News, Service

We are moving!

Those of you who were with us Sunday morning heard the exciting news that we have found a building for our next season of life and mission together. After years of searching, and months of negotiating, this past Friday we signed a five-year lease on a building located at 2333 Western Ave. Jesus heard and answered our prayers in a very dramatic way. This space was previously occupied by the downtown campus of Mars Hill Church, but was sold when they moved to a different location. As a result, it has sat empty for the last two and a half years. Jesus has been kind to preserve the work of those who have gone faithfully before us – and we get to be the beneficiaries.

Open House, Wednesday 11th @ 6:30pm

In light of all of this, we are hosting an informal “Open House” this coming Wednesday. This meeting will replace this month’s prayer night. The doors will open at 6:30pm, so everyone will have time to walk through the space. We will then gather around 7:00pm to talk about our plan moving forward, our strategy for getting the building prepared, pray and sing. It’s going to be a great night and we’re going to need all hands on deck. Our plan is to get into the space relatively quickly because (1) it doesn’t need a lot of work and (2) we are already paying rent. As of right now we are aiming to have our first Sunday in the building on March 29th (one week before Easter). Since the main gathering space fits 350-ish chairs (and our current theater at AMC fits 550), we will need to move to two services, likely 9:00am and 11:15am. We’ll be rolling out more information on that front.

Volunteer Sign-Up

Many of you have already graciously expressed interest in helping get the space prepared, and even offered particular gifts or services. To help keep track of all this we have created a volunteer sign-up form. If you’re able to help, in any capacity, please consider completing this form. At this point, we will likely have several larger work parties with many smaller ones sprinkled throughout the next three weeks.

Building Fund

We have been saving for a more permanent gathering space from the very beginning. By God’s grace, we don’t need to do a major capital campaign in order to get into the building because we already have those dollars saved. Thank you to all who have given sacrificially, cheerfully and regularly to make that a reality. However, as far as we know at this point, this building is not going to be a long term space beyond the five year lease. We plan to continue to save in order to buy a space and not dig too deeply, or unnecessarily, into our savings during this move. So, in light of that, we have created a separate “Building fund” for anyone who would like to contribute to this particular project. You can access that here. This would, of course, be above and beyond your normal giving.

It’s just a building

Let’s keep in mind that the building located at 2333 Western is just a building. Without question, let’s rejoice and thank our gracious, gift-giving King for answering our prayers! Yes! Yes! Yes! But, at the same time, let’s remember that this building is just a tool for spreading the supremacy of God, in all things, in our city. Our ultimate hope is in Him and not this, or any other, building. This doesn’t change who we are. We are still DCC. We still want to build a great city through the gospel of Jesus Christ for the glory of God. The church is still a people, not a place, but it sure is nice to have a place for the people. He is positioning us well for our next season together.

Friends, we got a building! I hope to see you all on Wednesday.

“To him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Eph 3:20)

Christ is all,

Pastor Adam on behalf of the elders of DCC

Community, News

Downtown Cornerstone is a community of communities scattered throughout the city, declaring and displaying the gospel of Jesus Christ in relationship to each other and the city. These are communities of diverse, imperfect people that are committed to living out the implications of the gospel in every sphere of life. These are communities of radical grace, sacrificial service, and joy. These are communities that eat together, pray together, laugh together, and study the Bible together – in essence, share life. These are communities that build up the church by encouraging people to faith in Jesus Christ and build up the city through deeds of justice and mercy. These are communities where you can be who God created you to be, yourself. It’s our hope and prayer that everyone who calls Downtown Cornerstone home will find a community like this.

This week, we launched a new community in North Queen Anne! By God’s grace, this is the third community living life together in Queen Anne. Tyler Ashby, who previously led the Uptown community, is now leading North Queen Anne. We asked him to answer a few questions about the people, vision, and prayer requests for the newly forming community.

What are you excited about for this North Queen Anne launch?

It’s clear that God is growing his church on Queen Anne!  It’s exciting to be part of this unique replication of two communities becoming a third. Also, since the location is right next to the SPU campus, we’re really looking forward to serving the campus and their students as a community.

