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Hope for RDU... the results

Week of Hope was awesome. Special thanks to Brad O’Brien, Matt Miglarese and Lori Perdue and over 1900 of you that charged into the community to serve it during the week of July 6–12, 2008. Here are the highlights:

• Over 60 small groups took $100 and found a way to serve and love their neighbors
• Nearly 2000 volunteers did something during the week.

The stories are pouring in (You can share your story and read others at www.hopefordurham.info).  Here are some of the coolest facts we’ve heard regarding this week:

• The fact that this Durham-Herald Sun article about the “week of hope” is still on of the Top 5 Most Emailed stories on the Herald-Sun’s website at the time of this writing. I’m not sure about the Oprah comparison... but this is a great example of our city looking at us and saying “Uhhh...We don’t believe what they do, but how do you explain THAT???????” 
• The fact that some of the volunteers were people who don’t go to church at all, but saw the news stories and decided to show up to serve.  Without a doubt, my favorite thing about doing community ministry is that it puts me right next to people who would never darken the doors of a church.  I don’t know which Summit members interacted with these volunteers, but I received an email from one woman who was quite impressed by the Summit volunteers and was disappointed that “more communities don’t have this type of support."
• The comment from several nurses in the UNC Neurosciences Division that “they had never had someone they didn’t really know do something this nice for them.”  What a glimpse of the Gospel they caught!  This Summit small group provided them with a physical picture of how Jesus, although we didn’t know him very well, did something REALLY nice for us at the cross….and that’s what the “week of hope” was all about. 
• This note from Kathy Kirkpatrick, the principal of Elementary School Merrick-Moore: I am in awe of the amazing turn-out for the projects at Merrick-Moore. I am also quite grateful! The school looks wonderful.  I can’t tell you how special this is. “Thank you” just isn’t big enough – it can’t fully express what is in my heart.  So, I looked in the thesaurus for a bigger word,  and it could only give me synonyms for “thanks.” This turned out to be good, because the words that hit me were “blessing” and “grace.” The blessings you bestowed on Merrick-Moore are phenomenal.   And, the grace with which you worked was unparalleled. Thank you so very much. I wish I lived in Durham, because yours is a church I would enjoy attending.
  
• The number of small groups that told me they want to start planning group-sized service projects on a regular basis.  One group even staggered the spending of their $100 so that it would fund one project per week for the next 5 weeks.  At the Summit we want our small groups to be not only a place for personal growth, but also a vehicle for doing ministry, and it’s exciting to see groups expanding their focus!
• The great TV news stories on NBC17 (on the 6:00 and 10:00 news!) and NC-14. We couldn't find a link to the NBC17, but here is the article at NC14!

Thanks, Summit and other volunteers, for showing off the beauty of the Gospel in RDU!

Where I am and a great story...

I have spent the greater part of the week with a bunch of teenagers from the RDU area at a camp down here in SC. It's been great. One of the guys I met is from the Brier Creek area who came up to me and said, "You dont' know me but I want to thank you and your church for winning my boss to Christ. He started coming to your church and became a Christian there about a month ago. He was my 2nd shift manager, and he used to make us work until 10:00 at night. Now that he's a Christian he lets us all go home at 9 so he can get home in time to read his Bible." That's pretty awesome. People coming to Christ and making the work place a better environment... Thank God, Summit Church, for how He is using you. We don't deserve an ounce of it.

As to the week... we've had a lot of students believe the Gospel and surrender to Christ, which I never get tired of seeing. I spent the first 4 talks going through exactly what it means to be separated from God and what Christ has done for us and how it changes us. I used to take for granted that people in church just "knew" and "understood" that stuff. Not anymore. I spend most of time describing what the Gospel is and what it means. So many people in our churches have no real grasp on Christ's radical Gospel, the Gospel that says that we are accepted not by what we do but by what Christ has done... And even for those who already know the Gospel and are saved, there is nothing that increases their love of God, their hatred of sin, and confidence for the future like dwelling on the Gospel.

Anyway, for those of you at our church... pray for me this week, please. I agree to do these things because  God has gifted me to speak with teenagers, and I am praying that when my daughters are teenagers God will anoint and send someone to speak to them to complement what I have taught them at home. And pray for all of our own teenagers these next few weeks, who will be at a similar camp, that they will really encounter Christ. The teenage years are the time that most significant decisions of this nature are made. I am grateful Jason Gaston, our student pastor, lives and breathes winning these guys to Christ. He needs a PRAYING church behind him.

Here's a great article about our church being recognized as one of the top giving to missions churches in the nation. Praise God, Summit!

