Cornerstone Baptist held its inaugural worship service in Erskine Park on 20 February 2000. Today, Cornerstone enjoys a reputation for being a friendly church that loves God and believes the Bible.
The idea to start a church in Erskine Park originated in 1999 during a conversation between Darryl Kilker, then pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Seven Hills, and Steve Mayo, a church planter with ABWE. Ken Lesta, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist, Glenwood, was also consulted, and he encouraged the church plant to go ahead.
Within a few months, a team of four couples — two from Grace Baptist and two from Emmanuel Baptist — were meeting together weekly for prayer in anticipation of starting a new church. A holiday club was held at James Erskine Public School in September 1999 to gauge community interest . . . and the response was overwhelming: 106 children enrolled from 56 different families. Follow-up visits revealed that a few of these families were looking for a church to attend.
The church grew steadily from an original congregation of about 30 people. In March of 2001, it added a 6pm service and a Friday night high school youth group. By 2004, the church was holding small group Bible studies in various locations every fortnight.
Music and drama has always been an important part of church life at Cornerstone. “Kidnapped on I-land”, a Patch the Pirate musical, was the first major production undertaken by the church. It was presented in 2003. The success of that musical lead to two other productions: “Resurrection” and “Bridge of Blood”. Cafe Cornerstone and the annual Carols Celebration are additional ways the church uses music to glorify God.
Missions has also been a strong emphasis. The church eagerly backed its own members to start Eben-ezer Baptist (Spanish) and East Bowral Baptist in 2003. A third church plant, Heritage Baptist in Ballarat VIC, welcomed a Cornerstone member as its pastor in that same year — with financial assistance from Cornerstone. Currently, Cornerstone supports missions in Australia, Asia and Vanuatu. It also reaches out to the Erskine Park/St Clair community through a camp scholarship program in partnership with James Erskine Public School, and by providing Scripture teachers to Bennett Road Public School.
From its beginning, Cornerstone has called itself a “Bible-believing church”. To date, 45 of the 66 books of the Bible have been covered verse-by-verse in sermon series. In teaching series, conducted on Sunday evenings, every book of the Bible has been taught at least once.
On 25 November 2012, Cornerstone became a self-supporting church — welcoming Elijah Martinovici as its first full time pastor. Elijah was formally inducted on 14 April 2013.
Cornerstone is pleased to be one of the first churches to affiliate with the Australian Fellowship of Bible-believing Churches.
Our message. Our style. Our leadership. Our beliefs. Our connections.
