Stories

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. And, they started praying for the funds to come in, for courage for Dylan, 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...

23Feb

Disillusioned Central Asians Ask Persistently and Find Answers in the Gospel

Amir and Musa are two of only a handful of believers in their city in Central Asia. They and two other local believers sat down to dinner with our team from the Summit, and as we started eating, I was overcome with the realization that this was a unique and precious opportunity. Craig, the Summit-sent missionary and team leader there, gave us permission to ask whatever we wanted. I immediately jumped in. “What’s your story? How did you come to know Jesus?” Amir is pretty shy and quiet, but he began to tell us his story in the local language....

16Feb

The Boiler Room: Come, Ask, and See What God Does

We left our house at 8:15 a.m., and I forgot my coffee. Want to know what it’s like to get five kids out the door on a Sunday morning at 8:15 when it’s 6 degrees outside? And, you’re Southerners? It means you forget your coffee and let me just tell you: It ain’t ""Easy Like Sunday Morning,"" as Lionel Richie might have you believe. We parked, walked our parka-clad children to their classes, waved to the under-appreciated parking attendants in snow masks, and headed toward the Boiler Room. The Boiler Room, you ask? The first time I heard those three words, I imagined two...

02Feb

Summit Kids Impacted Our Decision to Decline Out-of-state Job Offer

Last fall, we were approached by my college roommate with an offer that would uproot our family and require us to move to the western part of Virginia and a small town called Waynesboro. Jay and I have known each other for 15 years and have grown really close. We would talk monthly about business, parenting, and life. We clicked well and always have. I have been working at the Chick-fil-A on Roxboro Road for seven and a half years, and Jay has been with me through this whole journey. When he offered us the job in Virginia, my wife...

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