Grateful

Just wanted to take a moment and be publicly grateful for the grace that God has given to me and to our church. Stories like these make me realize how special of a time and place we live and serve in.

• On Sunday, 22 people indicated to us that they were giving their lives to Jesus.
• Got to spend an hour with a Law School graduate yesterday who has been coming to our church for 6 months. We are the first church she has ever attended, and she described her previous knowledge of Jesus as "learned from the Simpsons." We are now studying the Gospel of Mark together. I love it that people like this come to our church.
• We encourage members to have a "3 on 3" list--3 people who need Jesus that they pray for 3 times a day. One of our members that when we first gave that challenge he put 3 people on his list, and he just led the final of those 3 to Jesus this week. That's awesome. Do the work of the ministry. While I have some of my own stories, more than anything I think I live vicariously through our members.
• I have loved spending the week with our new slew of Institute students... who spend the summer at our church living with church families, going to class, doing missional work for our church plants, and serving in the church. This is one of the brightest groups of students yet!
• Got this letter last week...

I "found" The Summit via a wrong turn, and that it was totally God's hand leading me to a place which would grow me into the person I am and will become.  I am now in Brussels, Belgium doing youth ministry, and if it wouldn't have been for The Summit's commitment to growing its congregation, I believe I wouldn't be here serving the Lord in this way.  The Summit gave the necessary tools which I needed/need to grow close to God, and hear his voice in my life.

The Summit's commitment to the search for and the teaching of God's truth has made Summit a beacon on the hill over the Triangle, shining for Christ with a passion that can be felt as soon as you walk into the service. The honest love it shows to both members and nonmembers through that commitment creates a community that is warm and receptive, truly Christ like.

The Summit taught me what true teaching is all about, truth applied to our lives.  For the first time in my life, I didn't want a sermon to end! I began to desire more and more in my heart the wisdom from the sermon, and it drove me deeper and deeper into the gospel.  This was an integral part of my growth, for as my heart desired more of what God had to offer I looked for small group. Through the YP's I found a great small group where I was surrounded by people with the same passion as myself, and from there we built each other up growing together toward Christ.

As one who as been touched by the love of the people, the wisdom of teaching, passion for God Summit has, I can tell you for a fact that the world knows The Summit, and Hell does too. THANK YOU to everyone who helps to make The Summit the house of God it is. You're changing lives.  I still listen to the podcasts every week and take notes like a mad man! I can't thank you enough for the long hours, the overtime, and the love you put into everything you do there.  Keep it up!!

That last letter makes me say three things. (1) Thank God for Summit Life Groups. All of you should be in one. Quit being a spectator. (2) I am super stoked about our thriving Young Professional group that meets on Thursdays under the directionof Andrew and Anna Hopper. (3) I hope everyone will get into our Hope for Durham/RDU so we can bring the power of the Kingdom to lots of more people like these. Check it out here.

5 Things I Love About Our Church

I had 5 short successive conversations over the weekend that made me extremely grateful the power of God at work within the Summit Church. If you go the Summit, I want to encourage you with them and then point something out at the end...

1. One of our members who is a teacher at Riverside High School led 2 students and a custodian to Christ, and has been bringing them to the Summit and sitting with them the last few weeks. I love it when people understand that evangelism is their personal responsibility and not something "the church" does. This teacher, by the way, is headed to Central Asia on one of our church plants.

2. A guy who looks like the poster child for Harley-Davidson (complete with bandana, beard, leather jacket and of course, his Harley parked out front) told me that (sadly) he has to move back to Texas but he wanted us to know what the church and a few of our members have meant to him over the past 6 months. He said, "I'm sober now, and my life has changed. You'll never know..." He got a little emotional. He said, "I'm going back to Texas now, but what happened here will never leave me." I love it that there is no social class "norm" at the Summit, and most everyone feels WELCOME at our church.

3. Jerry Rankin, the president of the International Mission Board (the largest missions sending agency in the world and the group through whom we do most of our mission work), came up to me at a Prayer and Awakening Conference at which I spoke over the weekend and said, "Wow, what do you guys have there at the Summit, a missions factory? We have had very few deployments in the last few years in which we haven't had someone from the Summit represented."

4. One of the guys preparing to go to Central Asia on one of our teams is a Law student at one of our prestigious academic institutions around here. He has chosen to major in shariah law so that he can be a help to Islamic governments. Someone said to him, "That's a strange thing for an upcoming lawyer to do, isn't it? To take the degree and go to Central Asia?" He said, "Not around here (the Summit), it's not. It's kind of the norm." Wow. Praise God.

