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Thanks for Christmas in August

Got this letter from 2 of our church planters getting ready to go out from our church. Thought it was worth sharing... Summit, your generosity pays off! Thank you!

My wife and I found out this summer we were delayed 6 months from our initial deployment schedule with the IMB due to the financial crisis. I wanted to let you know that last week Hilary and I found out that we have been moved back up 3 months to November Appointment and January FPO. This means we will be on the field around late March. I was told that this was a direct result of the Christmas in August campaign that brought in over $2M to the IMB.

If I remember correctly, the Summit Church gave over $80k toward that effort. The generosity of our fellow members has directly affected our going and I am so thankful for that. I praise God that for the last 5 years he has allowed Hilary and I to be a part of a community that does not simply talk the talk of "Love God, Love Each Other and Love Our World", but walks the walk. I believe that is a reflection of the integrity in which you lead and your unwavering vision and commitment to see Christ glorified in our city and around the world. Thank you for all that you do in serving and leading us.

Friendship as the Expression of the Gospel

I was VERY encouraged by the response this past Sunday to our study on friendship... if you had to rush out afterward, here is how you can get connected to a group.

This is our band, backstage. Great to see them putting the message into practice in such a tangible way. You can just feel the bonds developing.

This doesn't even show the guy who took the picture with his phone... In fairness... these guys are together for 8 hours on Sunday. We can allow them a little time for self & i-phone bonding.

Much Joy in the City...

We are far from being where we should, but I thought this was a very encouraging note from the principal of Neal Middle School:

We are overly grateful and blessed for your service to neal Middle School.  You have fed our hungry, clothed our needy and have taught and mentored our young.  Your volunteerism has made a difference in our school community and we will forever be thankful.

 

Acts 8:6, 8 - And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip when they heard him and saw the signs that he did.  So there was much joy in that city.

A Great Warrior has "Fallen"

I'm very sad to relate to you, Summit Church, that one of our own, Bill Cutler, died of a heart failure late Wednesday night. His funeral is at Clements Funeral Home in Durham tomorrow (Saturday) at 4:00.

Bill was very special to me... in that he headed my personal prayer team. I cannot remember a time in the last 3 years that I preached ANYWHERE where Bill did not have a team of people praying for me... be that here or on the road. He managed my schedule and made sure that he and his team of "Aaron and Hur's" were always holding up my hands.

Bill had suffered a somewhat debilitating stroke 10 years ago, and knew he was living on "borrowed" time. There was a lot he couldn't do, but he knew what he could do was the most powerful thing any of us can do. He could pray. And that he did, with faithfulness and fervency.

In the annals of who does what great things for God, I suppose that Bill will go down as one of the greatest. May God give us some to replace him.

(If you are interested, email Charlie Dunn at cdunn@summitchurch.cc and let him know. We need a team of prayer warriors to take his place).

Do also pray for his widow, Nancy, and their surviving two sons, Brian (NCSU) and Carl (high school). I pray that during this time without their earthly father they will learn the strength and tenderness of their heavenly one.

The Gospel Spreads Through Relationships

I got this letter from a girl who works at a local Brier Creek restaurant recently, and I thought it was completely, over the top, awesome. Notice how this girl refers to her secular place of employment as her "ministry." This is the heart of our church. Jesus likes being in the community more than he likes being cooped up in the church... (I am sharing this by permission...)

So I'm one of those local restaurant employees that you have met...  Thanks to my husband's persistence we've been attending the Brier Creek Campus since we moved back to the RDU area last year... and it's been AWESOME!!!  Not just going to church there, but how specifically God has used that campus in the ministries we've both been planted in for so long. 

I've worked at a local restaurant and up until we moved away this summer, I had shared the gospel in so many conversations with my coworkers, but had yet to see any of them come to know the Lord.  Most of them are adamantly against Christ... But the friendships grew despite the distance and ... last Saturday a few of my coworkers called and asked to come to church with me and to come to small group at our house on Sunday night.

