Highland Heights Christian Church sits along SE Tecumseh Road on the eastern edge of Tecumseh, a small Shawnee County town southeast of Topeka. The congregation identifies itself with a plain statement: it is committed to teaching the truths of God's Word, working to help people become transformed followers of Jesus Christ, by His Holy Spirit, through the power of prayer, commitment to evangelism, discipleship, fellowship and missions. That sentence is more than a motto; it is the working outline for everything the church does across its Sunday services, its packed midweek calendar, its catechism instruction, its worldwide missions and its steady stream of pastoral writing.
Two Sunday Mornings at 8:30 and 10:00
The week centers on two Sunday morning worship services. The first begins at 8:30 a.m. and the second at 10:00 a.m., both held in the main sanctuary on the Tecumseh Road campus. Children of all ages are cared for during both services. A nursery is staffed throughout the morning, and during the second service a program called Kids' Own Worship dismisses children after the praise music for age-grouped teaching. K through 3rd grade meets in the KOW room on the lower level, while 4th through 6th grade gathers upstairs in Room 105.
The two-hour block between and around the services is filled with classes. During the first service, three groups meet: Rise and Shine, an adult Bible study working through books of the Bible one at a time in Room 102; the Teen Study Group for middle and high school students, led by Elder Curtis Current in Room 105; and the Young Children's Study for K through 6th grade, taught by Terri Current in the Library. During the second service, two adult classes gather: The Round Table in Room 103, currently working through Paul's letters, and the Chapel Class in Room 102, an expository study currently in the Gospel of John. The schedule is designed so that a family with elementary-aged children can worship together at 10:00, send their kids to Kids' Own Worship after the music, and then plug into an adult Bible study for the rest of the service.
A Packed Midweek Calendar
Outside Sunday, the church runs one of the more layered midweek schedules of any small church in the area. Tuesdays offer three options, all beginning at 6:30 p.m.: Biblical Apologetics with Pastor Patrick in the Fellowship Hall, a class that explores today's cultural questions and responds to them from Scripture; a James Bible Study led by Deacon Matthew Madinger in the North classroom; and GriefShare, a thirteen-week support ministry led by Barb Fraser in Room 102. Childcare is provided for all three.
Wednesdays begin with a daytime Men's Discipleship Group at 1:00 p.m. in Room 102, led by Elder John Johnson. The evening brings two parallel studies: a Bible study through the Book of Romans in the Fellowship Hall, taught by Elder Ben Jackson, and a Women's Study Group in the Library, led by Lindsay McDonald. The youth take over the building at the same hour. Tribe, the Wednesday youth program for 4th through 12th graders, runs from 6:30 to about 8:00 p.m. The night starts with dinner, then breaks into age-grouped rooms for teaching and fellowship.
Thursdays round out the week with two classes at 6:30 p.m. Foundations, in Room 103, is an eight-week course that walks through what the New Testament teaches about the church, from doctrine and baptism to spiritual gifts and service. It is taught by Elder John Johnson and Deacon Matthew Madinger, and sign-up is required. The Thursday Men's Group meets at 6:00 p.m. in Room 102 with Elder Ben Jackson; it is an open-door class with no sign-up.
Two monthly fellowship rhythms sit alongside the weekly schedule. A Men's Prayer Breakfast gathers on the third Saturday of every month at 8:00 a.m. in the Fellowship Hall. Ladies Game Night happens on the second Friday of every month from 6:45 to 8:30 p.m. in the same room, with board and card games. On Monday evenings at 7:00 p.m., Room 102 hosts an open Alcoholics Anonymous meeting that the church makes available to anyone seeking recovery.
Children, Youth, and the Next Generation
The church takes the discipleship of children and teenagers seriously enough to put it in print. The children's ministry is rooted in 2 Corinthians 4:7 - "we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." The conviction behind it is that developing a firm foundation of belief in Jesus Christ and a biblical worldview at an early age is critical, and that godly teachers are essential to that work. Beyond its own Sunday programs, the church actively supports the Jars of Clay Children's Center in the wider community.
