Our Vision

TO KNOW CHRIST AND TO MAKE HIM KNOWN


We strive to be a church that knows and loves God passionately

seeking to make Him known and loved both at home and throughout the world. 

This vision is put into practice in the three areas of church life that we emphasize: 

COMMUNION with God, COMMUNITY with one another, and COMMISSION to the world near and far.

Our Purposes

The 5 Purposes of Centerpoint Community Church are:

  1. WORSHIP: To praise and worship the Living God individually and corporately.  We encourage each person to grow in the knowledge of God, so as to respond to Him with reverence and love.  We also value the gathering together of followers of Christ to honor and glorify Him through God-centered music and Bible-centered preaching.
  2. FELLOWSHIP: To fellowship as God’s family, promoting commitment to one another within our local church.  We endeavor to never neglect the gathering together of God's people for the purpose of building one another up in our faith and reflecting Christ well by our love for one another.
  3. DISCIPLESHIP: To build up believers for godly living both individually and corporately according to the means of grace contained in the Scriptures.  We believe in the authority and power of God's word to renew our minds, conform us to His image, and to give us hope.  Sharing in the study of God's word partnered with practical application in everyday life is vital to growing as a disciple of Christ.
  4. MINISTRY: To help every believer discover their gifting and ministry so as to serve and build up each other in the church, and to extend grace and mercy to our neighbor.  God has uniquely gifted us as brothers and sisters in Christ, making us each a beautiful and necessary reflection of Jesus in this world both individually and corporately.
  5. MISSION: To maintain the terms of the Church’s Great Commission, spreading the Gospel Of Christ through word and deed through personal and corporate involvement, both at home and abroad.  We invest in the spread of the gospel through various means throughout the world allocating time, money, and people to the cause of Christ.

Our Means

The Means to accomplish these purposes are:

  • Teaching the Bible consistently and thoroughly, with application of its principles.
  • Establishing prayer as a priority in the life of the church.
  • Training and encouraging disciples to be a witness for Christ within our sphere of influence.
  • Promoting personal and financial involvement with church ministry, local ministry, and foreign missions.
  • Practicing the ordinances of water baptism and the Lord's table.
  • Sharing community life within the body by promoting participation in:  
    1. one-on-one discipleship for intimate sharing, and personal growth
    2. small groups for collective sharing and interactive growth
    3. united meetings for corporate worship and teaching.
  • Nurturing the exercise of individual spiritual gifts for the edification of the whole.
  • Strengthening home and family life.

Our Beginning

Our church was formed by a small group of residents from Chesapeake. Most of the beginning congregation attended Tabernacle Church of Norfolk, a church started by John Dunlap. They had their first meeting during Tab's Sunday School hour on Easter, 1979. They continued meeting until Summer, and were joined by a few families from the Virginia Beach Community Chapel. In May 1979 the church met officially in Chesapeake, for the first time, at the home of Paul and Bobbie Hardesty.  John Dunlap served as the original pastor and Pastor Garrick filled in when needed.

After five months the fellowship had outgrown the Hardesty home with 55 attending regularly. They met for a brief time at Tidewater Community College and then used the facilities at the Twiford Funeral Home in Great Bridge, free of charge. Tom and Mabel Kenny (Pastor at Peninsula Community Chapel) took time off from seminary during those early, crucial months. Tom and Mabel organized the children's ministry and developed a Sunday evening Small Group program. They started neighborhood visitation that resulted in 250 homes being contacted and supervised the neighborhood ACTION Clubs providing continuity to the whole venture. 

Gene Garrick, of Tab Church sent an introductory letter to all the friends of Tabernacle Church and extended ministries which explained the philosophy of ministry for the beginning of this new church with three distinctives:

  1. Encouraging personal growth in individuals by teaching God's word and emphasizing those basic Scriptural truths that unite and strengthen all Christians
  2. Exhibiting a genuine caring community of people who are committed to the Lord and to one another.
  3. Extending the message of Christ's love and salvation locally and worldwide.

Former pastors include John Wenzel (1980-1996), and Scott Hill (1996-2015)


Our Ties to Other Churches

Centerpoint Community Church (Centerpoint) was a church plant of Tabernacle Church of Norfolk (Tab) and was originally named Community Church of Chesapeake. Tab was begun in the 1940s by a group of people associated with the Christian Missionary Alliance but was established as a non-denominational church. Likewise Centerpoint is non-denominational and broadly evangelical. As a broadly evangelical church, Centerpoint seeks to focus on those aspects of the Christian life most evangelicals hold in common: a high view of scripture, the Lordship of Christ over all areas of life, local and personal evangelism and world missions.

Centerpoint maintains close ties to Tab Church and it's other church plants in the Tidewater / Hampton Roads area of Virginia. This group of churches calls itself the 'Consortium.' The Consortium is a group of aligned “sister” and “mother” churches that are united in the vision and focus of being broadly evangelical and committed to global missions. Consortium churches share needed counsel and assistance by working together in global missions endeavors, gathering for special ministry and fellowship events, exchanging pulpits periodically and praying for one another.

The Consortium consists of: Centerpoint Community Church, Tabernacle Church of Norfolk, James River Community Church, Virginia Beach Community Chapel, Williamsburg Community Chapel, Eastside Church, and Peninsula Community Chapel.


Centerpoint also partners with Harbor Network, a member-based association of churches that has been launching new churches and developing church leaders since 2011. Harbor Network provides services and structure to offer the safety and support needed to launch, lead, and multiply thriving churches.