When we got to the Summit on Sunday morning I saw across the room a lady who used to work with me several months ago.  She had always claimed to be a "universalist." We had so many conversations about coming to a church and she would never come... in fact, she seemed to be getting farther away...  Yet- there she was!!!!  I grabbed her and she sat with us, telling me that her daughter had become a believer and had called her asking her where she stood with God.  And she wondered.  So she came!  

She heard the sermon- really listened, and then told us later that night that for the first time in her life she had given her will to God- literally visualizing placing a box at the foot of the cross and at the foot of the King with everything that is her inside of it- her dreams, desires, beliefs, and thoughts!!!  ... She now calls me her little sister- in recognition that we are family in the Lord.  

To make things even more awesome- yesterday another old coworker stopped by our restaurant.  She had been a close friend, who had decided she didn't want to go to church until she had her life together, even though she knew that was not how God worked.  She asked if we could hang out on Sunday morning...and by that she meant in church with her two kids as well!!!  And when I walked inside from talking to her one of my high school coworkers who is adamantly atheist asked the same thing.  It's crazy how God has given me so much to praise Him for SO greatly right now!  

P.S. The manager at our restaurant that you keep inviting really does want to come to church.  But she's had some bad experiences with churches and legalism so she instead asked if we could start a Bible Study.  So now we meet once a week, so far with 6 other restaurant workers who have requested the same.  But- I'm still inviting her to church and stressing how important it is to have that community...keep asking- you're willingness to do so doesn't make her angry, but more determined to get over her past misconceptions of churches.

I love it!

 

omg!

That's the title of our new series which we started yesterday. (for you non-techies, omg! is the text shorthand for "oh my God!") We live in a world where communication is wide and shallow. We are more connected with each other, but know each other less, than ever. God instructs us about prayers that, by contrast, are deep and personal.

Hats off to our creative team for absolutely going over the top on the song/video for this series. Jonathan Edwards, Joe Jones, Chris Baker... unbelievable! Here it is:

And here is the link to the full song.

We talked our first week about Abraham's prayer for the city (Gen 18:16-33). Among other things, I challenged you, if you don't pray, to pray 10 minutes a day for the next 21 days of this series. For some of you the only way you'll do it is out of sheer discipline. But as you meet with God for those 10 minutes, you'll likely find that at the end of the 21 days you are praying longer than 10 minutes a day... not out of duty any more, but desire.

Here also is also a short video recapping the 121 baptisms from the previous Sunday... I truly have too many stories to tell... never forget baptizing a 70 year old man whose wife, a Summit peep, had prayed for him for 40 years...:

121

That's the number of people we baptized today...(most of them were outdoors, unlike this picture, which is from our evening campus), and I am mighty sunburned as a result. But it was worth it to see the long lien of people ready to make their decision to follow Christ public! The list included some people who have come to our church through some community ministry we've done, lawyers, doctors, ph.d. students, and students from Carolina, NC State, Duke, and NC Central, white people, asian people, black people, indian people, some baptisms in Spanish, and a 75 year old man who, in his own words said, "I've been rejecting God for 40 years. That stops today!" One precious young college aged girl said she had moved to Durham to be part of a sexual abuse treatment facility and that she knew God needed to be a part of her life... they told her, "Go the Summit," where she's come for several weeks, and is now being baptized!

AWESOME!!!!!

As I explained to our last service, we don't care about numbers except as they represent individuals who have trusted Christ; individuals who were each the ONE for whom Jesus left the 99 to go rescue; and individuals whom God has beautiful things he wants to do in, through, and with them. Praise God! This is why we do what we do... it's why we give, why we serve. We know, at the end of the day, that what counts in eternity is each person that Jesus restores back to God.

An Incredible Night at UNC...

Last night (Wed) I had the most incredible time with a bunch of our students out the campus of UNC where I was invited to be the speaker for a very unusual event they were putting on. (No... I wasn't talking about immigration or throwing rocks at anybody... ) For a week or so, they had some "kvetching" boards set up around campus that said, "What's wrong with Christianity?" These boards filled up with dozens upon dozens of comments... and I was invited to come in an address all of them. The questions ranged from "How do I know there is a God?" to "Why are Christians sure they are right?" to "Jesus is cool, but Paul's a jerk"... I told them I felt somewhat like a mosquito in a nudist colony... (so much to cover, where to begin?)... The students then invited their friends and people who had filled out stuff on the board to come. The attendance, for this kind of event, was huge. Looked like a solid 250 or 300 packed into this room. 

