Summit Stories

24Jul

Durham Neighborhood Sees Impact of Summit Member’s Faithfulness

Lou Brogden has worked with children all her life. She loves their bright smiles and big hugs. As a music minister and a teacher for many years, she has always had the same aim: for children to know how much they are loved by God. A native of Durham, Lou has attended the Summit for 15 years and has always been involved in serving and local outreach. She serves with pre-K classes in Summit Kids at the North Durham campus. And about 14 years ago, she started Kids Club at Oxford Manor, an under-resourced housing community in Durham.Every Saturday, Lou packs...

24Jun

Refugee women experience the gospel, learn job skills through Hope Threads

As Katherine Jackson listened to a podcast in April 2018, she learned about a program that helps refugee women learn job skills and earn an income within a community. This sparked an idea.Being an English as a second language (ESL) teacher, Katherine saw the need in her own community for refugee women to improve their English skills, earn income, and become more independent. She shared her ideas with her friend Amy Rauch and her Summit small group. Pretty soon, she and Amy had an outline for Hope Threads, an educational workforce program for refugee women.But Hope Threads wouldn't only meet...

30May

In the Midst of Suffering, Family Heeds God’s Call to Become Missionaries

James and Stacey* have always had a heart for international students and people. Going overseas as missionaries had been on their minds, but over the last year and a half, God has made it incredibly clear when and where he wants them to go. It started when Stacey was volunteering at the First Time Guest tent at the Alamance County campus. She saw an international student walking into the service late and introduced herself to him. He was participating in a program that allows families to host international students over the weekend, so he was attending the Summit with his host family....

05Mar

UNC Junior Sees God’s Faithfulness through Leadership on Campus

Last spring, we heard how God radically changed Asuka’s life through others’ faithfulness to share the gospel with her. Now, Asuka is back at UNC and is continuing to see God change her own life through ministry at home and on campus.When Asuka Nakamura came to faith in the spring of her junior year at UNC Chapel Hill, she knew she wanted to learn more about Jesus and take time to intentionally grow in discipleship. She decided to pursue God in these ways by applying to City Project, the Summit’s eight-week summer discipleship program for college students.Asuka believes that “when...

04Oct

Generosity...One Step at a Time

The journey to generosity is paved with one faithful step at a time. Andrew and Ruth, Summit members who recently answered God’s call and were sent with the church plant to Charlottesville, Va., had always given the “baseline” tithe. Andrew, a Summit member for eight years, was part of the North Raleigh campus. He served as a small group leader and with the production team. His path of generosity and giving began with the Gospel. “Hearing about giving in response to God’s grace to us, that started challenging us,” Andrew said. “We weren’t giving with a grudge, and we were trusting God. But...

25May

Disciple-making in the Margin: How One Summit Couple’s Intentionality Led to Baptism

“Relationships happen in the margins.” Or at least that’s what the book Next Door as It Is in Heaven says. Living in suburbia can make margins skewed. It can make white space almost obsolete. There’s school and soccer practice and problems at work. Sometimes the garage door begins to close before the gear goes into park. We’re all desperate for a little quiet. We’re out of energy, out of time, and out of relationships. Brandon and Adrienne were both there. They were both busy with work and raising their daughter Vivienne. Good jobs. Amazing family. Brandon had grown up in the church....

06Apr

Short-term Team Sees Fruit By Sharing Boldly, Door-to-door in NYC

After a long train ride up the East Coast and a day of fellowship with Crossroads Church in Brooklyn, a Summit church plant, our team of five started our week of ministry with several hours of evangelism training. The teaching was tailored to the multi-ethnic and religious communities of the New York City borough of Queens, where we’d be working each day. One of our teachers exhorted us to be bold and unashamed when explaining our purpose for being there, which completely countered my American instinct to mute my claim to Christianity for the sake of being “nice,” in order...

30Mar

Texas Couple Moves to the Summit to Help ‘Shoulder the Vision’ of Reaching the Triangle

My wife Lindsey and I were leading a new college group at our church in Texas when I discovered the Summit podcast. I had recently learned about Pastor J.D. and the Summit, and we immediately fell in love with the teaching and all of the pastoral staff who spoke during the Year of the Bible series. During this time, Lindsey and I had to face the reality of financial struggles. I have worked with my parents’ small business in Texas since 2003, and we had seen phenomenal provision by the Lord’s hand in starting and maintaining the business, but for the...

23Mar

Summit Family’s Prayer for Funds Answered Through Small Group

The student missions trip to NYC was announced with no real meaning for Trisha. She didn’t think her middle son, Dylan, would be interested in going. (He’s not big on flying or talking to strangers.) But a few days later she was shocked when Dylan expressed interest in going, so they signed him up. They started praying for the funds to come in, for courage for Dylan, and for lives to be changed. Support letters were soon sent out, and the money began trickling in. But the due date for payment arrived—too soon. And they were too short on money. Pastor...

16Mar

North Raleigh Elder’s Baptism Testifies: God ‘Is Faithful in All Things’

When I was 9 years old, I understood that I was a sinner and Jesus Christ was the answer based on his finished work on the cross. I walked the aisle in my church, prayed with the pastor, and was baptized soon after. But as I’ve prayed and considered what my life looked like after that experience, I see more and more that while I had a strong, spiritual church image, much of the rest of my life did not demonstrate the testimony of one who was following after Christ. In fact, when I went to college, I walked away from...

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