New Heights Church is a Southern Baptist church (shocking, we know). We might not look like your typical Baptist church, but our core doctrines and beliefs are baptistic. We unite with approximately 47,000 other churches in the Southern Baptist Convention to form the largest missional collaboration on the planet, funding thousands of missionaries in foreign countries as well as thousands of church planters in North America. In addition to this affiliation, we are also part of a network of churches called Acts 29, that focuses exclusively on planting new churches worldwide.

We believe that God has given the church two sacraments (sometimes called ordinances)—baptism and communion. Neither of these are necessary for salvation, but they are to be observed with reverence and care by every church. Every Christian should be baptized as a profession of their faith in Jesus, identifying in water with his burial and resurrection. Every Christian should continually observe the Lord’s Supper that Jesus instituted on the night he was betrayed, proclaiming through bread and wine the substitutionary death of Christ.

In short, we don’t do altar calls because we don’t see any examples of them in scripture. Instead, we see people being called into the church to observe the sacraments. We believe the most biblical way to profess faith in Jesus Christ is not by walking to the front of a room and kneeling at an altar. Biblically, God’s design for a profession of faith is baptism. Additionally, the biblical altar call that we do every week at our church is an invitation to respond to God through the Lord’s table, communion.

Every example of pastors (elders) of local churches in the New Testament has a plurality. It seems normative and by design that each local church would ideally have a plurality of pastors for accountability and accessible care for the members of that church.

Hebrews 13:17 makes it clear that pastors of local churches must give an account for those in their care. Without membership, there is no clarity on who we are caring for. Membership is a covenant that explicitly states a desire to be part of a local church family. Additionally, the commands of scripture for benevolent care, exercise of spiritual gifts, numerical records, etc. all become more practical and helpful with formal covenant membership.

We do not believe that non-members are responsible for the financial obligations of a local church. Because we value covenant membership, we believe that all the members of our church should be the ones who fuel the work of our church by their generosity. Every member of our church promises to live generously so we don’t need to ask for funds every Sunday.