Our Story

Welcome to Cedar Heights Church! We are a Bible-based, non-denominational Christian church located in State College, PA. We are a multi-ethnic and multi-generational church made up of babies and children, students and professionals, singles and married couples. Our Sunday service is casual and friendly with meaningful worship music, relevant teaching from the Bible, and a fun kids’ program.

The Beginning

We started in the summer of 2013 as a diverse team of 40 people sent from Vine Church in Carbondale, IL. The team of people who moved from Illinois to Pennsylvania to plant the church spent that first summer finding jobs, places to live, meeting people in the community, and making State College their home.

Our desire was and is to be a local church where people can learn about Jesus in a way that deeply impacts and changes their lives. At Cedar Heights, we are centered on Jesus, and hold to the truths of the Bible passionately. Our vision is to be a church that makes disciples and plants many more healthy local churches in university cities all over the East Coast and beyond.

So Why Are We Called Cedar Heights?

Before the church was planted, our lead pastor, Dan received an email from a woman in Vine Church. It contained one line: Ezekiel 17:22-24. As Dan read the verse, God made it clear that from it would come our name.

“Thus says the Lord God: "I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of the cedar and will set it out. I will break off from the topmost of its young twigs a tender one, and I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain height of Israel will I plant it, that it may bear branches and produce fruit and become a noble cedar. And under it will dwell every kind of bird; in the shade of its branches birds of every sort will nest. And all the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord; I bring low the high tree, and make high the low tree, dry up the green tree, and make the dry tree flourish. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it.
EZEKIEL 17:22-24

The word vista means “a pleasing view,” and often implies needing to fix our eyes on it in the distance. In this life, there is nothing more necessary or wonderful than looking to Jesus in all matters of belief and practice. It is our hope that, as a church, we would do this with great passion!