Highlands family,

My greatest hope for Highlands is that we would be the healthiest, most God-honoring church we can be. I believe 2022 was an important year of growth for us, and as I reflect on the year, I see so many ways God has been at work among us.

This year, we worked hard to identify five Core Values that shape our identity as a church. These are core convictions that guide us in our mission to help people find and follow Jesus. These serve as strategic anchors, or guardrails, that keep us moving in a healthy direction.

The Core Values we strive to embody as a church are:

• Word-Centered Ministry – We open our Bibles to make decisions and to make disciples.
• Persistent Prayer– Only God gives the growth.
• Gospel-Shaped Community – Grace brings us together and keeps us together.
• Future Generations – The gospel must be preserved and passed down for future generations.
• Missionary Heart – We are wise witnesses wherever we go.  

We’ve organized this year’s Impact Report around these Core Values. As you read this report, I hope your faith is encouraged. I hope your confidence in God and His work grows. I hope you are inspired to partner with us in building a healthy, God-honoring church that spreads the gospel throughout Seattle and around the world.

Thank you so much for being part of our church! We have so many reasons to praise God!

Nate

This past June, we saw a long-awaited answer to prayer fulfilled when Evan Jarms joined our team as our Worship Leader. In the last few months, Evan has brought his passion for music and love for worship that is rooted in God’s Word to our services each Sunday. Colossians 3 tells Christians to “teach and admonish one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” As we lift our voices in praise each Sunday, it is more than a performance by those on stage but a collaborative gift of worship and a blessing to each other.

What does Word Centered Worship mean to you?

We believe that the Holy Spirit moves powerfully through the revelation of Scripture. Therefore, we center our gatherings around the light of God’s Word, asking the Spirit to illuminate our every act of worship. We sing songs based out of Scripture, we pray prayers guided by Scripture, we see the Word in action through baptism and communion, we read aloud passages of Scripture, and we listen expectantly to the preaching of Scripture. Because of the Holy Spirit, Word-centered worship has the power to change lives.

Evan recently completed his seminary and was officially commissioned as a pastor at his home church, where his dad is a pastor and he grew up serving. We are so thankful to God for bringing Evan and his wife Emily to Highlands and the blessing they are to our church family!

“I have been so blessed by hearing God’s people sing.  Just by hearing your voices every week, I have certainly been taught and admonished by the singing of Highlands Community Church!”
– Evan Jarms

Curtis began attending Highlands in June of 2021 with his fiancé Nicole. While he had been raised in a mainline church and knew the Bible stories, he was seeking something deeper. After a few weeks of attending Highlands, Curtis and Nicole inquired about and quickly got connected to a community group. It didn’t take them long to develop close relationships with the members of their group, benefiting from learning the importance of praying together, and having a supportive community.

Over the course of the following year, through conversations with his future father-in-law, Curtis began a personal relationship with Jesus. In June of 2022, he and Nicole were married and in July, Curtis was baptized. Praise God for how he moved in the lives of this young couple this year!

Curtis and Nicole have experienced the value of Gospel-Shaped Community by being able to do life with people in their group who span generational and cultural perspectives. As young Christians, they have been blessed by the biblical knowledge of experienced believers and have had opportunities for greater cultural awareness and appreciation.

Invited by a few friends at Highlands, Chandler skeptically decided to attend summer camp even though she’d only ever been to church twice before. Unsure what this “church” thing was all about and fearful about fitting in, she was nervous about what to expect and how to act.

From the very first service at camp, she felt a stirring of something unfamiliar. Everything about the environment: the sermons, the discussions, the food, and the people, were all different than she expected. It was fueled by an authentic love and exactly the right atmosphere for her to be introduced to Jesus at a time in her life when she needed Him the most. She began to notice God in unexpected ways. During a group discussion, the word “surrender” came up, and Chandler wrote it on her wrist as a visible reminder of what she was choosing to do in her heart. She recognized that everything gained and lost in her life had led her to God and now He was binding Himself to her. She had never felt this kind of love before.

On the last night of camp, during the final song service, Chandler joined the rest of her friends as they sang out in worship of God. No longer unsure of where and to whom she belonged, she raised her hands in worship. She looked up and saw the word she had written on her wrist, a few hours prior, “Surrender.”

Since camp, Chandler has joined a D-Group on Sunday nights and is learning what it means to follow Jesus.

“When our son, Joseph was born in April of this year, he suffered a perinatal stroke.”

In April of 2022, Kristen and Alex welcomed their baby boy, Joseph, into their family. While still in the hospital, Joseph suffered a seizure as a result of a perinatal stroke. In God’s providence, this happened before leaving and not in the car on the way home where it would have proved fatal. This was the first of many miracles observed during his first weeks of life. Joseph was quickly transported to the NICU at First Hill and Kristen and Alex reached out to family and friends, including members at Highlands, for prayer and support.

Persistent prayer surrounded the Ferguson family and Kristen and Alex were able to share updates and the miracles God was showing them with family, many of whom are not believers. They were able to include local family, friends and neighbors in an intimate prayer gathering held at their home and led by several pastors and elders from Highlands. It was an opportunity to share their faith and display the strength of God and beauty of a loving community.

Joseph continues to heal but has been diagnosed with a disability that will likely require mobility and potentially cognitive adaptions in the future. But God is faithful and good and He protected Joseph’s life! Even in the little things, like continuing to see bald eagles throughout his birth, NICU visit, and now walks around the neighborhood, these past eight months have drawn the Fergusons’ eyes heavenward in persistent prayer and thanksgiving to God!

Amount given to support global missions

To serve and love someone else. 

This year, on Labor Day weekend, we set out to serve the city of Renton through a series of projects. Over 150 of you gathered over three days and put in hundreds of hours to serve our city! Showing up at both a project on Saturday and Monday morning was Oscar and Olivia Myre with their son Oscar V. Looking for ways they could serve as a family and live out their faith, they signed up to serve both McKnight and Maywood Middle Schools, allowing them to give back to the district that Olivia works for, and the school Oscar currently attends.  

Not sure what to expect when they arrived at Maywood Middle School, they were tasked with clearing monstrously overgrown weeds and brush from one of the school’s courtyards. The Myre family jumped right in and served alongside other members of Highlands, school staff, and even the principal of Maywood! By the time they left, the courtyard was completely transformed, looking like it did when it was first developed back when Oscar IV attended in the ’80s.  Serving together over the weekend was a great way to focus on the needs of others and shift perspective from themselves to how they could serve and love someone else. 

Thank you to everyone who has given in 2022 through Highlands Community Church! These stories and many more like them are possible because of your generosity. Please consider giving a special one-time, year-end gift before December 31, 2022 to support our mission of helping people find and follow Jesus in 2023.