A Congregation of the River and the Ridge
The story of South Ridge Community Church begins in May 1870 on the banks of the South Branch of the Raritan River, where six Clinton residents were baptized. They joined with thirty-one worshippers from neighboring Bethlehem Baptist Church to form a new congregation, which they called Clinton Baptist Church. By March 1872 the first pastor, Henry Westcott, was installed, and in August of that year the church moved into its first home at 55 Leigh Street. The land was a gift from J.G. Leigh, and the building was constructed for $10,500. For ninety-four years, the Baptists of Clinton worshipped there.
In the 1940s the Leigh Street building began to feel cramped. A committee located seven acres on a hill just outside of town, the parcel where the church still meets today. The vision divided the small fellowship; some left, leaving only about a dozen families. Led by Pastor Sparling, those who stayed took out personal loans to build a modest new structure with three hundred seats, and they did much of the work themselves. When the new building opened on May 7, 1967, the members carried several heirlooms with them from the Leigh Street sanctuary: the cornerstone and bell, which still stand in the yard beside the present building; an old Bible from the original church; and a cross handmade by Pastor Earl Cook, which now hangs in the balcony.
For several years before 2004, the congregation had discussed whether the word "Baptist" in its name was keeping it from reaching the surrounding community. The vote to rename the church came on November 23, 2003, but the Baptist affiliation was kept. On Sunday, March 28, 2004, the church held its last services as Clinton Baptist Church and celebrated its rich history. The following Sunday, April 4, 2004, the congregation gathered for the first time as South Ridge Community Church.
Experience Belonging, Embrace Grace, Extend Love
The mission of South Ridge is woven into a single sentence: people are invited to Experience Belonging, Embrace God's Grace, and Extend God's Love. Belonging is treated as a deep human need because the congregation teaches that human beings were made by a relational God for relationship. In an increasingly digital culture, the church holds that authentic connection and being fully known and fully loved are essential to human flourishing, and that the ultimate belonging for any believer is secure in Christ.
Embracing grace begins with the gospel. The congregation teaches that each person has been intentionally created by God to know Him, and that the good news of the gospel is that God has moved toward humanity in the person of Jesus. The most important decision a person can make is to receive Jesus as Savior and to keep going deeper into the gospel rather than moving on from it, allowing the relationship with Jesus and His grace and truth to permeate every part of life.
From grace flows love. Rather than living as passive recipients of God's grace, the people of South Ridge are called to partner with God by extending His love to their families, neighborhoods, community, and world. They prioritize loving and serving others in Jesus' name above self-comfort and pleasure, and they seek to invest their gifts, resources, and abilities as agents of God's renewal.
Sunday Mornings on Pittstown Road
South Ridge meets for worship on Sundays at 9:00 AM and 10:45 AM in the auditorium. The two services are identical and each lasts about seventy-five minutes. The church office is open from 9 AM to 4 PM, Monday through Thursday, and can be reached at (908) 735-5252. Visitors who come on Sunday are invited to stop by the Welcome Center in the lobby, where someone will greet them, listen to their story, and help them learn more about ministries and upcoming events. A New Here card lets first-time guests share their information so a staff member can follow up.
Services are livestreamed online every Sunday at the same two times through Vimeo, and recordings of previous services are posted to the messages archive each Monday. Members and regular attenders also give and engage through the Church Center app, which is available for both Apple and Android devices and serves as the church's main communication and registration hub. RightNow Media, a library of Bible teaching videos for all ages, is offered free through the church as well.
SR Kids: Birth Through Sixth Grade
SR Kids serves children in nursery through sixth grade with the same mission that shapes the rest of the church: to Experience Belonging, Embrace God's Grace, and Extend God's Love. Children are nurtured and engaged with God's Word, love, and truth in an encouraging environment designed around their interests.
During the ministry year from September through June, the SR Kids Nursery is available for children from birth through eighteen months at both the 9:00 AM and 10:45 AM services. SR Kids programming for toddlers through sixth grade is offered at the 9:00 AM service, and toddlers through fourth grade are welcomed at the 10:45 AM service. During July and August, both nursery and SR Kids programming are offered only at the 9:00 AM service. Check-in stations are located at the Nursery, in the lower level, and in the Activity Center. A family ministry resources page recommends children's Bibles and family devotional books that staff members have personally vetted, including The Jesus Storybook Bible, Egermeier's Bible Story Book, and You Are Special by Max Lucado.
