SEM conference presentation (2009). How do the performers, mediators, and listeners of alternative Christian rock negotiate these multiple tensions? How can their negotiations contribute to existing conceptions of mainstreams and alternatives? Describing the lived experiences of Cornerstone participants requires a perspective more subjectively nuanced than the strict dichotomies of previous models. In working through these ideas, this ethnography studies the ways in which Cornerstone contributes to participants’ self-conception of their Christian lifestyle: mainstream, alternative, and in-between.