Worship Musician ’ s own Doug Doppler visited with Chris Griffin of Highlands Worship , in our January 2021 issue . Much has changed , and despite Covid , much has grown . We caught up with Church of the Highlands Worship Creative Director Chris Griffin to discuss their new Christmas project , Comfort and Joy , and just how they pull off such a massive undertaking of directing the worship program on 23 church campuses . Comfort and Joy is available via streaming , download , and compact disc , as well as the full resource materials of multi-tracks , lighting , graphics , video , and instrumental support .
[ WM ] Chris , it ’ s so very nice to visit with you today !
[ Chris Griffin ] Thanks ! From our preinterview conversation , I can already feel the good vibes and feel a great connection .
[ WM ] Why thanks ! I would like to begin with you telling us about Church of the Highlands and the ARC affiliation of churches . How do you integrate 23 churches to worship as one , yet function separately ?
[ Chris ] Let ' s see . Church of the Highlands was founded in 2001 . Our senior pastor is Chris Hodges , and the church was founded and started in Mountain Brook High School here ( in the Birmingham , AL area ). They stayed there five or six years and then built what is now our broadcast campus . Originally this main campus was designed to be a lot larger . But then maybe 10 miles east of our broadcast campus , there was another church , and the pastor passed away and his wife sold us the building for a dollar . And so , that was our intro into a multisite campus .
He had no idea how to do it . It wasn ' t a thing in the early 2000s . And we had a guy that was driving at breakneck speed from the first service , taking a copy of the message over to the new campus , to plug it in , and play it at their first service , and all the things that happened . And then over the last 20 years , we have grown primarily in our state . I think we have one campus that ' s in Georgia , but we ' ve grown to 23 campus locations . Now the ARC , Association of Related Churches , was founded , I think around the same time by Billy Hornsby , who was our senior pastor ’ s wife ' s father . And that is how the ARC Association of Related Churches was founded . It is a church denominational network that is very closely tied to Church of the Highlands .
[ WM ] I appreciate how diverse your worship leading teams are , in size , in diversity , in musical style and structure , and in presentation . Can you tell us about this adaptability ?
[ Chris ] What a grand question ! Sure . Again ,