Any specific ways we can be praying?

Please pray that our affections for Jesus would grow and we would trust him more deeply than ever. Pray that the Gospel would be the foundation of what we build together as a family and that we would grow as disciple-making disciples. Pray for relationships to form  (not everyone knows each other yet). Lastly, pray for more leaders to be trained and equipped to lead even more communities!

If you are not currently participating with a DCC Community and would like to be involved with North Queen Anne or another community, email .

News | by Pastor Adam Sinnett

Christmas has a way of becoming too familiar. So familiar, in fact, that we easily lose our sense of wonder around the very truths it is intended to point us to: God becoming man to seek and save the lost. It’s news that is so good that it is hard to believe. As Cyril of Alexandria noted a long time ago (378-444 AD):

“Indeed, the mystery of Christ runs the risk of being disbelieved precisely because it is so incredibly wonderful. For God was in humanity. He who was above all creation was in our human condition; the invisible one was made visible in the flesh; he who is from the heavens and from on high was in the likeness of earthly things; the immaterial one could be touched; he who is free in his own nature came in the form of a slave; he who blesses all creation became accursed; he who is all righteousness was numbered among transgressors; life itself came in the appearance of death [on the cross].“

The Christmas story is not merely an irrelevant story of ancient antiquity. It is our story; the story of the world. Its the story of God pursuing those He loves, becoming one of us in order to rescue us. It’s the story of redemption, hope, and salvation. It’s the story of fulfilled promises, changed lives, and amazing grace. Its the story that makes sense of, and gives purpose to, all of our individual stories. Cyril is right, all of this “runs the risk of being disbelieved precisely because it is so incredibly wonderful.” That’s what Christmas is about – this too-good-to-be-true news of Jesus. That is cause for wonder and celebration.

In light of that, I invite you to join us next Wednesday (24th) on Christmas Eve, at 5:00pm (AMC Pacific Place) to celebrate the first arrival of the Savior, God-come-in-the-flesh, and anticipate His return. We’ll sing, pray, and learn from the scriptures. We have a kids choir in the works, all parking will be validated and we’re conveniently located in a mall for your last minute shopping needs (!) The King has come – and is coming again.

Because the manger is full and the tomb is empty,
Pastor Adam

Advent Drive, Foster Care, News, Service | by Pastor David Parker

As we kick off this advent season, we want to demonstrate the love of Christ in action. We are not only here to proclaim the good news of Jesus in our city, but we also want to be good news to our city. In light of that, through the month of December, two things are happening:

COMMUNITY

Our Cornerstone Communities will be looking for ways to love and bless the people and needs that God has placed around them. If you know of a person or family in need, talk to your community lead. [Note: If you are in need of particular help in this season, please let us know by emailing .]

CHURCH

Corporately, we’ve chosen to partner with DSHS this advent season to provide comfortable clothes for foster children entering state care. On any given day there are 1,300 to 1,500 children in foster care in King County. Whether children are picked up from school or removed directly from home, they often don’t have the chance to bring their clothes with them. Consequently, many children come into foster care without coats or sometimes even socks! It can take weeks for DSHS to get foster children these basic winter essentials.

Life in foster care can be extraordinarily challenging and disruptive for kids and teens, both emotionally and developmentally. Having the comfort of warm clothes can go a long way in helping children transition into foster care. The items donated will give DSHS offices a supply of winter items to give out to children as soon as they enter care.

• Donations: Bring in your donations every Sunday at AMC Theaters, now through the end of December. You can also purchase online and have items shipped directly to DCC.
• Details: For a full list of details, including clothing items, Amazon shopping list ideas, and more, visit downtowncornerstone.org/foster-care-drive.
• Flyer: If you would like to place a receptacle in your apartment building or workplace, you can download a promotional flyer HERE. Don’t forget to write your name and phone number on it, so people can follow up with questions!
• Questions: Email 

Whatever you and/or your community ends up doing, get creative, be generous, and ask Jesus to give you a vision for incarnating the love of Christ this season. In Christ we have been given much. By Him and through Him we have much to give.

