Much of the vision here coincides with a book I am releasing in August called Gaining by Losing: Why the Future Belongs to Churches that Send, in which I talk about how to engineer your church around sending capacity, not seating capacity. If you are interested, check-out or pre-order here!
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A little under a decade ago, God gave The Summit Church a vision of planting 1,000 churches by the year 2050. When we first verbalized that number, a lot of people thought it was a crazy idea, far too audacious. By now, though (and by God’s grace), most people around the Summit have bought in. Don’t get me wrong: it’s still an audacious goal. But we believe that the same God who multiplied 5 loaves of bread to feed 5,000 is still at work today. And we’re trusting him to multiply us in ways we can’t even imagine.
Every time we send people out from our church, they leave gaps. It’s painful to think about sometimes. More than once, I have had to force myself to literally open my hands to God. Opened in surrender. Opened as a sign that I must take my hands off of one of the most precious earthly things to me—my church. Open as on offering of praise to Jesus’ worthiness and faith in his promise. Open in the belief that God builds his kingdom not as we hold on, but as we let go.
One day the Summit will cease to exist. But the gospel will move forward—not because we gathered large crowds, but because we multiplied ourselves by planting churches that plant churches.
Over the last 10 years, we have planted 25 churches in the United States. Most of those (17) we have planted in the last 4 years. Earlier this year we sent out our most recent plants, Emmaus Asheville (in Asheville) and Mercy Church (in Charlotte). That was, as always, a bittersweet moment, as we said goodbye to many close friends. But we remember that the kingdom of God works on the principle of the harvest: we reap only as we send out; living comes by dying; gaining comes by losing.
It’s exhilarating to see what God is doing through these church plants. Our Church Planting Pastor, Mike McDaniel, recently sent me some figures for our current U.S. church plants. This past Easter, there were 6500 people attending one of our plants. And in the past year, 400 people have been baptized. Those are numbers worth celebrating
The list below represents all of the Summit’s U.S. church plants. (I’m working on getting figures for our international church plants, which is a lot messier, but—I’m told—actually quite a bit bigger.) Can you dream with me for a moment? Can you imagine how exciting it would be if God blessed us to see hundreds of churches on this list?
Our Church Plants:
Mercy Church – Charlotte, NC
Emmaus Asheville – Asheville, NC
Grace Park Church – Durham, NC**
Restoration City Church – Washington, DC
The Bridge Church – Wilmington, NC
WayPoint Church – Durham, NC
Restoration Church – Raleigh, NC
Veritas Church – Fayetteville, NC
Hub Church – Boston, MA
Jesus Our Redeemer – Baltimore, MD
Awaken Church – Columbia, SC**
Mercy Hill Church – Greensboro, NC
Soma Church – Indianapolis, IN
City Church – Murfreesboro, TN
Imago Dei – Raleigh, NC*
Summit Denver – Denver, CO
Vision Church – Raleigh, NC*
Gallery Church – New York, NY*
Grace Church Boston – Boston, MA
Integrity Church – Greenville, NC**
Mosaic Church Boston – Boston, MA
Redemption Hill – Richmond, VA*
Youngstown Metro – Youngstown, OH*
Second Generation Plants (Church grand-babies!):
Gallery Church Baltimore – Baltimore, MD
Maranatha Grace – Fort Lee, NJ
And through the Summit Network, we are already thinking about the next round of church plants. Maybe God is calling you to one of these!
Coming Soon:
Los Angeles, CA
Orlando, FL
Winston-Salem, NC
Brooklyn, NY
Mount Pleasant, SC
Denver, CO
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* One of multiple supporting churches
** Re-plant
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