Updated April 2025

April has been a wonderful and eventful month!  Good Friday and Easter were amazing as we celebrated the forgiveness of our sins through our Christ’s death, and our life in eternity with Jesus because HE IS RISEN! Feeding Meeker provided meals both inside the church and distributed in the community.  We enjoyed special guests for Passover weekend and this past weekend for the men’s Wild Game Feed event and Sunday service. Women’s ministry events have been packed every week, and our youth (and their parents) have filled the Litchfield Theatre as well as The Hub! It’s an exciting time and we are thankful!

Even with all that is going on, we hope to provide meaningful and timely updates during this period of transition.  Although it is a time of transition—one that may last a while—we are so thankful for what God is doing and are happy to share what has been happening “behind the scenes.”

Here are a few FAQs that we hope you find helpful:

Q. What’s been happening since Pastor Thad left?

A. Several steps have been taken by the elder board since Thad’s departure:

• We have met with individual staff members in open dialogue to discuss any general cares, concerns, or suggestions they may have for the board during this time of transition.

• Jeff Garland, Senior Associate Pastor, was asked to temporarily step into stronger leadership role with the staff during this transition time. Jeff has assumed the oversight and responsibility for the staff and the general day-to-day operations of the church.

• We began conversations with our Converge Network district office rep, Joel Nelson, for guidance in moving forward. Joel concurred with the thoughts of needing an interim pastor while working towards filing the senior pastor role. He provided valuable resourcing information for both the interim pastor process as well as filing the senior pastor position.

• Over the last several weeks, we have had conversations with different interim pastor placement services. We have prayerfully evaluated the various providers and compared their processes, costs, and feasibility.  We have narrowed our scope and will be taking the next steps soon with a potential provider.

• Until an interim pastor arrives, the Sunday messages will be shared amongst our staff, supplemented with an occasional guest speaker. 

• The elders have met with potential search agencies that may be utilized in the filling of the senior pastor position.

Q. Do we need an interim pastor?  Can’t our existing pastors do all the preaching?

A. We are fortunate to have a pastoral staff that is willing and very capable of preaching on Sundays!  And thankfully they have agreed to do this for a time.  Asking them to commit to this long term, however, would require them to sacrifice time from their current responsibilities and leadership roles.  Additionally, we believe an interim pastor that offers more than Sunday teaching is what Cornerstone would benefit from the most.  We are seeking an “Intentional Interim Pastor” that would preach on Sundays, but would also offer additional leadership during a transition period, working with elders, staff, and the church as a whole to prepare for the next senior pastor.

Q. How long will it take to get an interim pastor or a new senior pastor?

A. This is a question that all of us would like to know, but only God has the answer! For an interim pastor, it seems reasonable to expect someone could fill that role quickly.  However, as we have met with various consultants, it has become evident that our preferred path will take longer.  Several of our conversations have led us to believe that it could be mid or late summer before we have someone fully on board as an interim at Cornerstone. We have no timeline at all right now for a new senior pastor.  Again, only God knows who and when! We have been told to expect the process to take 12-24 months before a new pastor is in place.  We will continue to trust God with each step on this path—and pray that we will be “faithful in the waiting” when we must be patient.

Q. Is there a Search Team in place yet?

A. We do not have a search team formed yet. We are following the strong recommendation of every consultant we have talked to and are waiting to form a search team for our senior pastor position until we have an interim pastor in place. This will give us time, and additional expertise, to determine exactly what we are searching for in our next senior pastor.

We will continue to provide updates through email and on the Elders page on our website. Please be sure to thank and encourage the Cornerstone staff for their extra efforts and leadership during this time—we are blessed with an amazing team!

Thank you for your commitment to Cornerstone and for your prayers for our elders and staff!

What were the results of the survey?

The congregational survey, Ministry Match assessments, and in-person evaluations have been completed, and a comprehensive report has been provided to Cornerstone elders. We are very grateful for the participation of our Cornerstone family and for the report and guidance we have received so far. 

