It’s fall here in Raleigh-Durham, which means our college kids have returned en masse. I was excited to see that we had over 9,000 in attendance at our Summit campuses last weekend. But while I want to celebrate that number, there are a few others that lead me to even more excitement.
While 9,000 people met together in RDU at Summit locations, nearly 6,000 people (5,993 to be exact) gathered to worship in one of our domestic church plants. This year, to date, our church plants have seen 186 people baptized, 112 of whom were professing faith in Christ for the very first time. I love seeing those numbers climb up, and I look forward to the day when the number of people in churches we plant is not only equal to, but ten times the number in our own congregation. If we are going to plant 1,000 churches, by God’s grace, that day will be soon! (To note: “campuses” are organizationally connected to the Summit Church, and typically view the message via HD videocast; “church plants” are independent churches with their own preaching, etc. We never plant campuses outside of Raleigh-Durham, only churches.)
This past weekend also saw our volunteer numbers at the Summit Church jump up dramatically. We had 1,250 people volunteer last week, including 514 people who were volunteering for the very first time. That encourages me, since it shows how many of you are moving from simply attending to really diving in to this community.
And speaking of community, this upcoming weekend we will welcome our brand new Downtown Durham campus, meeting in the heart of Durham at the historic Carolina Theater. This is a great opportunity for our church to engage a new segment of our city.
Summit, let’s praise God for what he is doing, and continue to believe him for great things in our city!
