Planting a church is a massive undertaking.
We can't do it on our own.
Thankfully, God never intends for His children to do anything by themselves, especially planting churches. Churches have long partnered with other churches in order to advance the gospel and fulfill the Great Commission.
With hurricane Florence blowing through Raleigh this weekend, we want to share how we were recently accessed by and invited to join the church planting residency with The Summit Network. Specifically, we will share about: what the network is, what we like about the network, and what it means for us to be a part of it.
We are really excited to share these things because they represent the strong connections that God is making in our progress towards London. This post also helps reveal the depth of training and care we're receiving in the year ahead.
What Is The Summit Network?
Summit Network is a ministry of the Summit Church, located in Raleigh-Durham. The Network exists to develop leaders and teams to plant churches across North America and around the world. Remarkably, the Network has overseen the planting of over 40 churches and all are still thriving today. We are in good company!
The Network specializes in the assessment, training, and coaching of future church planters. While there are many networks in the world today, Summit Network exists to serve as a tight network of churches to partner together in multiplication and planting. This is evident through the generosity we have experienced so far within Summit Network and camaraderie among the various planters.
We are the first international church plant to come through the network. To prepare for this new shift in the program we just spent a few days in London last week with key leaders from Summit. Together, we met with ministry leaders in London and dreamed about what God is leading us to in the years ahead. Along with Summit leaders Providence's missions pastor Phil Medlin joined us for the week. Phil has been a huge encouragement over the last year!
Why We Like Summit Network
There are a number of things we love about Summit Network. Mike McDaniel is the Director of Summit Network and a huge reason why we applied for assessment. Thomas and Mike were friends from their time together in the PhD program at Southeastern Seminary. They took a few seminars and slodged their way through multiple courses of theological German together. Their friendship has grown over the last few years.
In addition to friendship with Mike, we were drawn to the theological "DNA" that makes Summit Network unique. The Network's emphases of Gospel, Balance, and Multiplication characterize the framework for ministry that we have. Simply, we care about the same things and want to plant the same kind of churches.
We are drawn to the ambitious vision to plant 1,000 churches in a generation. This God-sized vision of multiplication is one of the things that we are most excited about. We love the bold vision of the network and are excited to be a part of changing the world through church planting.
What This Means For Us
We are part of something greater than ourselves. We are one of five church planting couples in the residency this year at Summit. Participating in the church planting residency is providing us with a lots of helpful tools for how to cast vision, develop a team, fundraise, and essentially grow a healthy gospel-centered church. These trainings occur every couple of weeks from August-April.
There are trainings tailor-made for both of us. Elizabeth has a series of trainings related to the life of being a church planter's wife. She is in a cohort led by Mike's incredible wife: Jamie. Thomas is learning a lot from the other four church planters that he is training with as well.
A Gospel-Partnership
This means we are continuing our ministry at Providence while we prepare to plant in London. While we are in residency with Summit Network we are continuing our ministry at Providence Church. We have been encouraged by the partnership between Summit and Providence in this season.
You Can Partner With Us
Church planting is a massive undertaking. We need the support of our sending churches. We need the support of a church planting network or two. We need a whole coalition of churches to come together who have a passion for London. And we need your support as well.
Would you consider financially investing in our ministry to help plant a new gospel-centered church in London? If so, you can access the giving platform through Summit Network and make an investment in our ministry. In addition to financial support, we are also looking to build a team to support us through prayer. You can sign-up for our prayer team through this link.
Thank you for sharing this journey with us.