Here's what I was struck by:

The students' leadership: this was entirely student ran. When I get invited to a student run event, 80% of the time it is a total disaster. But 20% of the time it is something that goes so good it is ridiculous, far beyond something "adults" could have pulled off. It has the feeling of a groundswell. That's what this thing was. The Spirit of God was absolutely ALL OVER IT. (What I have found- that most people don't realize - is that my "effectiveness" at speaking often as little to do with my own preparation and abilities as much as it does the faith, enthusiasm and prayerfulness of those planning the event!) These student leaders are the real deal. Props to Ashley Peterson, Rory, Ryan and the others who led it. That reminds me of what I consider to be one the core principles of real, New Testament ministry: real miracles happen through the hands of regular Christians in the community, not through the hands of the 'professional' Christians in the church. 39 of the 40 miracles in Acts happened in the community, not in the church. God doesn't want you to come watch me do miracles, He wants you go out and experience Him in the place that you live. Your initiative is all He is waiting on to do His greatest work.

The students' audacity: This was a big, audacious leap of faith. What was especially cool was Ashley, who seems to have been the instigator, told me that she remembered how I had preached on the audacity of faith earlier last year and challenged them to "go out and try something stupid for Jesus." This, she said, was her stupid dream...her friends hearing the Gospel. Wow. I hope she never forgets what God does when you take a chance on Him for His purposes.

The students' humility: These guys humbled themselves before their fellow students, and allowed their friends to criticize them publicly. They then apologized where they were wrong, and then had a chance to explain the beauty of who Jesus was. They just love their friends and would do anything to reach them for Christ. They gave me some of the feedback from the night... people who said this cleared up a lot and that this encouraged them to keep seeking.

I also give "best statement I've heard this year by a college student award" to Ashley Peterson. Ashley lived in the Ukraine for a while with her parents who were missionaries. I asked her if she spoke Russian, and she said... "Well, Russian, German and French." Her English was pretty good too. I told her that I just finished, last week, reading Dostoevsky's The Brothers' Karamazov, so I now considered myself an expert on Russia, so if she had any questions about Russia I'd be happy to answer them. She politely laughed, like people do to me a lot in church. She then mentioned how good Brothers was, and I demurred a little... it is a classic, I understand, and there are some staggeringly brilliant passages, but I really struggled through parts of it. It's 980 pages of teeny tiny writing and sentences with like 1000 words in them. And the Russian people have weird patterns of thought... She promptly replied, with only a slightly catty tone, "Well... it's a lot better when you read it in Russian." Game-set-match. She gets the award for "best all around put your pastor in his place" award.

I LOVE having a church in the backyard of the greatest students in the world. Through these guys (and all of you, SC'ers) we really can change the world! Let them be an example to us of audacity and belief!

Easter Sunday!

What a great day! Thanks to all of you who worked so hard to make it happen. Seriously... some of our volunteers put in full day's labors between last night and today).

You guys know how I feel about numbers... i.e. a) they can be used idolatrously; b) just because someone indicates they are putting faith in Christ doesn't mean they really did... but, that said, numbers are important because each one represents a person Christ died for. Jesus knew he had 99 sheep and cared about the one missing.

Our numbers for Sunday... I haven't seen the final count, but it looks like about 4500 different people at one of our 12 services (and that was with a lot of our college students gone home!)... MORE people came to church at one of our "multi-campuses" then came to our "main venue" at Brier Creek on Sunday morning... and about 140 or so people indicating they were trusting Christ for the first time.

Praise God!

Nexus

I spent last night and this morning at our student ministry Nexus project. Jason Gaston, our metro-redneck student pastor, has about 300 people involved in the weekend. Last night was awesome--we had about 15 students trust Christ.

This morning there are a number of seminars, on reading the Bible, sharing Christ with your friends, even one for parents. I am teaching "Through the Bible in 45 minutes."

Tonight one of my very best friends, Clayton King, one of the most anointed student speakers in the world, will be speaking. Do keep praying!