When the Rev. David Whiting moved to Ridgefield to become New Heights Church’s new lead pastor, he found a much different climate than his former home of Houston. This time of year, the Northwest often boasts blue skies and mild temperatures while Texas starts getting uncomfortably hot and humid.
The two areas also have contrasting religious climates. In the South, he said, the assumption is that everyone goes to church.
“The Northwest is similar to upstate New York,” said Whiting, who spent more than 20 years pastoring at Northridge Church in Rochester, N.Y. “There’s a lot more tendency for people not to attend church than to attend church.”
As a pastor, it requires a different approach, he said.
“We don’t assume everyone understands the Bible or even believes the Bible,” Whiting said. “When you show up at New Heights, you might not buy in yet. You might just be checking it out, and we’re glad you’re here. Every person needs to deal with questions of life and death and eternity and ‘What do I believe?’ So, we want to help people walk through that journey.”
The 50-year-old has been the lead pastor at New Heights for about three months, having taken over for retired pastor Matt Hannan. New Heights is one of the largest churches in Clark County with four locations.
For his first Easter in front of New Heights, the weekend’s running theme is a skeptic’s guide to Easter. He hopes those who come to a service feel like they’re part of a conversation rather than at a lecture or presentation.
“To do that, you have to prep well,” Whiting said. “I want to make sure what I say is true, accurate, compelling. … I’ve got 35 minutes.”
Maybe, he said, people reject Christianity because they know Christians who aren’t very Christ-like, or maybe their prayers weren’t answered or they don’t like what the Bible says about today’s social issues.
“Your rejection of Jesus should be based on one thing: Did Jesus rise from the dead or not? If Jesus rose from the dead, there’s implications to that,” Whiting said. “If he didn’t rise from the dead, then none of this matters.”
In the Christian tradition, Easter is the day Jesus was resurrected, having died on the cross two days prior (on what’s known as Good Friday). It’s the core of Christian faith, more significant than Christmas.
On Easter weekend, the normal 12 services are increased to 16, and people are given tickets to services to ensure there are enough seats for everyone. Whiting anticipates 5,000 to 8,000 attendees spread over New Heights’ four campuses, about double normal attendance.
‘I love Easter’
Matt Nissen, worship leader at New Heights’ main and north campuses, said preparation for Easter services began about a month ago. The church made videos where two men with atheist backgrounds talk about how they came to be Christians attending New Heights.
“Their stories are really powerful,” Nissen said.
The videos will be part of the 65-minute Easter service, which also includes the worship team singing a rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Ain’t no Grave.”
All together, there are hundreds of volunteers and staff who make Easter weekend run smoothly.
“I love Easter, because we get to see lots of new people checking out church for the first time,” Nissen said.
Drawn to New Heights
Before coming to Clark County, Whiting was a consultant with Vanderbloemen Search Group, a Houston-based Christian executive search firm.
His youngest daughter, Emily, had osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer, and Houston has one of the top cancer hospitals in the country, MD Anderson Cancer Center.
“We feel like God took us to Houston for my daughter’s cancer treatment,” he said.
When the cancer treatments concluded, the family began to wonder what was next. That was around the time Whiting was sent to Vancouver to talk with New Heights about what they were looking for in a new pastor.
“I began to think ‘Man, I think I’d be interested in New Heights Church,’ ” Whiting said.
He didn’t think it was appropriate to bring it up, so he prayed. Hannan, who led the church for 27 years, expressed interest in having Whiting apply to replace him. So, Whiting joined the pool of candidates, which was eventually whittled down to seven people, and then to just him.
These days, Whiting is getting to know the church and its employees, asking each person what the church’s strengths and weaknesses are to help create a vision for the church’s future. He said the mission of New Heights — to make more and better disciples — remains the same.
“How we do it changes from culture to culture and time to time,” he said.
