About the Hightower Baptist Association
The Hightower Baptist Association traces its roots to 1835, when a group of Baptist churches across what is now North Georgia — in Dawson, Forsyth, Cherokee, Gwinnett, and North Fulton counties — covenanted together for the sake of fellowship, mutual encouragement, and a shared work of the gospel. As our founding documents put it, we are “the Baptist Church of Jesus Christ, having all been baptized upon a profession of faith in Christ and desirous of a spiritual union.” That desire for spiritual union, more than any organizational chart, is still what holds the Association together nearly two centuries later.
From the beginning, the churches of the Association have stood on the same Biblical truths, set out formally in our Abstract of Principles: one God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; the Scriptures as the sole rule of faith and practice; salvation by grace through the merits of Jesus Christ alone; and believer’s baptism by immersion as the sign of that faith. These eleven Articles aren’t a modern statement written to sound relevant — they are the same convictions the founding churches held, preserved so that each generation of member churches can know exactly what the Association has always believed.
The Association exists alongside its member churches — a fellowship for counsel and cooperation. That structure is expressed through four districts, each holding its own Union Meetings throughout the year, and through the annual meeting each fall, where Messengers chosen by the member churches gather to worship, conduct business, and renew the fellowship between congregations. The Constitution and Bylaws governing this structure were adopted in 1994 and finally reviewed and approved in 1995 at Mayfield Baptist Church in Forsyth County — a formal record of practices the Association had followed by custom for generations before.
That same spirit of churches working together also gave rise to the Association’s ministry to the wider community. In 2007, several members recognized a need to minister to physical as well as spiritual needs, and the churches of the Association joined together to begin the Hightower Association Food and Clothing Bank. What started in a small building in northwest Forsyth County grew, through prayer and the financial support of member churches, into a permanent home on Wallace Tatum Road in Cumming — a tangible expression of the same goal that has always united these churches: reaching our communities for Christ.
Today, the Hightower Baptist Association remains what it was in 1835: a fellowship of independent, like-minded Baptist churches choosing to stand together — on the same Scriptures, the same gospel, and the same calling to serve the people of North Georgia.