and discipling you. Whatever resources my family or our church family have at our disposal we will leverage to get you out here and settled. I will pray for you regularly. I will seek to develop your current strengths and cultivate new ones. I will spend time with you, welcome you into our community and support you. I will also come to your apartment to drink your beer.

I’m looking to get you out here soon. I will need someone willing to be bi-vocational until the church grows. If you are looking for something hard, but fulfilling, consider joining us in downtown Seattle.

Call me,
Pastor Adam

*Note: Inspired and adapted from a similar post by my friend and fellow church planter Mike Brown of Tribe, Los Angeles. Yes, they found a worship leader. Pray for them.

City Life, Teaching | by Pastor Adam Sinnett

As I previously wrote, over the last six months I’ve spent considerable time in the city, speaking with neighbors, baristas, Real Change-sellers, grocery store clerks, artists, street musicians, lawyers, other pastors, and business professionals. One of the questions that I always ask in some form is, “What do you think are the primary obstacles to the Gospel (or the message of Christianity) in Seattle?” To others, I’ve asked, “What do you think of when you hear ‘Gospel’?” As with the last question I wrote a post on, “What do you think are the primary obstacles to the Christian Church in Seattle?”, the responses have been fascinating and telling. In light of this, I’ve compiled the following list of the top ten obstacles to the Gospel in Seattle, according to my unofficial survey.

“My primary obstacle to the message of Christianity is __________” – Average Seattlite

#1 “It’s too exclusive” or “There can’t be just one true religion.”

This was, by far, the most popular objection to the Christian message. The Gospel is seen as exclusive and intolerant. How can any one belief system claim to hold the corner on the market of truth? This, in turn, doesn’t seem to be reconcilable with God being a God of love and grace (see #5).

#2 “I have no idea” or “Good news about Jesus?”

There was also a strong contingency that knew nothing about Christianity. Most, of course, knew of “Jesus” but few knew anything about him. Fewer have an understanding of the Gospel. Of those that do, the Gospel is the good news that Jesus came to show us how to live (which is depressing news, really).

#3 “Doesn’t adequately deal with the problem of evil.”

Some brought up the problem of evil and a belief that Christianity is unable to adequately address it. With all the man-made evil and natural disasters that make daily headlines, how can Christians be audacious enough to call God loving? That’s a great question and one that deserves an answer.

#4 “Just like every other religion” or “all paths lead to the same place.”

Others lumped Christianity into the same pile as all of the other world religions under the assumption that all belief systems are the same and lead to the same place. Many mentioned the ubiquitous and universalistic “ant hill” and “blind man meets an elephant” metaphors.

#5 “Contradictory…how can a God of love send people to hell?”

There were many who brought up their inability to reconcile how a God of love could send people to hell. In addition to this many mentioned contradictions in the Bible, though when pressed few were able to actually name any.

#6 “Based on an old archaic book written for a different people in a different time.”

In general the Bible is seen as an old book with helpful bits of wisdom, like Aesop’s Fables, but definitely not divinely inspired and inerrant. Few that I spoke with have ever read a Bible, but most have heard excerpts read during a church service/wedding/funeral at some point in their life.

#7 “Disproved by science.”

Others give the claims of Christianity little thought as they are fully convinced that science has usurped Christian faith. The problem of violence, humankind’s quest for purpose, various social ills, and the vast host of medical issues can and will be addressed in time through scientific practice and method.

#8 “It is too restricting.”

Some mentioned that the Christian belief system is too restricting and close-minded. Their understanding of the message of the Gospel is that Christians are called to give up what they genuinely love to do in exchange for what is generally boring, uncomfortable and not fun.

#9 “Is a male dominated belief system.”

This is a big issue in Seattle. It seemed that many have a view of a Christianity that is primarily male-dominated and oppressive to women. Those I spoke with pointed to Jesus choosing 12 men as disciples and the Apostle Paul indicating that only men should serve as pastors.

#10 “Does not welcome and affirm alternative lifestyles.”

Another very important issue in Seattle is that of alternate lifestyles (LGBT). This is a major stumbling block for people in this city, which is home to the second highest density of LGBT on the West Coast.

