Cornerstone Church’s response to the recent media revelations provided by Melissa Hobson about her abuser, Martin Macdonald, from nearly 40 years ago.

Cornerstone Church is the new name for New Hope Ministries, which was founded here in Batavia shortly after 1983.  Pastor Robert Smith came from Kansas City, Missouri when the prior church needed a new pastor and then formed the new ministry.

Here’s some information that you need to make sense of the coverup that Mario Murillo revealed when he was on our property in June of this year, shutting down his tent meetings early. As Mario said, a young girl was molested by an assistant pastor and it was covered up, not by New Hope Ministries, but by overseers of other churches in the region when later revealed.

Melissa Hobson, formerly Melissa Smith, Pastor Robert Smith’s 11-year-old daughter, came to join him here in Batavia about June of 1983 with her mother and sister also. 

Melissa, at age 18, became the Children’s Pastor of the church. Not long after, in 1992, she met and married her husband, both of whom, within a couple of years, became pastors of New Hope Ministries. 

Melissa and her husband had several children themselves, but had a heart to become foster parents. When Melissa and her husband were in training to become foster parents about the year 2000, she had the realization from the training that as a minor child she had been abused when the assistant pastor of the church molested her repeatedly over a long period of time beginning when she was 12.  She shared this with her family and some close friends privately at first.  

Marty Macdonald and his wife came to the church that became New Hope in 1979.  Marty had been a farmer and began to volunteer full-time with Pastor Smith at the church about 1985 and stepped into a role as an assistant pastor by 1986. It was during this time period and after that he silently groomed and abused Melissa.

In the summer of 1994, Marty informed Pastor Smith and the church that he was leaving to take a position in Washington State. This was a great blow to the church at the time.  In 1995, he returned to Batavia and started another church. He began having meetings with people to entice them and pulled them out of New Hope for the new City Church, in effect splitting New Hope Ministries, just as the church had began a new building project.

He became well connected in the community and in Rochester and Buffalo and a well-known regional Christian leader. Since these abuse revelations came out in the year 2000 when he was no longer part of New Hope Ministries, the only authorities that could have held him accountable for his abuse of Melissa were the overseers of City Church and the various other overseers of the leadership networks in Rochester and Buffalo. Nothing came of it at the time.

Here we are, more than 20 years after this appalling behavior was exposed and there has been no correction by anyone. Pastor Smith was repeatedly told to “forgive and forget”. Please read for yourself what Melissa was told. It isn’t pretty.

We fully support Melissa for courageously telling her account of being subject to abuse. We want to both encourage her and pray for her and her family. It might seem that this rebuke to the abuser and those covering it up was too long in coming, but only God knows how and when to bring discipline to His church when repentance is not forthcoming on its own.

Sincerely,

Cornerstone Church

Here is the link to Melissa’s account of the abuse she suffered at TheWartburgWatch.com