Is It Worth The Sacrifice?
Is it worth it? This may be a thought you have had when thinking about the amount of effort it takes to do what God asks of us. Or maybe you have thought this when it comes to going to church, doing something for someone other than yourself, or simply trying to do what’s right.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. – Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)
No doubt, getting up and going to The Summit tomorrow morning will be an extreme act of sacrifice. It is going to be COLD in the morning so why not just stay home or go to a church that already has a nice comfortable auditorium? Why? Read the rest of this entry »
Some Thoughts about this Sunday: Church Redefined.
The Summit has moved to a new and different season in the life of our church. We launch on October 5, 2008 at The King’s Academy and continued there for 1 year. We started with a launch tem of about 19 and had 167 on our first Sunday. We saw and experienced some incredible things this past year. 73 people made a decision to step into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. 41 took that a step farther and followed Jesus in baptism by immersion. Now, we are experiencing Church Redefined. This was our official first week to gather and disperse. We have moved to a new building that isn’t finished. So we decided to have a short devotion and then scatter into our community and serve outside our walls on Sundays until our building is complete. Here is a recap of our first Sunday: Read the rest of this entry »
FIVEtimesFIVE
FIVEtimesFIVE
“The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less.” – (2 Corinthians 5:5, The Message)
I know the incredible sacrifice it takes to come home from a long hard day at work and then go out to a building only to work a few more hours. I know there are ball games and clubs and activities going on. But I would like for you to consider FIVEtimesFIVE!
Here is the plan. Too many people have lost faith in God. Yet way many more want a reason to hope again and trust again. The more our community sees us working together to get this task accomplished and the faster we get into this new center, the quicker we get to impact more people!
I am asking you to give God FIVE hours per week for the next Five weeks (in addition to Sundays) starting tonight! That is just ONE hour per day (or 5 hours ONE day) to accomplish such a HUGE task.
Will you make this small sacrifice for such a big reward? I know that several already give more than five hours, but will join us with this simple commitment? Respond back or call Heidi at the office, 865-622-2022. Let us know your in and you have made the commitment to FIVEtimesFIVE. We will provide the water, gatorade and lunch on Saturdays and you provide FIVE! (It’s important to let us know you are in so we can plan accordingly)
I can’t wait to see the difference!
Be Happy!
Pastor Bryan
(PS. HIGH-FIVE :>)
Dangerous Church? Okay, Let’s Do it!
Wow! I am so excited out of mind I don’t even know how to express it in this email. Most of us were aware that this Sunday was going to be The Summit’s last Sunday in The King’s Academy. What we weren’t aware of is “what’s next?”
Now we know!
From Day One the vision of The Summit has to been to reach those who are far from God and help them back into a relationship with Him. In accomplishing that we also want to redefine the way our community looks at God and His church. We want to remove the contempt and replace it with Praise. Our goal is to move people in such a way that when they come to the Summit they can NEVER use church as a reason NOT to come back.
Starting October 4th, we are going to put this vision into a real life, in-your-face, action plan! This is a transitional time for The Summit. We are leaving the Academy, but not yet ready to move into the new building. So what do we do? Find out this Sunday as we gather one last time at The King’s Academy @ 10 AM.
I will lay out the vision and how it will blow away our community. I will show you how God will use The Summit to reach people who said they would never go back to church again or who said they would never dawn the doors of a church building!
I know that God has a better life planned for us and those we live around, work with and do life with. It’s time we start living that conviction out loud!
The More is Here!
Bryan
It’s Time To Believe!
Wow! I cannot believe we are preparing a new building as a permanent place from which we can Impact our community! 12,000 sqft of awesome space for us to worship, do community, celebrate with Summit Kidz, for the Summit Edge student impact team to meet and for us to launch a community initiative that is so big that we will see God literally change the face of our culture.
This past week we have seen 60 teenagers from Indiana and Michigan work with Team Effort to help us accomplish the impossible! In 3 days they were able to complete what would have taken us 2 1/2 months to do. These kids did this with smiles on their faces and an energy in the step that absolutely would fire you up!
This has all happened so fast and we have seen God bless so much that it has just astounded me at what He has done. As a church, we believe that God wants us to make this move and that WE will change the face of our culture by expressing God’s love! As we have started this project: Read the rest of this entry »
Sacrifice or Praise…What’s the Difference?
For many of us, we have believed the lie that “the more we work and more time we give to God, the more pleased He is with us”. And although God desires our time and commitment to Him, He is in fact more honored when we give Him our Praise Life!
22-23 “Time’s up for playing fast and
loose with me.
I’m ready to pass sentence,
and there’s no help in sight!
It’s the praising life that honors me.
As soon as you set your foot on the Way,
I’ll show you my salvation.” – Psalm 50:22-23 (TM)
This Psalm (read the entire Psalm here) is a Psalm for David, after his affair with Bathsheba. David had realized that after living a life of giving so much effort to God, if he didn’t give God praise in the way he lived, nothing else mattered.
A Praise is defined as “an expression of approval, commendation, or admiration”. The word we translate as praise literally means “a gift of thanks”. In this Psalm we learn that God doesn’t need our material or temporal offerings, but He deeply desires a life that shows how thankful we are for His grace. A life that is selfish, self absorbed, superfiscial, inward focused and about making our name famous instead of Jesus brings God no pleasure.
But a life that is lived lived for Him, that considers Him before ourselves…that is all the thanks and offering that God needs.
Be Happy!
Bryan
Video Intro for Impossible Faith
Thought you might enjoy our video intro for Impossible Faith and the message Sunday called “SLAM”
PUSH
Have you ever wanted to break free from the mundane and complacent? Have you wanted to fill your gray world with color and life? This March at The Summit, learn how to finally PUSH through the barriers that keep most from experiencing God’s best!
We had originally planned to do CSI: Seymour – An Investigation Into the Existence of God. However, God really put a burden and drive to do something different…I just didn’t know what until this past Thursday. So, everyone chipped-in and in record time we put together new graphics, ordered new wristbands to give out on Sunday; ordered our new invite cards, ceated a new set design (I think it will blow your mind) and created a 30 day challenge to PUSH ourselves to walk deeper with God.
More important than any of those resources…God has been waking me and other leaders in our church up in the middle of the night to pray over our church and our community. This week I will be talking about “Push through the Fear”. You don’t want to miss it!
We believe by the end of March we will see many barriers broken, many strongholds overcome, and a brand new enthusiasm in our relationship with God. We are believeing God for much more than 300 on Easter Sunday…we are believing more lives will be transformed on that single day than any other day in Seymour history! Go God! Below is the back of our invite cards:
December @ The Summit
Wow! This has been such a busy month and everyone around here has been so busy. I know it’s been a while since I wrote on this blog, but I am committed and I am back!
December has started out so awesome here in east Tennessee. This weekend The Summit is hosting the warming station for Christmas @ The Academy located at The King’s Academy. It is a live Christmas Card display with a live nativity and the living story of the birth of Jesus displayed before us. We get the chance to serve the community and pass out invite cards for our Christmas Eve experience and promote our January teaching series.
This weekend we are celebrating our first ever “Giving is the Reason” weekend at The Summit. We are starting our worship off with our first Baptism experience (Giving Obedience) at The Summit; we will then follow with our first Communion Experience (Giving Fellowship) and we will end the morning with our first Chest of Joash offering (Giving through Sacrifice).
We are so pumped about this day we can’t stand it! I pray God blesses all of you and I will post a Baptism video later.
Be Happy!
Bryan
