Cornerstone Church is a church located near the intersection of U.S. Highway 30 and Interstate 35 in Ames, Iowa. The church’s mission statement is “helping people know and obey Jesus”. History Cornerstone Church was established in 1994 from its roots as a ministry for Iowa State University college students that was connected with Grand Avenue Baptist Church in Ames. Since this college ministry, The Salt Company, was becoming larger than the church's congregation, Grand Avenue Baptist Church gave approval for the leaders of The Salt Company to found a new organization that was named Cornerstone Church. This name was based on Ephesians 2:20 which states, “…with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.” The first service was held on August 28, 1994 in the evening at Grand Avenue Baptist. The core membership at that time consisted of 24 community people with an additional 200 students who attended regularly. Within six months the service had to move to a larger auditorium located in the Scheman Building at the Iowa State Center to accommodate for the increase in numbers. A year later, Cornerstone again grew out of their space and moved to the largest available auditorium space located at the Ames Middle School. The church continued to grow as The Salt Company also grew, and when the funds and land were available, a new building was constructed to house the organization and hold its services. In September 1999, the first service was held in the new building that Cornerstone Church continues to reside in. In the fall of 2007, Cornerstone announced an expansion project, which has included a 1,500-seat auditorium (as opposed to the original 637-seat auditorium) to account for continued growth that the church has experienced in recent years. Since then, Cornerstone has continued to grow, and has an average weekly attendance of 2,657. A ministry for college students at Iowa State University, called the Salt Company, has expanded to many universities across the Midwest. In partnership with the North American Mission Board, the founding of additional churches has become a major focus of the ministry of Cornerstone. The Salt Network was formalized in 2016, and has a stated goal of "planting a church and Salt Company at every major campus in the Midwest". During the first summer night of a youth Bible study program several minutes before 7 pm on June 2, 2022, a 33-year-old gunman Jonathan Lee Whitlatch of Boone