Church Planting and Cornerstones

By Chris Hildebrand, BCP Director

I pass the cornerstone of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church several times each day and see the year 1884 etched into the stone. This stone serves as a reminder to me of what we ultimately want to see happen through our labors: we want to move from planting churches to laying cornerstones. There are many reasons we want to lay cornerstones. Perhaps the most obvious reason is that to have cornerstones means you own buildings, and while that may happen that’s not what I’m talking about here. Rather the cornerstones upon which these beautiful old churches rest represent something even more than the buildings themselves. 


First, a cornerstone represent longevity. St. Paul’s has been around for 125 years. That’s 125 years on a street where living 3 or 4 years makes you an “old timer”. In church planting often times planning for the future means planning for the next 5 years. But we want to think not just about the next few years but also about the next few decades, and even about the next few generations. So we are always asking ourselves, are we planting churches that will stand the test of time? Are we planting churches that will be the cornerstones of their respective neighborhoods? We want congregations that are serving Brooklyn in word and deed long after we are gone.

Second, a cornerstone represents a specific place. The cornerstone at St. Paul’s has been in the same physical place not just for my eyes to see but for several generations of Brooklynites to see. It has literally weathered the storms of the neighborhood. And we believe that for our church planting efforts to be effective we also need to think in terms of neighborhoods. Like that cornerstone we need to be a presence on specific street corners, worshipping, serving, living with our neighborhood always on our hearts and minds.


Lastly, a cornerstone reminds us of the hope we have in our mission. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians writes: “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”

Paul reminds us that our only hope in our mission to plant churches rests on Jesus Christ who is our cornerstone upon whom everything rests, and by the power of his Holy Spirit he continues to work through his church from generation to generation. 
So our hope is that the churches we plant now will dig deep roots in their neighborhoods and that in another 125 years these churches, like cornerstones, will represent and proclaim the power and hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ to many generations of Brooklynites.