By Anna Skinner

Cornerstone Lutheran Church opened for its first service Nov. 20 in Fishers, 13450 E. 116th St.

The new indoor playground is expected to be a big hit for families. (Submitted photo)

Pastor Scott Giger said the most unique thing about the Fishers and Indianapolis locations, expansions from the Carmel location which was originally known as Carmel Lutheran Church, are the live sermons. Often, churches with multiple locations offer video sermons, which is not the case for CLC.

“It’s been a solid church for the community for that time (40 years). But through Carmel’s growth and Fishers is growing now, and over the past 10 years we have been looking this direction,” Giger said. “We had a sister church that was here (in Fishers) and didn’t make it. It closed about six years ago, so we are just trying to figure out the best way to serve the Fishers community is what pushed us over this direction. There are 1,000 people across the White River to worship in Carmel, so we have a base of people to start with.”

In addition to live sermons, a three-level playground was built inside the Fishers location and also opened Nov. 20.

“It’s multi-tiered and has slides and different passage ways and different obstacles that kids can climb on and climb through,” Giger said. “There’s a separate, smaller playground for preschool-aged children. With this playground, it’s not a place to drop your kid off. It’s to come and play with your kid.”

The playground is free of charge, but Giger said CLC has another sister church in Illinois that has begun charging for playground use due to the amount of kids at the site. The Fishers CLC playground is open 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and noon to 3 p.m. Sunday.

“The church has always had a family focus, so it’s not out of our norm to do something like this,” Giger said of the indoor playground. “This can be a blessing to people in the Fishers area, especially in the winter months. We are just looking for things we know the community would be best served by.”

A staff member will be at the indoor playground in case a child has an accident or needs emergency assistance.

For more, visit cornerstonelutheran.church.