Tribe, the Wednesday youth program for 4th grade through high school, is the centerpiece of the church's investment in its teenagers. The format is straightforward and consistent: a meal together, then time in age-grouped rooms where the full counsel of God is taught and the kids connect with one another. The Wednesday evening slot is also the regular meeting time for 6th through 12th graders to gather before service for the first service on Sundays. Younger kids, 5 years old through 5th grade, meet in Room 109 for the same first service hour.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism at the Center
One of the more distinctive features of Highland Heights Christian Church is the prominence it gives to the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The full text of the catechism, in modern wording with the original answers largely intact and supporting Scripture references appended to each one, is available as a teaching resource on the church's teaching menu. The catechism's first answer - "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever" - sets the tone for everything that follows. Question six affirms three persons in the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the same in substance, equal in power and glory. Question twenty-one identifies the Lord Jesus Christ as the only Redeemer of God's elect, the eternal Son of God who became man and continues forever as God and man in two distinct natures and one person. The catechism walks through the moral law summarized in the Ten Commandments, the work of the Holy Spirit in effectual calling, the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, and concludes with an exposition of the Lord's Prayer.
Adoption of the catechism is not a museum exercise. The pastor's preaching and writing treat its categories as live doctrine. In a season of written teaching on the church, the pastor laid out his belief in covenant theology - the conviction that there is one people of God across both Old and New Testaments, with believers from the nations grafted into the same olive tree Paul describes in Romans 11 - and named it as the framework he holds unwaveringly. He wrote against the dispensational idea that Israel and the church are two separate peoples, calling that doctrine unbiblical and rooting his critique in a long reading of Romans 9, Ephesians 2 and Galatians 3.
A Confessional Stand Against False Teaching
The teaching ministry of Highland Heights has a sharp, particular edge. The church's pastor, Patrick D. Garlock, writes regularly, and a steady stream of longer articles on eschatology, biblical interpretation, current trends in the wider church, and the Christian life fills the teaching menu. The tone is consistent: deep respect for the authority of Scripture, a willingness to name error, and an equally firm insistence that the speaker's tone remain gentle and respectful.
Several pieces work through the four traditional approaches to the Book of Revelation - Historicist, Idealist, Preterist and Futurist - and the meaning of the mark of the beast in Revelation 13. The pastor identifies most closely with the Idealist approach, which reads Revelation as a symbolic picture of the ongoing struggle between good and evil across the entire church age. A second extended series examines the doctrine of dispensationalism, the secret rapture, and the call for a third temple in Jerusalem. The pastor argues that the secret pre-tribulation rapture is not in the Bible, that the Holy Spirit is not removed from the earth during a tribulation, that believers are not promised an escape from suffering, and that a third temple with reinstituted sacrifices would be an affront to the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ. He ties dispensationalism's origin in the teaching of John Nelson Darby to its dependence on the idea of "dispensations" popularized by Joseph Smith, and concludes that dispensationalism is not merely unbiblical but heretical.
A third area of consistent teaching is a sustained critique of the Word of Faith movement and the Prosperity Gospel. The pastor recounts his own background, growing up Catholic and coming to faith in a Word of Faith church in 1988, and names Word of Faith teaching as one of the two streams, alongside Catholicism, that he has seen produce more former Christians than any other. He uses the examples of Paul and Job, the temptation of Christ, and the teachings of John Piper to argue that the Bible does not promise health and wealth to the faithful, and that prayer is not a tool to force God into granting prosperity. Other articles in the same vein push back against Christian Dominionism and the Seven Mountains theology, arguing that the church's commission is to make disciples, not to take political control of culture before Christ returns.
What holds all of this together is a set of convictions about what is essential and what is not. The essentials, in the church's teaching, are the virgin birth, the crucifixion, the resurrection, the deity of Jesus, the sinless life and the promised return of Christ. Non-essentials, including the details of eschatology and the timing of end-times events, are described as areas where genuine believers can agree to disagree with charity. The motto attributed to the Protestant tradition - "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity" - is treated as a guiding principle.
Weekly Devotions and Pastoral Writing
Alongside the longer articles, the teaching menu includes short devotions posted most weekdays. They are written by the pastor and other members of the church, and they cover an unusually wide range of starting points - a Star Trek episode on a fictional planet that has waged computer-simulated war for five centuries, a day without running water, a childhood lesson in walking through moving swings, a red pin worn by a medical assistant that says "Jesus Heals," the simple code used to disguise shoe prices in a small-town shoe store four decades ago, and the lines a riding mower leaves on a lawn. Each devotion lands on a passage of Scripture and a short, plain application. The voice is the same throughout: evangelical, confessional, practical and warm.