SR Students: Seventh Through Twelfth Grade
SR Students exists for students in grades seven through twelve, with the aim of connecting them to God, to one another, and to leaders who walk alongside them. Two weekly gatherings shape this ministry. Crossover meets on Sunday mornings at 9:00 AM in the lower level during the 9:00 service and addresses hard topics through the lens of a Biblical worldview, with student interaction and conversation encouraged. The Ridge meets on Sunday evenings from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM during the school year on the South Ridge campus, with opportunities to worship, hear Biblical teaching, share in Life Groups, and participate in structured community activities.
The SR Students team has also produced a five-part video series called "How to Study the Bible," which equips students with practical tools for engaging Scripture. Family ministry resources for students include book recommendations from Pastor of Family Ministry Jon Ciotta, who highlights titles such as Before You Lose Your Faith, Rewire Your Anxious Brain, Crazy Love by Francis Chan, The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, and While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks by Timothy Laniak.
Family Ministry Across Every Stage
The Family Ministry at South Ridge is built around a framework designed to disciple parents, grandparents, and guardians at every stage of family life. The framework includes Child Dedication, a twice-a-year celebration in which parents acknowledge the gift of their child, entrust their child to God's purposes, and commit to honoring God in parenting. Infant baptism is not practiced; instead, the church practices child dedication, and children are encouraged to wait for baptism until they are old enough to have placed their own faith in Jesus and to understand what baptism means. Understanding Baptism is a one-session gathering often led by Pastor of Discipleship Jeremy Moore, sometimes with Pastor of Family Ministry Jon Ciotta, and is the first step toward being baptized.
Vacation Bible School is described as the best week of the summer, when hundreds of kids from the church and community are engaged and impacted by the gospel. Other resources for family disciplers include age-and-stage book recommendations, podcast suggestions like The Bible Project and The Ten Minute Bible Hour, and a dedicated page of books and videos covering parenting, grandparenting, marriage, anxiety, and discipleship.
For grandparents, the church hosts a group called "The Grand Life," which reads together and prays together around titles such as Extreme Grandparenting by Tim and Darcy Kimmel, Overcoming Grandparenting Barriers by Larry Fowler, and The Power of a Praying Grandparent by Stormie Omartian.
Groups of All Shapes and Sizes
South Ridge teaches that "one another" appears all throughout the Bible and that no one can fulfill God's vision for growth alone. Groups are the church's primary way of building community, and they come in four flavors.
Care and Support Groups address targeted areas where strengthening and healing are needed. They meet for specific seasons and purposes, though some provide ongoing support. Campus and Life Groups are the most broadly aimed discipleship groups and meet either on or off campus, in homes or other communities, or even online. They kick off in September or late January and run through June. Interest Groups bring people together around common hobbies and activities, both as a way to build relationships and to extend God's love to those who may not yet be followers of Jesus. Family Ministry Groups equip individuals for the role they play within their families, with offerings for parents, grandparents, and other caregivers.
Groups meet at a variety of times throughout the week, with many meeting on Sunday mornings on campus and on Wednesday evenings, and others meeting off campus or virtually. The Church Center app is the place to browse all current groups and to sign up.
A Network of Care and Support
Through what the church calls the Care Network, South Ridge seeks to provide encouragement, bear one another's burdens, and fulfill the law of Christ. The Care ministry offers several avenues of help.
A counseling referral service connects people with biblically grounded, qualified counselors when professional help is needed. Helping Hands is the church's ministry for matching tangible needs with willing volunteers. The kinds of needs vary widely: meals, furniture, car rides for medical appointments, and other practical supports for single parents, the elderly, those without family support, and individuals or families going through hardship. The ministry serves both the South Ridge congregation and the wider community.
Marriage preparation is taken seriously at South Ridge. While the church does not require that South Ridge facilitate premarital preparation, couples who wish to use the church facility for their wedding are asked to complete pre-marriage mentoring. The process includes a questionnaire, an initial conversation with Pastor of Discipleship Jeremy Moore, mentoring sessions with a qualified leader or mentoring couple, and a meeting with the officiating pastor. A Wedding Coordinator is assigned to walk couples through ceremony details.
The church also publishes a list of community resources on its Care and Support page, including Helpline Hunterdon County, the Hunterdon County Housing Resource Guide, a list of Hunterdon County food pantries, Family Promise of Hunterdon County, and the Hunterdon County Division of Social Services.