5. One of our Summit Life Small Group Area Leaders grabbed me after the 2nd Brier Creek service and said, "See that family pulling away in that van? That's a van purchased for them by another family in the Summit. That family of 5 had fallen on hard times and been without transportation for several months. Different Summit Life families have been driving them around, and one just last week bought that van and gave it to them." This is perhaps the most exciting, because "By this will all men know that you are My disciples... that you love one another." Love in action like this is what causes people to see the truth of Jesus...

Now, we have a load of shortcomings, but thank God for the effects of the Gospel within the church. If you're a Summit member, take a minute and thank God for changing us from being self-righteous religious people into loving, believing people.

Easter is coming, and our community is filled with people like those in the stories above. Some of them aren't even believers yet. Some of them are currently OPPOSED to Jesus. So, don't just invite a relative from another church on Easter, step out and TAKE A CHANCE ON GOD and invite someone ridiculously "hard" on Easter. Give God a chance to be amazing.

Here's info on the services. It's going to be incredible, I believe.

And wear your T-Shirt. Every day if you can, but ESPECIALLY this Saturday. Go to Brier Creek and make a big deal. Leave 25% tips and inviter cards.

Adoption as a Ministry

I've included below a letter that one of our college pastors, Trevor Atwood, sent back from Ethiopia. He and Keva are adopting their second son from there, and his letters have been so moving to me I wanted to share them with you. Adoption is a fantastic ministry, where you really (as you'll see) can make an unbelievable difference in the life of someone. And it's one of the clearest displays of the Gospel that I can think of. Talk about doing international missions right in your own home! Enjoy...

Today was good day.

Giant breakthrough.

Isaac began to live up to his name "He Laughs". his middle (ethiopian) name means "he has seen many things". We had definitely seen this side of him. But today, his new name came shining through.

We canceled all of our plans today to just stay here at the house with Isaac. This morning, Isaac screamed for an hour. We are trying not to 'give in' very much, because a lot of his demeanor has to do with the fact that he was spoiled with so many caregivers at the foster home. We also don't want him to keep pushing me away, so we are trying to show him that you don't get Momma without Daddy, we are a package deal. anyway, he screamed for an hour before lunch, and before coming downstairs for dinner.

BUT, things changed...drastically. Of course, he really straightens up at lunch. This boy LOVES to eat (and his fat rolls testify to the fact). He also loves animals (so he is pretty much the bizarro Micah). SO lunchtime he is smiling and eating an adult size plate of spaghetti, then wanting more. He can drink straight out of man-size glass (going to have to tudor Micah in that area). Anyway, I left right after lunch to make some of our return travel arrangements, and when I got back, Keva told me he had been walking, playing with a ball, and sitting and playing by himself (most of the time if he is not glued to Keva, he is crying). SO, I missed that one.

Then, back to screaming later. For an hour. And believe you me, this dude has some serious pipes. It is quite the shriek. He finally settles down, we come downstairs and the REAL Isaac comes out to play. He played with me, he actually played with me. We played with some toys, he loved peek-a-boo, and throwing paper in the floor for me to pick up. He would also bonk me on the head and watch me fall over. Then he wanted to climb the stairs, on his own feet. We held his hands and walked him up and down 3 flights of stairs. Then we had dinner and he did more playing and chattering than eating (which is big for him). He went to bed with a short objection but fell immediately asleep.

So, end of the day...we made serious progress today, got some smiles on camera, and verified that his chubby legs actually work for standing and walking.

Tomorrow, we visit some of the older kids orphanages. Keep praying for us. God is working. Here is an excerpt from an email I sent earlier. some of the info is repeat, but I didn't want to rewrite, just cut and pasted.

I am learning a lot about how i treat God. with Isaac crying, screaming, pushing me away, not understaning my love...it is hard. I told him today the joy he is missing in playing with me while he screams and tries to get rid of me because he thinks something else will satisfy him, take care of him, calm him. Then this afternoon...BREAKTHROUGH. He began to play with me, laugh with me, enjoy me. I was overwhelmed with joy. WHY? Because my son was enjoying me. As I kicked a soccer ball against a wall watching him walk around, I began to tear up thinking about how pleasing it is to God when I enjoy him. Yet i resist so many times looking for my joy in someone or something else. I asked God today to remind me of these moments with Isaac when I chase after idols. Praise be to God for speaking as through a bullhorn through our new son. And for giant breakthroughs!!!