Summary.

There’s nothing surprising here. Many of these objections have been the same objections used throughout the history of the church. But, this does not mean we should simply excuse them. Whether or not these are misconceptions or excuses, as followers of Jesus we have a responsibility to adequately, accurately and humbly answer each of these objections. Together, these form a substantial obstacle to the message of Christianity in Seattle. It’s no wonder Seattle has become a refuge for those seeking to escape it. Clearly, these objections are overly simplistic. However, they are the objections of our great city to our faith that we must consider and engage with intelligent wit and sacrificial love. We are not to withdraw from the city in fear, but to redemptively engage it in word and deed. The Church of Jesus Christ is intended to be a people dedicated to truth and grace, holiness and mercy, creativity and beauty, service and sacrifice, love and joy, passion and relevance (after all, Jesus is reality, Col 1:15-20).

Our hope, as Downtown Cornerstone, is to be part of changing this tide in Seattle for His glory, our ultimate joy and the good of this city. Would you like to join us?

Uncategorized | by Pastor Adam Sinnett

We are in a season of simultaneously witnessing two miraculous births.

The First Miraculous Birth.

Five months ago the Sinnett family received the news we would never be able to have children naturally again due to various complications. We received this diagnosis of being infertile the same day as our initial prayer and dessert gathering on May 25th. We were, of course, crushed. After appropriately grieving, we sold most of our baby stuff before moving downtown, spent considerable time sifting through the various fertility options, and ultimately landed on adoption. Then, miraculously and inexplicably, two months ago Jen had a positive pregnancy test. Yes, positive. After being diagnosed infertile by two doctors, we are now expecting a baby mid-April. We couldn’t be more excited, or surprised. To those of you who have been praying, thank you. This is the first miracle.

The Second Miraculous Birth.

This past Sunday we received a glimpse of another miraculous birth in process, the birth of a new church in the heart of downtown Seattle – Downtown Cornerstone. After gathering as a launch community throughout the summer, we had our first preview gathering this past Sunday. God is bringing together a multi-generational, multi-ethnic, multi-life stage, multi-gifted group of people that form this new church. Join us this fall in community or at one of our upcoming preview gatherings as we follow Jesus’ lead in planting a church of forgiven imperfect people worshipping our perfect God, Jesus Christ.

This new church coming to life in the city is just as impossible as a woman diagnosed barren giving birth. We’re witnessing both happen and invite you to share in our joy.

Community, Teaching | by Pastor Adam Sinnett

Prayer is to the Christian life, what air is to breathing. Prayer is our life line to our Father in Heaven. As a young child holds the hand of his dad for stability, direction and relationship, so in prayer we hold the proverbial hand of Our Father for the same (Lk 11:9-13). He knows what we need before we ask him (Matthew 6:8). Yet, he also says we do not have because we do not ask (James 4:2). He invites us to humbly, yet boldly, ask of him in faith and it will be ours (Matthew 21:22; Mk 11:24; 1 John 5:14-15). Yet, too often, we overlook it entirely.

As a newly forming church in the heart of the city we are deeply aware that Jesus is the one who builds his church (Matthew 16:18) and he primarily does so through the prayers and lives of his people. Broken people rescued by grace should be a prayerful people.

Would you be willing to pray for us every day over the course of this next year?

Therefore, because planting a healthy, vibrant and God glorifying church in downtown Seattle is impossible apart from Him, we are creating a prayer team of 100 people to pray for us daily for our first year. You will be able to track monthly prayer updates here. You can also subscribe to receive up-to-date prayer requests by giving us your email here. Let us know by subscribing to receive the prayer updates via email or emailing us at info (at) downtowncornerstone.org.

In prayer, you too get to participate in the planting of this church. In prayer, you too get participate in God’s unfolding story in downtown Seattle. In prayer, you will get to see God do things you otherwise would never have notice, let alone imagined. In prayer, you get to be part of lives being changed for all eternity through this new church plant. In prayer, you get to be on the front lines of what Jesus is doing – and is going do to – in this great city we so deeply love. Will you join us?

“Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory,
for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!” (Ps 115:1)