We are beleivers in Jesus Christ, the son of God.
Our vision is for people in our church and community to experience a personal and intimate connection with Jesus in their daily lives.
Who we are?
We are a bilingual evangelical
church on the French Riviera
We gather every Sunday morning in church and online, and gather regularly throughout the week in fellowship groups and for prayer meetings, and social events.
We ensure that everything is translated to accommodate both English and French speakers, depending on the native language of the speaker. This includes providing translations from French to English or English to French as necessary. Similarly, during our worship, we incorporate songs that are sung in both languages, allowing everyone to join in singing the same song with verses in each language.
We are a diverse and inclusive church, encompassing multiple generations and ethnicities. We firmly believe that the church is a place where everyone can come
together to experience the boundless love of God, which in turn enables us to love and support one another as a unified community.
We sincerely hope that you will discover a life of purpose, find a warm and welcoming community, and develop meaningful friendships within our church family congregation.
Our Pastor
James Morgan
We arrived as a family from the UK with our three children in 2003 and joined Cornerstone.
Initially for us Cornerstone was rather different compared to the churches we had known in England and South Africa.
It was not in a traditional church building, the music was louder than we were used to and performed by a band. As a bilingual church everything was translated between English and French. Moreover, James Mills, the pastor, was a writer by profession and had not been ordained as a minister. In fact the church was independent, not part of any denomination.
Yet, it felt vibrant, the people were warm and welcoming and the emphasis of James’ sermons was normally always on the experience and the power of the Holy Spirit.
So we stayed, we loved the church and we grew.
In 2010 James Mills asked me to be an Assistant Pastor. In December 2011 James Mills passed away and after a few months I took over as Pastor. Similar to James Mills, I am not ordained.
My wife Shirley has been leading the worship team for longer than I have been a pastor.
Never did we anticipate finding ourselves in these roles in a church we love, so far away from where we started.I can truly say that some of the best moments in our lives have been on that first floor worship room as we have been blessed and loved by God through his Spirit.
What we believe in is based on the central verse of the Bible
God so loved the world that He gave his only son, Jesus Christ, that whoever beleives in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Our mission
The mission of each person who is a believer in Jesus, is to follow Him. The foundations for this are found in two statements. The first is about love. The commandment to love. “Love God with all your heart, mind, body and soul” and “Love your neighbour as you love yourself.”. The other is to “Go and make disciples baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that Jesus had commanded.”.
The mission of the church however , the body of beleivers, is to build one another up with the gifts that God has given us so that we can become more mature and not lacking in anything.
These missions are dependant on each other. Our individual mission and the mission of the church.
Our History
Cornerstone had its beginnings as a weekly evening meeting of praise and worship in 1990. This took place on a Tuesday evening in the home of James and Jill Mills in Valbonne. With them were Norman and Shirley Halsail and Dimitri and Debbie Karavais.
Within a year this group grew to a regular attendance of thirty people There was a connection with an American pastor, Phil Beuchler, who was invited to visit this new gathering to assist in the appointment of its first pastor.
Phil and his wife, together with another couple from the US, the Bennet’s, arrived for a visit to Valbonne in December 1991.
In January 1992, the first Sunday morning service started. Five adults attended that first meeting. We are not sure who they were, but it would definitely have been James and Jill Mills and the Beuchlers.
Nevertheless, more and more people attended as the weeks went by. In October of that year the new pastor was appointed. His name was Alan Valentine, he arrived with his wife and family from the US.
Things moved fast in 1992.
In November the Sunday morning gathering was moved from the Mill’s house to the Hotel Mediathel in nearby Sophia Antipolis.
The church grew in attendance but the only history that we have of the five years that followed was that during this period a number of French speakers began to attend the services and the church became bilingual whereby services were delivered in English and in French. In addition, there was the formal appointment of elders by Phil Beuchler. They were James Mills and Clive Hoggar.
In September 1996 the church moved to the auditorium of the CERAM University in Sophia Antipolis (now SKEMA) and by this time the average adult attendance was fifty.
Later in the same year the church was established as an organisation under the 1901 and 1905 laws covering worship organisations. The Cornerstone Association, with a set of articles and the appointment of an administrative council was established with the approval of thirty five members.
In January 1999, just three years later, the church was moved to its present rented facility with a capacity of over two hundred people. In the next few years the church was able to take on four rooms on the same floor for the use of children’s groups.
A lot happened in the spiritual life of the church but in terms of appointments and places there were not many changes.
Until 2010 when another James, James Morgan was appointed as assistant pastor.
At the end of the very next year, on the 4th of December 2011, James Mills, passed away. This ended a span of twenty years of service and devotion to Cornerstone, right from the beginning, seeking to encourage believers to live a bold Holy Spirit centred life and bringing the gospel of the love of Jesus to others.
Following the death of James Mills, James Morgan took up the role of pastor.
James is assisted by Mark Wallis as an elder who was appointed in April 2014.
OUR SERVICES
We are meeting every Sunday morning, on site and online.
From 10.30am
Follow us
LOCATION
3030 Chemin de St. Bernard 06220 Vallauris, France
CONTACT
3030 Chemin de St. Bernard 06220 Vallauris, France