From Sunday: Life Change and a Few Other Things

I hope Sunday was a good reminder to you of why we do why we do. (And thanks to Ed Gravely who came through in a pinch at our Cole Mill Road campus. That is the first time in almost 6 months we've had a debilitating technical problem at Cole Mill Road. For whatever it is worth, it was an issue with Verizon, not us, and will be resolved.)

Here is the letter that I read from David Riggs, who was with me on stage. When it's all said and done, it's guys like him that make us do what we do. We don't ask you to volunteer or to give because it makes you a "better Christian" (because we can't add anything to what Jesus has made us!), but because we love seeing guys like him and his son Noah come to know Jesus.

I am always moved at how you respond. You have to be one of the most generous and volunteering churches in the world.

When I first began attending the Summit last summer I would sit in one of the back seats because I felt I could barely make it through the door. You see, I'm the author of a failed marriage. It took the loss of my wife and a joint custody arrangement for my son, Noah, to get me to understand how deep my pride ran and how it kept me from God. My self-reliance had ruined me. And in order to escape the penetrating questions of my heart I had to keep getting busier and busier. 

I thank God for John Posey and the Summit Church. Through the Summit I learned that God was close to me, and that He has never, and would never, abandon me. Through the Summit Church, He sought me and won me back. 

I'll simply never forget how John Posey had his family drop him off on a street corner to meet me because I was a half-hour late. He really didn't know me at all and yet he waited there to take me to church. And I'll never forget the Carolina Ale lunch when I was saved. I thought it was radical (and cool and needed) at the time and I still think it was radical. I keep the napkin upon which J.D. pointed out some scripture passages in my Bible.

The community I have found here humbles me, and has changed my life. I still often sit in the back seats, barely in the doors. But that’s just because I still feel so unworthy to have a part in God’s blessing. After service when I pick up Noah from KidsLife and he runs into my arms, I realize what a gift he is to me and how different his life is now going to be. I want Noah raised in what you call Summit Life, and my prayer is that he will take up the Summit pen you have given me and author his own life in Christ.

Do you have your own "life change" story you can share with us? Or know about somebody in our church? Click here and share it with us.

I hope you're planning to participate in the GREAT EXPERIMENT with us in March. One month to trust God will do exactly what He says in Malachi 3:10. Read up about it and watch the Geico spoof VIDEO here.

Also, if you're not currently serving on Sunday morning somewhere, we hope you'll try out OBSERVE, our "one day no commitment" serve day, on either Feb 17, Feb 24, and Mar 2. Click here and let us know you're willing to try it!

Finally, we had a fantastic turnout last night for "the GOSPEL class." In this class we are discussing the core things that Christians believe and trying to answer some of the hard questions. It is a "round table" format, with a lot of time for discussion. It's great if you have questions or know somebody who does, or just want to know your own faith a little better! It's every Sunday for the next 7 weeks, at the Brier Creek campus from 6:00 to 7:30!

 

Life Change

In the back of my mind as I stand up to speak each Sunday is the image of my parents, coming to a new city with a 2 year old (me), and deciding to visit a church they heard talked about. They fell underneath the power of the word of God, and because of that my life is forever changed, as is the life of my daughters Kharis (grace), Alethia (truth) and Ryah (rejoicing).

When it's all said and done, we don't care about buildings or budgets. We don't care about particular styles of music. We care about people meeting Jesus and having their lives changed.

We care about numbers precisely because we care about changed lives, because each number represents a person. We live in a city-complex of 1.6 million. Each of those is a person for whom Christ died. A person for whom the Father anxiously awaits their return.

I LOVE hearing stories of people whose lives have been changed here at the Summit. When a new friend told me last week about how he and his wife met Jesus here, and how their lives are now fundamentally changed, I can't describe to you the emotion I feel. It is a mixture of awe and gratefulness. It really is what we are all about.

You would MAKE MY DAY if you would share with me your story, or the story of someone you know, of how God has used the Summit as a part of changing your life. It doesn't have to be dramatic or eloquent. Just tell me your story. Or maybe you have an awesome answer to prayer that you've seen in the past two weeks. Click HERE and take just a minute to jot it down. It really will make my day. Sometimes we just need to stop and recognize that Jesus is alive and very much still at work.

God is giving us our dream...

The dream of this church has never been specifically about buildings or budgets or even audience sizes... but seeing people who don't know Christ at all experience radical change through an encounter with Him.

We have prayed and believed God for that. We believe that His compassion for the people of this area is unlimited, as is His willingness to glorify His name here.