The first comment from our consultant, Bob Gilliam, was that we are a VERY GOOD church and have so many things to be proud of. We knew that! But, of course, it is nice to hear it from someone who has consulted with hundreds of churches across the world. “Surely this church has many blessings to be thankful for,” was his exact comment, noting that we are a flagship church in our area, top 1% in size of Converge conference churches, and top 5% in all churches in the USA. 

We also know that we have opportunities to improve and be more effective in ministry, outreach, and discipleship. We want Cornerstone to be better than “very good” — we want to be a GREAT church and continually improve as we individually and collectively become more like Jesus! The recommendations we received will help us continue to develop more detailed plans for spiritual growth and to focus attention on reaching more people in the area with the Good News of Jesus, especially to those in our target age demographic of 20s, 30s, and 40s.

You may be interested in results of specific questions asked on the congregational survey. Some of those we will be able to communicate simply with numbers, but the majority of the questions are meant to be evaluated collectively with a group of survey questions and along with the other information gathered by the consultant. For this reason, most of the information you hear from the elders or staff will be about decisions that have been made, or that we are considering making, based on factors that include the survey results.

Thank you for your interest in the survey results and please continue to pray that our church will see clearly where the Lord is leading us and that we will be obedient to His guidance!

How are we doing financially?

Active reporting on finances to the Cornerstone congregation has not been done regularly in recent years, so we have been asked for more information on multiple occasions. We certainly understand this request and plan to provide updates more often throughout the coming year.

Below is our current budget statement for the fiscal year, which ended June 30th. We are currently finalizing the budget for the next fiscal year and will seek member approval at the annual meeting, which is scheduled for July 14, 2024.

• General Budget (income) ending June 30, 2024: $1,182,646

• Gifts received (actual income) ending June 30, 2024: $1,146,241

• General Budget (expenses) through June 30, 2024: $1,119,547.39 (*not yet finalized)

• Hope Ministries Giving ending June 30: $202,000

• Now is the time balance: $450,536

We have also been asked specifically about what our ‘greatest needs’ are. This is a difficult question to answer. What we budget for each year is expected costs for ministry — the things we know about and can plan for. This primarily includes staff salaries, operational expenses, ministry costs, and support for missionaries. It’s essential to our core ministries that our general budget is met.

Separate from the general budget are special programs, such as Christmas and Easter projects, mission trips, and Hope Ministries. These do not impact the general budget because funds received have that specific designation.

Hope Ministries, for instance, accounts for a big portion of our church giving, and all of those funds coming in are given out for the service of those in need in our area. These programs are meeting great and important needs as well!

Additionally, we have to be able to pay for some unexpected expenses. An unexpected expense, such as a facilities repair, would currently come out of our savings account. If we do not have adequate savings, we would need to finance (take out a loan) for any large expenses.

We are working through several options to plan for future growth and to account for challenges with our aging building. We are so fortunate to have an excellent facility!  But we do have to maintain it well and keep it looking and functioning great. Please pray about this and expect more information in the coming months on proposed approaches to meeting these needs.

What are we doing with the Now is the Time funds? 

The Now is the Time initiative began in September 2017 and was closed in 2020, although donations were accepted into 2023. The funds in NITT were primarily used to launch the Cokato site, and upon the formation of Living Stones (the Cokato site going autonomous), $400,000 was directed to their site.

Another purpose of the funds was to pay down the mortgage of the Litchfield buildings. Thanks to the generosity of a group of our members, our mortgage has been completely paid off! Since this was done outside of NITT, the fund balance remained very strong.

Of the original campaign goals, two primary objectives remain: (1) the development of another Cornerstone site, and (2) the development of leaders through residency, coaching cohorts, and rural church collaboratives. The amount estimated for those two initiatives was originally $250,000. The balance of our NITT funds is currently $442,000. We will be making decisions in the near future about how to best utilize these donations, whether to keep all of the money set aside in the NITT fund, or to ask NITT contributors if some of the money should be redirected to other initiatives. Any redirection of funds would need to be approved by each contributor.