Part A - Citipointe Christian Church

The second church I attended was at one of Australia’s biggest churches, Citipointe Christian Church. The church started in 1974, and was known as the Christian Outreach Centre Mansfield, and only a small amount of followers attending. During the same time the church was being built, a school that was going to be run by the church, was being built. The school was named after that church, the Christian Outreach College Mansfield. However, over the past 30 years, the church and school both have grown and expanded simultaneously, with the church having over 5000 attendees and the school teaching over 1500 students at the college, international college and heritage college. The church has also changed its name from COC to its present name, Citipointe Christian Church. (Chrisitan Outreach College Brisbane, http://www.brisbane.coc.edu.au/).

Citipointe is in affiliation with the COC (Christian Outreach Centres) branch of
churches. Some people consider COC to be an affiliation of its own, and others would categorize Citipointe to be an ACC church, because of it’s beliefs and styles of worship.

ACC was originated in 1937, when two Protestant pastors felt like their needed to be more unity in the church, so the pastors decided to join their two churches and make a “megachurch”. However, this type of Pentecostal worship has only been noticed over the past 15 years when Pastor Brian Houston created Hillsong Church, the biggest Pentecostal church in Australia. COC was established the same time that the Mansfield campus was built, making Citipointe the head of the COC affiliates. The ACC and COC denomination heavily believe that the Bible is the accurate way of living, and what we do in life, so co-inside with the Bible’s ways of teaching.

My experience at Citipointe was amazing. Even though the church is so big, everyone is really friendly and really goes out of there way to make sure you are happy in the environment of the church. I attended one of the night services, which are aimed at young adults. The service was run by young adults Pastor George Salloum, who works under senior Pastors Mark and Leigh Ramsey. The service was not a completely normal service. The service was all about: “A night with Our King”. The main focus was to really see our God.

The service began with a Citipointe Live member performing the song, “Majesty”, which then lead straight into praise and worship, led by the Citipointe Live band, headed up by Pastors Aaron and Becky Lucas. The praise and worship was insane, that is the only word that can describe the feeling s and emotions that I felt during the praise and worship. All the songs that were performed by Citipointe Live were written and composed by Citipointe Live members, mainly Aaron and Becky Lucas and Joel Ramsey. Because everyone is so free during their own worship, it makes it a lot easier to really put yourself forward and be as vibrant as you want during your worship and praise.

The message for the night was preached by Pastor Tim Macdonald. In relevance of “A Night with Our King”, Tim preached about being at church, but actually trying to meet with our God. He used the example of a really famous Elvis impersonator who performed over 600 songs at 10,000 shows in his impersonating career, but never got to meet the “King”, Elvis himself. Pastor Tim used this story in relevance to our relationship to God. When we come to church, do we just come for the show, or do we really want to meet with our King.

After his sermon, Tim invited everyone to stand before the altar and really try and meet with God. This was another time of worship. I felt really relaxed to freely worship and really had the chance to meet with God. I was really moved and touched by the use of words and songs that the Citipointe Live band used in this time of worship, which really shows that they put everything they do before God, and want god to anoint everything they do with his Glory.

In conclusion, Citipointe Christian Church really puts God above everything they do. They really reach out to our younger generation in hope that we can change the world in power of God. It is a welcoming church, despite it’s size and allows all it’s followers to be free and vibrant in their own time with God.