Guest Blog: Our Global Vision

The following post is by Brad O'Brien.  Brad is the Community and Church Planting Pastor at the Summit Church.

A lot has changed over the past couple of months. We have moved out of Riverside High School and moved into our new Brier Creek Campus. We have become a multi-site church with the addition of our Cole Mill Road Campus. We have also changed our the times and number of worship services. All of this has happened in the past two months.

In the midst of all this change there are several things that have remained constant. One of those constants is our Global Vision.  Earlier this year I moved out of the College Ministry Pastor and into the new role of Community & Church Planting Pastor.  Our strategy for reaching the world with the Gospel comes from Acts 1:8. As followers of Christ we can’t just target one aspect local, national, or international and only focus on that; we believe we need to be involved in all three areas.

Locally we seek to minister to our community through our Hope For Durham ministry. This is a ministry that was created at the Summit Church a couple of years ago, but we have already expanded to include other congregations in Durham. Just a couple of weeks ago I met with a pastor from Raleigh and in 2008 we will be expanding to include congregations from Wake County. The vision has expanded from Hope For Durham to Hope For RDU. We live in a community that is in desperate need for Christ followers to live out their faith in ways that demonstrate Christ’s love for all people. Over the past two years we have had more than 2,000 volunteers give of themselves to be a blessing to our community. The impact has already been felt all over the city!

What about church planting? Church planting is something that we as a staff have recently learned the benefits of. Already we have two national church plants and five international church plants, but I can promise you that we’ve only just begun. We have a desire to see hundreds of healthy, reproducing church plants started in the next decade.

Our first national church plant was started in 2004. Josh Shank, a former staff member, knew that God had called him to return home to plant a church that would seek to reach a generation that was being overlooked. He and his wife left our staff and returned to Youngstown, OH to start Youngstown Metro Church. They have been doing extremely well and just this year they were able to purchase their first building in downtown Youngstown within walking distance of Youngstown State University.

Our second church plant partnership started this past January. Aaron Coe and his wife Carmen have lived in NYC for almost five years now. They have sensed God calling them to plant a church for a while and their heart has grown for NYC and they just couldn’t leave. Aaron was my college pastor at Middle Tennessee State University and he is the man that led me to the Lord. Aaron and I have remained close over the years and that relationship was a natural reason to partner with The Gallery Church in NYC. The Gallery Church has recently added their third worship gathering and are now reaching about 200 people in the world’s most strategic city. The Gallery has an amazing ministry to men and women with HIV/AIDS and Aaron was recently featured in an article that you can read by clicking here. In the spring The Gallery will be working with St. Lukes Hospital to conduct one of their largest single day testing outreaches. To find out more go to www.cityuprising.com

Coming up on November 1st you will have an opportunity to be a part of what God is doing in one of our church plants in Central Asia. Next year we will be commissioning a team of about 10 people that will be going to plant a church in one of the least evangelized areas in the world. On Thursday night November 1st we are kicking off our annual Global Vision Conference with an event that we are calling “Dine for Development.” We aren’t just called to carry the Gospel to the people in the area of our church plant. We are also called to care for their needs. By making a reservation to attend “Dine for Development” you will be doing a small part to make that happen. Each ticket costs $25.00 and 50% of the proceeds will go towards development projects that our church plant will start in 2008. The night will be full of information about how you can become involved in the Summit’s Global Vision and you will also have an opportunity to meet Josh, Aaron, and one of our international church planters. To make your reservation to attend “Dine for Development” click here.

Comments

[kd]

Brad - one of the churches here in L-ville is also sponsoring the Gallery. They have a big poster and stuff at their church - I was like, hey, I know that guy! :)