For the Gospel in this city,
Pastor David

Community, News, Prayer | by Pastor Adam Sinnett

Being part of a church plant is like watching God unfold a miracle over time. It was not long ago that we, as a people, did not even exist. God is gracious! It has been one of the greatest privileges of my life to be part of what He is doing in and through this church. Without question, every church is a unique work of the Holy Spirit, but I am deeply grateful to be part of this one.

Though much has changed over our short amount of time together, our reason for being hasn’t. We exist to build a great city through the gospel of Jesus Christ for the glory of God. We want to see as many people as possible, from the avenues to the alley-ways, meet Jesus and experience life as it was intended to be, in Him, now and forever. We are part of God’s unfolding story, in our generation, in our city.

In our early days we put together a prospectus that outlined who and what we believed Jesus was calling us to be and do in our city. That was four years ago and most of you were not with us then. In light of that, we have created this Annual Report—our first ever—as an updated resource that captures who we are and where, by God’s grace, we are going.

There’s a lot of grace contained within the pages of our Annual Report. In this report we recount evidences of God’s movement among us, articulate who we are, introduce leaders, provide ministry updates, highlight fun statistics, offer a brief financial recap, and share our prayerful focus for the next season of life and mission together. We hope you find it to be life-giving, faith-building and God-exalting.

Jesus is our cornerstone.

We love Him because He first loved us. May He keep us on fire for His supremacy in all things in the year to come. Let’s lean on who God is and all that He is for us, in Christ. His promises are true and they cannot fail. He alone is worthy of our days, dollars and devotion. We continue to envision thousands of people, from many churches and church plants, from many parts of Seattle, united under a new identity in Jesus and sent to love, serve and challenge the city with the gospel. I invite you to join us in being part of seeing that vision become even more of a reality in the days ahead. Together, as always, let’s ask Him to do what only He can.

Christ is all,

Adam Sinnett
Lead Pastor

Follow this link to read a full version of our Annual Report. 

Community, City Life, Event, News

Whether you’ve been running with us for some time now or are just beginning to check things out, you might be asking the question – what’s the best way to stay connected to all that’s happening at DCC? That’s a great question. Lots of ways actually. And we wanted to highlight a few of those for you this week!

#1 Blog and Website – www.downtowncornerstone.org

We are regularly updating our blog with events details, updates, answers to FAQ’s, and stories of the ways Jesus is at work in our church and across our city. If you’re reading this now, you’ve likely found our blog. That’s great. And we’d recommend checking back often for helpful info and snapshots into the life of our church here in Seattle.

#2 The City Network – dcc.onthecity.org

The City is an online social networking tool that we use to stay connected with one another throughout the week. It’s kind of like a virtual neighborhood. Event invites, casual meetups, prayer requests, and pastoral notes are just a few of the things you’ll find and enjoy about being connected to The City. To get connected to The City, drop by the Connect Desk on Sunday mornings or talk to your community leader. We’d love to invite you into our online network!

#3 Facebook – www.facebook.com/downtowncornerstone
Twitter – @DCCseattle

You’ll find a lot of useful information and updates on our Facebook and Twitter pages. Our desire is to make these channels useful as a resource for you to learn of creative ways to enjoy our city (e.g. festivals, spray parks, concerts, events), as well as keep you updated on what’s happening at DCC. You’ll also find regular quotes and verses to encourage your soul throughout the week. Like us or follow us online to get fun ideas, encouraging quotes, and event updates!

#4 DCC App – http://get.theapp.co/7c78

We are also thrilled to be able to offer our official DCC App! You can listen to past sermons, check out videos, read the blog, find a community, and even see the previous Sunday’s handout. Our app is available for iPhones/iPads, Windows and Android phones.

There are lots of great ways to stay connected! And if you are interested in learning more or even being a part of our newly-forming family in the heart of Seattle, we’d encourage you to visit us on Sunday mornings for our weekly gathering at 10am. You’ll get the best flavor for who we are as a people, what we value, how we do life together, and more by gathering us and getting connected to one of our community scattered across the city. For more information on our weekly gatherings or to get connected to a community in your area, feel free to visit our webpage HERE or email us at . We’d love for you to join us!

