HBC Blog

Gospel Growth in the Suburbs

Pastor Ryan and Pastor Mike recently had the opportunity to speak at the Gospel Coalition MidAtlantic conference.  Below is a brief summary of their session. Church growth will always be a hot topic, particularly in the suburbs.  Whether it’s something we verbalize [“How many people go to your church?” “What

Highlands Bible Church – at Cedar Mountain School

As we have previously announced …we have a LOCATION! Praise God! We will be meeting at the Cedar Mountain School, located at 17 Sammis Rd, Vernon, NJ 07462. It is just about as ideal of a location as one could find. Why is it ideal? Well, I’m glad you asked!

Not Only With Words…

Which is more important – words or actions? The old saying “action speaks louder than words” come to mind? How about the gospel itself…I mean you can do all the good deeds in the world, but the gospel is a message…so at some point you will have to speak. So

Resurrection. Really? Important.

This is the Easter season, and the highlight of it for Christians is Easter Sunday, where we traditionally celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.   This is a good time for us to consider two questions about the resurrection of Jesus. First, did the resurrection really happen?  In a word –

Do We Really Need More Churches?

Umm…at the risk of making this the shortest blog post ever…YES. OK, but seriously.  We do need more churches.  Why?  #OKCalmDown, I will explain. First, a question – take a guess – what is the current ratio of churches to people in the US? Like 1 church per XX number

A Historical Message

If you’ve been reading this blog more than 90 seconds, hopefully you have realized that we are really big on the gospel.  “Gospel centrality” is one of our core, non-negotiable values.  Darrin Patrick in his helpful book, Church Planter speaks of the gospel being a historical message.  When some people

What is the Mission?

In our exploration of the topic of church planting, we have already looked at the “why” in the last few posts, but now let’s take a look at the “what.”  What is it that churches do?  Or more pointedly – what is the most important thing churches do? What is

Compassion Killers

In the last post, we were talking about compassion being a major motivation for planting a church.  But there are some things we need to watch out for that kill compassion.  Such as: Legalism kills compassion.  When we hold so tightly to our own interpretation of what someone must do

Prepare for Take Off

If you’ve flown anywhere, those are good words.  It means the plane will soon head down the runway at (hopefully) high speed, take off, and fly you to your destination. Last night, the take off of Highlands Bible Church was overwhelmingly approved.  HBC will be the Vernon, NJ campus of the