This past week, I have experienced again just how willing God is to do that among us. I have met with 3 different men coming to our church--from business and academic backgrounds--all of whom coming from a context where they had no substantive belief in God at all, all of whom interested in Christ. Two of them have already come to Christ in our church. One of them talked to me about going on a mission trip next year.

Atheist to missionary. That's the dream.

On a completely unrelated note, a friend sent me some disturbing pictures from a place I was speaking  where I had to wear a suit the other day. I've decided that I'm just not a pretty man when I'm speaking. Whatever did Veronica see in me?

UNC's Jason Ray, ESPN and the Fame of Jesus in RDU-Chapel Hill

This past Friday a reporter from ESPN called and asked permission to shoot some video at our church on Sunday. At first I asked her if she was wanting to do a story on the stunning pastor-athlete at the Summit Church. She laughed and politely but emphatically said "NO." She said that ESPN was doing a new documentary series, and they wanted to do their first one on Jason Ray, our beloved Tarheel mascot  who died in a tragic car accident last spring. Jason was an active part of our church. The reporters said that as she discussed Jason's life with his friends, they kept bringing up how important his church was to him.

For a long time she asked me question after question... and I got such an opportunity to explain the Gospel for which Jason lived. She told me that person after person had told her that Jason did not "push" his beliefs on anyone, but lived them out sincerely in front of them. I readily agreed, adding only that Jason did so because he believed that the Gospel of Jesus was the only hope for every student at UNC-CH. He did not believe the politically correct mantra that all religions are the same and that it doesn't matter what you choose to believe. His life a message, and his words were matched by his deeds.

It is possible, and desperately necessary, to have more people like Jason who are clear that the Gospel is our only way to God, but live it out in such a way that what they are remembered for is their sincerity and their love. The world is watching and listening. Even ESPN.

I saw them at church on Sunday, and to all our Chapel Hill students, the vivaciousness of your worship has an impact beyond what you realize. When you worship you put your hunger for God on display, and that makes a statement about the worthiness of God. You are making Jesus famous. And, I'm expecting a call any day telling me they've reconsidered the "pastor/athlete" story.

Why We Do What We Do

What an awesome spectacle on Sunday night! We do monthly baptisms, and this month's was at Falls Lake. We baptized around 30 people that night... pretty awesome, even though it rained for the first time in 60 years during the one hour we were baptizing. Then it quit. I told Danny Franks, our Connections Pastor who coordinates the baptism, that God must have been specifically indicating His unhappiness with Pastor Danny. (That's a joke... He's most unhappy with Pastor David.)

Here is a piece of the story of one of the guys who was baptized (quoted with his permission):

I have been attending Summit Church w/ my girlfriend for the last few months and was really blown away. My previous bad experiences and sinful stereotypes of Christian life melted away. Summit has the type of worship that my soul craved, and the messages were a breath of honest, Gospel-based fresh air that made sense to me in ways I hadn't experienced before. The past month or so, my seeking was reaching a peak, and I decided that I wanted to meet w/ Pastor J.D. privately in person. This meeting was to be a brain-picking session, at least as my original intentions had it, where I could candidly ask for counseling and guidance from a Godly man that knew what he was talking about. As that appointment drew near, the most remarkable thing happened, I felt God telling me to do something -- something that was not my original plan. Then, last Friday, the day had finally come and I knew exactly what I was supposed to do.

I wondered (and still do) about a million things. While seeking those answers and performing some serious introspection, I felt God telling me that "first thing's first" -- I need to surrender fully to Him, and the answers will come. This, combined w/my newfound assuredness that I was sick and tired of living for myself, that life must have some other purpose, and that every attempt of mine to fill the void in my heart w/other people, or things utterly failed, I knew what I was to do.

Things that I "knew" my entire life, but never made sense to me, are all of a sudden clicking. My life is now meaningful b/c of what He has done for me on the cross, and what I can do through Him and for His glory. I put aside all my questions and anxieties, and w/ Pastor J.D.'s guidance, I surrendered my entire life to Christ. This is the only way to live!

And how cool was it when the guy responded to the question, "Why are you coming to be baptized?" by  putting his fist in the air and shouting, "I want to spit in Satan's face and tell him that Jesus is taking back all those years he stole from me." Those are the kinds of people I love.

Those being baptized provided a pretty good cross-section of the people we are reaching... young professionals from the Brier Creek/RTP area, college students, young married people... especially cool were the young teenagers led to Christ by their parents (our students are our first mission field!). As we open our campus in Brier Creek/South Durham, it was a reminder that these kinds of people are why we are going. Brier Creek/South Durham is teeming with people and relatively no churches. God, do more than we ever asked or imagined! (Eph 3:20).