Prayer as a Spiritual Habit
Prayer is treated as central to the life of South Ridge. The church's stated vision is to see people spiritually connected to each other through prayer, and three pathways are encouraged. Members and regular attenders are invited to seek prayer in their SR Group or serving team, to call the church office to be connected with someone for prayer, or to submit a request through the Prayer Wall, a system that uses only initials to protect privacy. Periodically, the church office also sends ePrayer emails with emergency prayer requests for attendees, members, and their immediate family members; subscribers are asked to keep these requests within the South Ridge family and not repost them to social media in order to protect the privacy of those involved.
Serving in the Community
The congregation is invited to fill out a brief Serve Form indicating which ministry area they are interested in, after which a ministry leader will follow up. Opportunities to serve include SR Kids, SR Students, SR Groups, Worship and Tech, Welcoming and Greeting, Photography and Video, Campus Safety, Facilities, and Helping Hands.
South Ridge also partners with several local efforts. Through America's Grow-A-Row, volunteers plant, harvest, and distribute fresh produce at free farm markets across New Jersey and Pennsylvania in the spring, summer, and fall. Through Family Promise of Hunterdon County, volunteers feed and fellowship with families experiencing homelessness, with multiple shifts that include meal prep, hosting, and overnight hospitality. The contact for Family Promise serving is Dave and Cathy Hoos. Helping Hands, described above, meets needs inside the church and in the wider community. Project Horses 4 Forces, based in Long Valley, New Jersey, serves military veterans, active service members, and their families through horsemanship, and South Ridge supports this work as well.
Extend Ministry Partners Near and Far
South Ridge's Extend Ministry Partners program is built around the idea that partners "Extend God's Love" both locally and globally. Fifteen percent of all financial giving received by South Ridge goes outside its doors to support ministry efforts and partnerships, both near and far. The congregation supports individual missionaries and missionary families, plus a number of organizational partners that the church describes as Gospel-centered and aligned with its mission and vision.
Individual partners serve in a wide range of contexts. Nationally, Amelia Boyd serves with DiscipleMakers at a Pennsylvania college campus; Andrew and Alana Brown counsel and care for missionaries preparing for and returning from the field; Peter and Cher Gatto support adolescents and adults in recovery through RECOVERY-HUB, a Christ-centered recovery ministry in northern New Jersey; Jeff and Karen Grant mentor leaders, reach college students, and facilitate church-to-campus partnerships with CRU across the United States; Joshua and Heidi Mohn use aviation skills to equip aviation missionaries; Mark and Jocelyn Scott serve with CRU to reach college students; and Drew and Nicole van Esselstyn lead coaches and athletes into a growing relationship with Jesus and His Church.
Internationally, Stan and Natalia Bokun serve at Resurrection Church in Eastern Europe; Sam and Joan Fiore serve Punto Lode Church in Italy and work to plant churches across Europe; Pascal and Aurelie Keita serve with CRU at a university in West Africa; Dan and Leann LaBossiere work with OMF International to plant churches in western Tokyo and Saitama, Japan; Dave and Sarah Lahoda serve in Central Asia working with local churches; Kevin and Kaori Laverman plant churches and pastor at Denen Grace Chapel in Kawasaki, Japan; Dan and Elly MacLean minister to refugees in Germany; Nyasha Manyau serves refugees and children in Sweden; Michal and Angelika serve in an area with little access to the gospel; Marlin and Sambath Petersheim serve in Cambodia; Max and Jenna Schaafsma reach students and children through sports ministry in Milan; Michael and Nina Schaafsma serve Punto Luce Church in Milan; Sean and Erin Templeton serve with Children's Relief International; and Pastor Henry and Mhiridzo Zihove care for vulnerable children in Zimbabwe through housing, food, education, and sustainable agriculture.
Organizational partners include Foundations First Christian, a hybrid homeschool learning community for pre-K through high school; Friendship Center for New Beginnings, a peer counseling and pregnancy resource center; Global Christian Relief, which supplies Bibles, trains church leaders, and supports persecuted Christians in more than seventy countries; International Temple of Restoration, a Kingwood Township, New Jersey church serving the Hispanic community; Mukti Mission, which restores exploited women and children in India; Project Horses for Forces; Samaritan's Purse; Trans World Radio; World Relief; and Pioneers Media, a digital outreach to least-reached Muslims.
What South Ridge Believes
The Statement of Belief that anchors South Ridge Community Church begins with the Bible. The church teaches that the Holy Bible is the inspired Word of God and without error as originally written, and that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the final and supreme authority.