Kids, News

Our desire and mission in Cornerstone Kids is to build a great city through the gospel for the glory of God, beginning with our kids. We love our kids, and we’ve been prayerfully considering how to better serve our families through our check-in process, space layouts, content and more. With that in mind, we wanted to let you know of a few changes and resources for families who are gathering with us on Sunday mornings.

“Pre-registration” is now available.

If you know your family will be attending the service on Sunday, you can fill out this form to pre-register your kids for the service each week (up until an hour before the service start). We recommend you create a bookmark to the link on your web browser. When you arrive at the check-in desk on Sunday morning, we will have your children’s name tags printed and a pager ready for you. If you’d like us to send you a weekly email reminder to pre-register on Saturday, you can click HERE to sign-up. The preregistration process helps to streamline the check-in’s on Sunday morning and allow you more time to get settled for the gathering.

Check-in’s open at 9:45am – come early!

We know it can be a challenge to get the kids all packed up, arrive downtown, navigate the elevators and escalators, check in your kids, grab a cup of coffee, and still make it upstairs with enough time to find a seat. For that reason, we want to help by encouraging you to check-in your kids early. This also helps our families who may be running late due to unforeseen circumstances. Our check-in’s are open at 9:45am (sometimes even a little earlier!), so please feel welcome to come early, check in your kids, and grab a cup of coffee without having to rush into the gathering.

We validate parking.

We validate parking for all Cornerstone Kids families in the Pacific Place garage for up to 3 hours! The Pacific Place garage is conveniently located in the same building as AMC theater. Please just bring your parking stub with you and stop by the Cornerstone Kids Check-In Desk to get your parking validated.

Questions?

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at . We count it a privilege to partner with you each week for the good of our kids and the glory of Jesus in our city. We are excited to continue witnessing Jesus’ unfolding story being written in the lives of every child within Cornerstone Kids. 

By His grace,
Pierce and Bonnie Martin for Cornerstone Kids

Discipleship, News, Service | by Pastor David Parker

This Saturday 11 of us will leave for Brazil for 9 days of ministry (Aug 9th-18th) alongside Restore Brazil and church planting efforts in the flavelas (slums) of Rio. Personally, I couldn’t be more excited for this trip and for the team Jesus has brought together. We’re looking forward to serving and ministering alongside our fellow brothers and sisters in Rio!

(Top Left) Pastor David Parker, Tyler Johnson, Linnell Pitt, Edward Sumner, (Middle Left) Catie Rizzo, Peter Isaza, Katie Collins, (Bottom Left) Anne Johnson, Shelley Pierson, Chelsey Scheffe, Peter Duong.

As we get ready to go, I wanted to send out a brief update so you know how you can be thanking Jesus with us, and praying for us over the next few weeks.

Thank You!

First, Thank You! This past Sunday evening, we packed over 17 suitcases (with a few more to go!), filled with hundreds of toiletry kits, mercy outreach supplies, kids activities, toys, games, shoes, a/v equipment, and more! Not only has Jesus provided for our whole team to go, but I’m so thankful to see God’s provision above and beyond our goal, and that we’re able to bring so many needed things down to Brazil to bless the churches we’ll be partnering with. Thank you to those who gave above and beyond to see the Gospel take a deeper root in Rio!

Will you commit to praying for us these next two weeks?

Second, As we’ve been preparing for this trip, I was reminded of Ps 127:1 the other day which says, “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.” We could spend tons of time preparing and taking lots of stuff down, and yet if Jesus doesn’t go before us in every way, scripture says that our labors are in vain. With that in mind, we’ve been praying boldly, and would covet your prayers that Jesus would go before us in the following ways:

• Pray for safety in travel, and that all our suitcases would make it there safety and get through customs.
• Pray for continued unity on our team and that we would be rooted and grounded in all that God is for us in Christ, regardless of what might happen on the trip.
• Pray that we would be a blessing to the churches in Rio, and that through our outreach and partnerships, some would trust in Jesus for the first time.
• Pray for me as I preach in one of the churches we’ll be partnering with, that Jesus would break down any social and language barriers, so that others would get to taste and see how good our Savior is.
• Pray for energy for all of us. We have a full week of ministry with kids, the homeless, the addicted, and the orphaned as well as lots of other ministry and details (music, video, training, repairing equipment, etc.).
• Pray that above all else, through this trip Jesus and His glory would be made known to everyone; from those we’ll share a seat with on the plane, to the most needy and broken in Rio.

