From time to time, the elders receive questions from people within our fellowship. Below are the current questions that have been asked and answers from the leaders who have the best information to share. If you have a question, talk to an elder, a member of the Centerpointe staff, or call the office. We will get back to you with an answer.
Q. Why do we have a Church Administrator?
A. Session approved a half-time Church Administrator in the staffing plan for the new Centerpointe campus. Having an administrator focus on ministry support, finance, facilities, operations and personnel is a common practice for many churches. Having a Church Administrator over the past year has freed Pastor Mike, and the other ministry leaders, to focus on the ministries of Centerpointe, including God’s vision for the church, mission and ministry development, and pastoral care, rather than the operational and administrative aspects of the church.
Q. The Baptistry and Water Feature is beautiful! Praise God for this wonderful gift to our campus. What thought has been given to safety and protection from vandalism?
A. Great question, thanks. The Baptistry has been designed to meet or exceed every applicable building safety code. Our contractor, Rick Ruzbarsky of Hacienda Pools Construction, has been extraordinarily diligent in this process meeting face to face with city building officials for plan checks before construction and having several on-site meetings during construction. Rick came up with a very thoughtful design that makes this the equivalent of an outdoor water feature, much like you might find at a public park or at a building or shopping complex. In order to meet all safety codes, Rick installed aluminum grates over the deepest part of the baptistry and by city requirement these grates can withstand significant weight loads (like several people standing on them at once). With the grates in place, the depth of the water is about 11 inches, more than meeting the code requirement of a maximum of 18” of water for water features. When we take the grates out on a day we are having a baptism, we will either put up a temporary fence until its time for the baptism, or we will have someone stand watch. With regard to vandalism, we do in fact run the risk that this water feature, just like all the other campus facilities may be subject to vandalism and we pray God’s protection against such an occurrence.
During the week and on Sundays, the water feature elements will be turned on for everyone’s enjoyment. We hope many will come and experience this unique gift, maybe sitting at a table and reading a good book, having a conversation, or praying. And we look forward with great eagerness to witnessing many baptisms where by full immersion, we take in visually what the sacrament means: dying to our old life and sin nature, and rising again to life in Christ, resurrection life as it is meant to be.
Pastor Mike Barris
Q. In some of our advertising around Christmas, we used the name Centerpointe Church. How come we didn’t use the word Presbyterian in the name?
A. Thank you for your question. Across the country churches are recognizing that we are dealing with the first post-church generation in the history of the country. Most of the people God has called us to reach did not grow up with any church experience and have no clue what denominations are or what they stand for. Language that believers and members of a given denomination readily understand means nothing to this post-church generation.
One of our key goals is to eliminate as many “barriers’’ as we can when reaching out into our community. Language is very important. During the process of deciding on the name Centerpointe Presbyterian Church, we said that we would use the formal name on some occasions and, on others, just use Centerpointe or Centerpointe Church, depending upon what population of people we were trying to reach and whether or not a denominational name might create a barrier to engaging us. Our formal name reflects our identity and heritage, which is something we celebrate as a church body. Our communications to the community on the other hand, reflects our desire to eliminate any roadblocks to connecting with us so that we can in turn share our identity and heritage with them.
Elder Tim Hunt
