Escalate Church

12/23/2025

We hope you will be able to join us for our Christmas Eve service! Wednesday, December 24th at 6:00 PM.

12/16/2025

Lead pastor, Matt Morgan, addresses the news reports about Matthew Morgan that have been circulating on social media.

12/16/2025

Good afternoon Hickory community! Our church would like to address the recent news reports stating that a Matthew Morgan from Hickory, NC participated in a Neo-Nazi rally in Little Rock, Arkansas on the weekend of December 6th. Our lead pastor, Matthew Morgan, is NOT the individual who participated in that rally. Our church does not condone or support in any way, any group that expresses or represents an ideology that is ungodly and hateful towards a particular group of people.

Thank you for your grace and understanding and for helping us clarify that the Matthew Morgan involved in that rally is not the same individual that helps to lead our church.

Send a message to learn more

12/13/2025

In order to prepare our hearts for the celebration of our Savior's birth, we will be spending the weeks leading up to Christmas day teaching through a Christmas sermon series titled "Hope in a Manger." We don't often think about the manger and feel our heart beginning to hope. And perhaps that's because we aren't remembering all that Jesus is. So we will spend our Sunday mornings leading up to Christmas doing our best to do just that - to remember why Jesus' coming should really cause our hearts to hope. We hope that you'll make plans to join us!

12/03/2025

This Sunday (December 7, 2025) Escalate Church will be having our 2nd Annual Christmas Brownie Bake!

"What's the Christmas Brownie Bake all about?" Our church worships each week at Hickory Christian Academy. And one weekend out of each year the school uses the sanctuary for their high school drama performance. That means our church has to come up with an alternate plan for our Sunday morning worship time. Last year we used that time to gather as a congregation and to work with one another to make as many pans of brownies as we could. At the end of the morning, we sent a pan home with each family - not for them to enjoy, but for them to give away. To take to a friend, a neighbor, or a co-worker as a small but tangible way of saying, "I care about you and want to demonstrate that with a small gift for you to enjoy." Our first brownie bake last year ended up being a fun time together and created many opportunities for our families to be an source of encouragement to others. So this year we are doing it again.

We will gather at our normal Sunday morning worship time, 10:00 AM. But rather than gathering in the sanctuary, we will be gathering in the Hickory Christian Academy high school building. (If you need directions, you can plug in the following address and it will take there: 3402 6th Street Drive NW, Hickory, NC 28601.)

So bring a mixing bowl, a spoon, and a scraper this Sunday morning! We will provide the brownie mix, eggs, oil, and the pans! And be thinking about who can deliver your pan of brownies to!

We are looking forward to a fun morning together!

09/16/2025

We are beginning a new sermon series on Sunday, September 21, 2025 through the Old Testament book of Hosea. Sadly, the prophet Hosea reminds God's people that they had continually been unfaithful to Him. Yet the hope of the book is that ultimately God is a God who rescues the unfaithful. We hope you'll make plans to join us for this new series!

04/19/2025

During Jesus’ life He claimed He was the Son of God who had come to suffer, die, and rise again. Some thought He was crazy … But His resurrection proved He was Lord!

Join us tomorrow as we celebrate Him and His resurrection! 10 AM. See you then!

04/18/2025

Today we humbly reflect on Jesus' substitutionary death for sinners. On Friday he suffered incredible, physical brutality. Yet far greater than the physical suffering was the suffering of divine wrath. Jesus, lovingly and sacrificially, bore the wrath of God that sin deserved and was forsaken by the Father so that sinners could be forgiven and reconciled to God. We encourage you to reflect on the costly work of Jesus upon the cross today.

We also invite you to come worship with us on Sunday as we celebrate His resurrection and His victory over sin, death, and the grave.

03/22/2025

We are going to be singing a new song during tomorrow morning's worship service. You can listen to it some today so that you will be familiar with it. Looking forward to seeing everyone and worshiping with everyone tomorrow!

"The Way, the Truth and the Life"Words and Music by James Ferguson, Jaywan Maxwell and Ian Lewis© 2024 CityAlight Music, exclusively distributed by Wings Mu...

12/24/2024

Christmas Eve service tonight at 6:00 PM.

Join us as we gather together to set our hearts, our minds, and our eyes on Jesus - God’s great gift of love and salvation!

12/12/2024

This past Sunday we gathered together as a church to bake brownies. Each family worked together to bake a pan of brownies that they could take home in order to give to a neighbor, co-worker, or friend. Our goal was to encourage our church family to be actively loving some of the people around them - to communicate through a small, simple gift that they love and care about them.

During the Christmas season we remember God’s great gift to us in His Son, Jesus. Our prayer is that these small, simple pans of brownies will be just a small example of a gift of love that will create opportunities for us to tell others about the greatest gift of love they can have through a relationship with Jesus.

12/07/2024

Happy Saturday everyone! Just a REMINDER - we will not be gathering for corporate worship at our main location tomorrow morning (Sunday, December 8, 2024). Instead we will be gathering at the building next door (3402 6th Street Dr NW, Hickory NC 28601) for our brownie bake. Make plans to join us as we spend our Sunday morning time together to bake pans of brownies for us to gift to others as a tangible expression of love and care.

We have provided all the pans and ingredients. However, if you have a mixing bowl, a scraper, and some oven mitts, we could use a few of those.

See you all in the morning!!