Reading Through the Bible in a Year
The church runs a year-long Bible reading plan called B.A.Y. - Bible a Year - structured around five days of reading each week, leaving weekends free for worship, fellowship, and catching up. The plan guides readers from creation through the Gospels, on the epistles, through the wisdom literature, the prophets, and back to Revelation, finishing the year in Psalm 150 and Revelation 22. The church recommends the ESV, with the NASB, LSB, KJV and NKJV listed as good alternatives, and offers to provide a Bible to anyone who needs one. A weekly newsletter, sermons, and Sunday classes reinforce the same passages during the week.
Doorstep and the Local Mission
Closer to home, the church has a long-standing partnership with Doorstep, Inc., a community organization that provides short-term basic needs and referrals to long-term resources for families and individuals in Topeka and Shawnee County. The church is both an active volunteer source and a supporting church. Members collect clothing, small appliances, bedding, diapers, jeans in specific sizes and a long list of non-perishable food items for the Doorstep food room. They also assemble move-in kits for families coming out of homelessness through Doorstep's Impact Avenue program, providing measuring cups and spoons, hand can openers, shower curtain liners and rings, cleaning supplies, spatulas, baking sheets and dish soap.
Once a year the church opens its grounds and its building to the wider community for Harvest Fest, a Saturday outreach the church describes as lots of fun for all. The annual calendar also includes a Children's Summer Program (VBS), a Chili Feed, a Dessert Auction, Movie Nights in the parking lot, Bingo Nights, a Ladies Christmas Tea, Quarter Mania, a Poinsettia Order at the start of Advent, a Ladies Spring Event, a Candlelight Christmas Eve Service, Child Dedication Sundays twice a year, a Compassion Sunday focused on giving to children in need, and a Fifth Sunday Fellowship Dinner-Potluck whenever the calendar tacks on a fifth Sunday.
The Kenya Sister Church Partnership
Since March 2020, Highland Heights Christian Church has partnered with Gekongo Fellowship Church in Ogembo, Kisii County, Kenya. The Kenyan church is registered locally as Highland Heights Christian Church - Kenya, and the relationship has been built on repeated visits and steady mutual support. The work of Gekongo Fellowship is wide: a church on the property, a school running from toddlers through sixth grade with the hope of growing through twelfth grade, and a home that operates as an orphanage, never turning a child away from a Christ-centered school. The leadership, Pastor Jared and his wife Sister Grace, have anchored their ministry in their own backyard, and the call to Highland Heights has been to pull alongside them, supplying basic needs and strengthening their outreach to the surrounding community. A line from the partnership materials, in Kisii, sums up the posture: "There is much more work to be done in Christ." Members are encouraged to pray for HHCC Kenya and to support the partnership financially.
Following Along and Getting Involved
For those who cannot attend in person, services are livestreamed on the church's YouTube channel. The same channel hosts an archive of sermons and teaching. The church is also active on Facebook and on Rumble. Devotions, sermon notes, current teaching series and event updates are posted regularly. Giving is available online through a secure giving page, and visitors with questions can reach the church office by phone at 785-379-5642 or by email at hhcc@highlandheightscc.com. Those who want to learn more about the church before visiting can attend Discovering HHCC, a short orientation offered periodically throughout the year.
Beliefs in Brief
Highland Heights Christian Church is, by its own description, non-denominational and evangelical, with a teaching ministry deeply shaped by the historic Reformed confessions. It holds to the Trinity, the full deity and humanity of Jesus Christ, the once-for-all atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross, the bodily resurrection of Christ and the future bodily return of Christ as essential doctrines. It holds to the moral authority of the Ten Commandments, the inspiration and sufficiency of Scripture, and the administration of the two New Testament sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper. It teaches covenant theology, the unity of the people of God across the Old and New Testaments, and an amillennial understanding of Revelation 20's thousand-year reference as a picture of the entire era between Christ's two advents. It is firmly critical of dispensationalism, the secret pre-tribulation rapture teaching, the Word of Faith and Prosperity Gospel movements, and Christian Dominionism. It welcomes visitors of every background to its Sunday services, its midweek classes, its youth programs and its community events, and it asks the same question of every person who walks through its doors that it asks of its own members: what does it look like to follow Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit, in prayer, evangelism, discipleship, fellowship and mission?