God is one personal, infinite, and perfect God, existing eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all three of whom possess the attributes of God and are equally God. God the Father is the Creator of all and the initiator of creation, redemption, and the new creation. Jesus Christ is eternally and fully God and became fully human through conception by the Holy Spirit and the virgin birth; being the completely sinless God-man, He satisfied God's justice through His death on the cross, physically rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and will return to consummate His Kingdom. The Holy Spirit is fully God, convicts the world of sin, applies the saving work of Jesus Christ to those who repent, and indwells every believer at the moment of salvation.
Human beings, the statement teaches, are created by God in His image and likeness to have relationship with Him. Every human being, whatever ethnicity, state, condition, or capacity, from conception through natural death, is of inherent and equal value and sacredness. Marriage is defined as the exclusive, life-long joining of one man and one woman into a covenant union; sexual union is a gift from God to be enjoyed only within that covenant.
The statement goes on to teach that every human being is guilty of sin and, without Christ, subject to sin's presence, power, and penalty. Salvation is found only through Jesus Christ's life, death, and resurrection, received by grace through faith in Christ, delivering the believer from alienation, guilt, bondage, and death and bringing restoration to fellowship with God, righteousness, and eternal life. Sanctification is the Spirit's ongoing work in the life of the believer, resulting in increasing holiness, obedience, and love for God.
The Church is the universal community of believers united to Christ through faith, and as a local body, it is called to gather and worship God, to serve and love one another, and to carry the gospel to every part of the earth. Baptism and communion are the two ordinances commanded by Christ and faithfully observed by believers. Baptism, the statement teaches, symbolizes death to sin and resurrection to new life and is best outwardly demonstrated through believer's baptism by immersion. Communion is a symbolic memorial of Christ's death which paid the penalty for sin.
The church also teaches that, prior to His second coming, the spirits of believers who die are present with the Lord while the spirits of unbelievers suffer torment; that Jesus will physically return to raise the dead and judge all people; that those declared righteous through faith will be raised to everlasting life and live forever in the new heaven and new earth; and that those who have not received life in Christ will experience God's judgment and be eternally separated from God.
Baptism and Membership
Baptism at South Ridge is described as a beautiful symbol of identification with Jesus Christ and an act of obedience to Him. The church practices believer's baptism by immersion and does not baptize infants; parents are instead invited to dedicate their children. Children and teens who are interested in baptism are welcome to attend Understanding Baptism, with the requirement that a parent attend along with anyone age twelve or under.
Membership begins with a Getting Started class, a big-picture overview of South Ridge and an ideal first step for newcomers. The next step is Discovering South Ridge, an in-depth guided tour of the church's history, mission, beliefs, and ministries, which includes interaction with ministry staff and serves as the first step of the membership process. Membership itself is pursued by completing Discovering South Ridge and filling out the New Member's Questionnaire.
Built Together 2025 and the Building Fund
The Built Together 2025 plan, developed around the church's mission, focuses on maximizing the South Ridge facility and campus for ministry, particularly through the enhancement of Family Ministry space. The Capstone Project included the complete replacement of the HVAC system for the Auditorium and Lower Level, along with major renovations to the lower levels of the main building, at a projected total cost of $2.5 million. While construction is complete, the congregation is still invited to prayerfully consider financial partnership in the project through a designated Capstone Project Fund. Fifteen percent of general giving goes outside the church's doors to local and global partners, while the Capstone Project Fund is used entirely for facility projects.
Giving
South Ridge makes giving easy and accessible. Giving online is available through the Church Center app, where givers can use credit cards, debit cards, Apple Pay, or ACH eCheck. In-person gifts may be dropped into offering boxes on campus or mailed to the church office. The church also accommodates stock contributions, IRA direct contributions to fulfill Required Minimum Distributions for those over seventy, and legacy or estate gifts. Each giver's testimony about how God has provided is welcomed as one of the oldest practices of God's people: remembering and declaring what He has done.
Reaching South Ridge
South Ridge Community Church is located at 7 Pittstown Road, Clinton, New Jersey 08809, on the hill outside of town that the congregation chose more than seventy years ago. The Welcome Center, the auditorium, the lower level with classrooms for SR Kids and SR Students, and the Activity Center are all part of the campus. The cornerstone, bell, and handmade cross that traveled with the congregation from the original Leigh Street sanctuary remain visible reminders of more than a century and a half of continuous Baptist, and now community, witness on the banks of the South Branch of the Raritan River.