Join us to pray this Friday at 6:30pm

This Friday, August 8th, at 6:30 we’re going to meet as a team in the ImPark parking lot at 5th and Bell Street to handoff suitcases, do some last minute shuffling of gear, and pray together. We’d love to have anyone that can and wants to join us in praying for this trip to come out!

Stay Connected

Lastly, many of you have asked how you can stay up to date with us while we’re in Brazil? Great question! We created a public FaceBook page, that we’ll be posting trip updates to as we’re able.  It’s a public page, so you can still view it, even if you don’t have a FaceBook account. As well, we’ll be using the hashtag #DCCbrazil2014 on Twitter and Instagram if you want to follow updates there as well.

Thank you for partnering with us!

For the entire Brazil team,

Pastor David

News, Service | by Pastor David Parker

Downtown Cornerstone,

As I mentioned during our gathering on Sunday, this summer (August 9th-18th) we’ll be sending a team down to Brazil to aid and assist in mercy outreach and church planting efforts in Rio de Janeiro. For more details on who we are partnering with and why, check out this post.

Several of you have asked a couple questions in one form or another so I wanted to post a quick update addressing those. Over the next several weeks we’ll continue to be posting updates so you know how you can be specifically praying and participating as we prepare to send this team to Brazil.

Who’s going?

So you can be praying for, encouraging, and prayerfully considering who you can help send, here’s the folks we’ll be sending to Brazil:

(Top Left) Peter Isaza, Linnell Pitt, Peter Duong, Catie Rizzo, Tyler Johnson, Edward Sumner, Pastor David Parker (Bottom Left) Anne Johnson, Shelley Pierson, Chelsey Scheffe, Katie Collins.

How are things going?

We met last weekend for our second team meeting to spend some time growing in unity, gospel fluency, and language learning together. It was a great evening together and already  looking forward to our next time together at the end of this month. Specifically, It’s been awesome to see how Jesus is even using our preparation and fundraising to stretch and grow our faith and dependency on Him. Thank you for praying for us. I couldn’t be more excited to see how Jesus will continue to grow, shape, and mold us as we prepare to go. We’ll be posting more stories in the weeks to come, stay tuned!

If you are interested in supporting the team through prayer and/or by giving to the Brazil Fund, you can learn more here.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email me at .

Until the whole world knows,

Pastor David

Community, City Life, News

Throughout the summer we’ll be corporately gathering together as Downtown Cornerstone Church around the following events. These events will not only be a great opportunity to grow together as a church, but an opportunity to get to know, love and serve those that Jesus has placed around us. Mark these dates on your calendar and consider who you can invite!

Additionally, our communities will be gathering in various forms throughout the summer. if you’re not connected to one, email  to get plugged in today!

Picnic at the Park | Gasworks Park
Tuesday, June 10th | 6pm

Bring a picnic dinner (non grill-able) and join us for a fun evening to welcome in the summer! This will occur in lieu of our normal community rhythm and is an opportunity to enjoy the sunshine with our neighbors and friends.

Serve the City | Gatewood Elementary School
Saturday, July 26th | 10am

We are partnering with the Seattle School District for a day of service at Gatewood Elementary School in West Seattle. The more volunteers we have, the better we are able to serve this school so please mark your calendars and invite your friends!

BBQ & Beach Baptisms | South Lake Union Park
Tuesday, August 26th | TBD

Join us for our 4th annual BBQ and Baptism event! We will gather at South Lake Union Park for a BBQ followed by baptisms, to celebrate all that Jesus has done and is continuing to do among us as a people. If you are interested in being baptized or want to learn more, you can read more here.

We depend on volunteer support for all of these events!

If you would like to serve the church by helping plan one of these events, please email  or stop by the Connect Desk on Sunday.