About Our Leadership Team
Paddy Harris
Paddy Harris is our Pastor and has been part of the Cornerstone leadership team from the church's beginning. He is married to Clare, and they have three children: Zachary, Noah and Lily. Paddy was formerly the Youth Pastor and an Elder at Long Crendon Baptist Church who planted Cornerstone in 2006. Paddy is a keen wicket keeper whose main contribution to Thame cricket club is in the quality of his sledging. He loves his family and is keen to pastor a
church his kids love to attend. Paddy wishes he could ski and sail more than he gets to.
Clare works three days a week for an International Christian Missionary Agency in their High Wycombe office. Her duties include planning their international conference as well as
administration support for the team. Clare helps out at Cornerstone in a whole heap of ways ranging from being part of the projector team to leading Bible studies.
Nick Francis
Nick is married to Liz and has 2 boys – Daniel and Thomas. Previously Nick was a youth pastor in a number of churches and denominations for 15 years. After a slight career change, he now works locally in IT.
He is passionate about tech, worship & teaching and loves seeing people connect with God and learn from God. He is also keen to see and help young people be engaged in all areas of
church and discover their full God given potential.
Nick’s wife, Liz, is passionate about justice and prayer and regularly campaigns on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves.
Stuart Mcneil
Stuart is married to Lucy and has 2 girls - Annabel & Bethany
Lisa Lawson
Lisa has been part of the Cornerstone family for about 12 years. She has a partner Peter, and 2 grown up girls, Heather and Anna, and a Grandson Reuben.
Lisa was a nurse in the NHS for 33 years. Many of these years being in management. She now works in part time administration.
Lisa hopes to utilise her management skills for the benefit of Cornerstone in areas such as risk assessment, HR, governance, organisation, and safeguarding.
Lisa has a passion for caring and pastoral support, and a particular passion for working alongside those in the later years of their lives. She has enjoyed developing a ministry at Windmill Place.
Lisa spends her spare time caring for family members. She also loves being out in Nature with her camera and photographing birds. She enjoys knitting and journaling, walking, and the seaside, particularly Cornwall
Steve Laws
Steve is married to B and has three grown up children. They’ve been coming to Cornerstone for a good many years now!
Steve works internationally in the medtech industry with a particular focus on Oncology. His professional passion is the application of technology in cancer care and in particular in developing parts of the world.
He is passionate about youth and worship and now enjoys applying some of his financial experience to the church treasurer role. His passion is to see people thrive and develop in their faith, experiencing the joy and fulfilment of a relationship with Jesus.
Kate Openshaw
Kate started coming to Cornerstone at the beginning of 2023 having moved from Essex where Andrew, her husband, had been the minister of Homelands Free Church in Frinton-on-Sea. Andrew is now a Regional Minister and Company Secretary for the Central Baptist Association, of which Cornerstone is a part of.
Kate has three adult children, two of whom live elsewhere, so she’s always happy to meet up with them when she can.
Professionally she’s a Team Leader in the restaurant at Haddenham Garden Centre and loves interacting with the staff and customers. Kate loves being with people – getting to know them and to get beside them. She likes caring for people and loves food!
For fun she is a Brownie Leader in Thame with Girlguiding but in her spare time will always be found reading, sewing or doing music.
Previously, as a family, they spent many years abroad in Germany and France and were involved in the leadership teams in both Baptist and Anglican churches in Münster and Lille.
Luke Fisher
Luke joined the church with his wife Amy in 2022 after moving from London and is enjoying building deeper relationships within Church.
Luke finds fulfilment in helping out in any form within Church and enjoys working with the children’s team on SClub.
As well as enjoying worship, Luke feels passionately about discipleship and is looking forward to seeing what this next season has in store, both for himself and Cornerstone Church.