Jerusalem to RDU and Beyond

Well, happy New Year and welcome back to another week of solid biblical teaching here on Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Biddevitch. In this community that we call home. Well, today Pastor J.D. takes us on a march throughout all of church history because the journey of a church doesn't begin when it's planted.

It began 2000 years ago with 11 frightened disciples on a hillside outside of Jerusalem. We know you don't want to miss a single message here on the program. So if you ever find yourself falling behind, you can always catch up on previous broadcasts at J.D.

Greer dot com. But first, let's join Pastor J.D. The writer of Hebrews, thinking about all those that have preceded him, he says, Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, so many that have gone before us and are waiting now in the presence of Jesus for us, let us run now that we've been handed the baton, now that it's our leg of the race. Let us run like they did with patience and faith and endurance, the race that is set before us. Let us, he says, look to the same Jesus that they look to. Look to him to do through us what he did through them. If you've been here for any amount of time, you have heard me tell stories of how 20 years ago there was a group of about 300 brave men and women of God, saints of God, who joined me in asking God what he wanted to do with this church. We always say that Gideon had his 300, and that 300 was ours.

These men and women committed to put the mission of God first, to trust God for the impossible, and then put their money where their mouth was and sacrifice their comfort, their time, their material possessions for a few of them, even their careers in getting us here. As we come to this point here, our 20-year anniversary, I thought that it might be helpful to look backwards for a moment to think about how we got here, how all this came to us, and what that means in light of how we're supposed to go forward with it. You see, our story doesn't start here. It doesn't start in 2002.

It doesn't even start in 1962. Our story really starts in 37 AD, standing atop a hillside outside of Jerusalem. Jesus gives what we call the Great Commission to 11 scared men and a few of their friends, charging them to take the gospel from Jerusalem to Judea, then to Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.

They had never heard of Durham, North Carolina. It did not exist, but he commanded them to get the gospel there, and then he promised them that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to him and that his Spirit would go with them when they went in obedience to his command. Then, after giving them that command and that promise, he ascended into heaven, leaving them all standing there on that hillside, just staring at each other, saying, Now what? In 42 AD, Mark takes the gospel to Egypt. In 49 AD, the apostle Paul heads to Asia Minor, and then in 51 AD into Europe.

In 52 AD, Thomas takes the gospel to India. By 54 AD, Paul is on his third missionary journey, reporting great success wherever he goes, saying that the Gentiles in these new, unreached regions are embracing the gospel much more enthusiastically than the Jews. By the end of the first century, the apostles have established three major church-planting centers, Antioch, Alexandria, Northern Africa, and Rome.

Jerusalem, by this point, had been destroyed. From those three centers, Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome, churches are being planted all over the Roman Empire. By the end of the second century, the church father Irenaeus describes the global church as geographically broad, though still numerically insignificant.

These churches know how to multiply, however, and by the end of the third century, nearly half of the Roman Empire confesses Christ. In March of 432, a guy named Patrick responds to a dream and takes the gospel to Ireland, which people in our society now commemorate every year by getting smashed and pinching those who don't wear green. In 596, a church planter named Augustine, not St. Augustine, a different Augustine, ventures down into what we now call England, then just an island filled with barbarians, one of the most unreached, uncivilized places in the world at that point. He settles in Canterbury, where he plants a church. God moves powerfully through his ministry, and in the first two years, he baptizes more than 10,000 converts there. In 650, a monk named Caidman completes the first English translation of the Bible.

Sadly, the religious elites there keep it captive, believing it is too dangerous to put into the hands of common people. The next 500 or so years are a little sketchy in terms of Christian history. It's why we call them the Dark Ages. One of the good things that came out of the Dark Ages was a conviction by many, men like John Huss and John Wycliffe, that the most effective way to spread the gospel is just to put the Bible in the hands of common people. The power is in the Word, they said.

Let the Word do the work. By 1200 AD, the Bible is available in 22 different languages. In 1526, William Tyndale publishes the New Testament into everyday English and then, with the help of his wealthy merchant friend Humphrey Monmouth, ships it to people all over the English-speaking world. Considering this to be an affront to their authority, the State Church of England persuades the king of England to imprison Tyndale. William Tyndale has tried for heresy, and on October 6, 1536, William Tyndale is burned to the stake. William Tyndale's last words, as the flames engulf his body, bystanders say.

As they listened to him say in a whispered voice, choking through the flames, he prayed, Lord, God, please open the king of England's eyes. Less than a hundred years later, in 1611, that prayer is answered when the king of England, King James, sponsors the largest Bible project ever commenced, the publication of the King James Version of the Bible. The Bible's availability in English leads not only to a gospel revival in the English-speaking world, it leads to a wave of missions throughout the rest of the world.

The 15th to 18th centuries become known as what we call the golden era of missions. These are the days of William Carey and the Moravians and Adoniram Judson. For the first time, Christians penetrate central Africa, inland China, and remote countries in Southeast Asia with the gospel. Many are imprisoned.

Most are killed. In 1587, the first two people are baptized on the continent of North America, right here in North Carolina, by the way. Two Native Americans are baptized on Roanoke Island in what is now referred to as the Lost Colony. 1609, a man named John Smith plants a new kind of church in England founded on the belief that the Bible alone is the Christian's authority, that salvation is by faith alone through grace alone, and that baptism and church membership should come only after conversion to Christ. John Smith says you cannot be born a Christian.

He says you have to be born again as one. This is the first official Baptist church. By 1635, 20 years later, that church has planted 50 others like it in the region surrounding London. Because of the rapid growth of the Baptist movement, the Church of England responds with brutal persecution. One of the new Baptist pastors, a guy named Roger Williams, flees for America and establishes the first Baptist church in America in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1638. In 1727, that church plants the first Baptist church in North Carolina, the Shiloh Baptist church in Chowan County. In 1740, great awakening evangelists come to North Carolina with great response. Crowds of up to 35,000 people come to hear them preach in one setting, and people from all over North Carolina are being baptized. These evangelists go back to Massachusetts, where they were from, reporting the great success they have had in North Carolina. There, through their reports, God stirs in the heart of a man named Shubel Stearns to uproot his family and move to central North Carolina to plant a church. Shubel Stearns and his wife have 14 kids. In 1751, they plant the Sandy Creek Baptist church in Liberty, North Carolina, which is just south of what is today Greensboro, with 16 members.

That's one benefit of having a large family. You're an automatic church plant wherever you go. In just two years, that church has grown to over 600 weekly attenders, and they've planted 42 other churches across North Carolina. In 1845, they plant a church in Durham, North Carolina, which launches at the Piney Grove School in West Durham.

Over the next 40 years, that church moves locations twice and changes its names twice. They go from Rose of Sharon Baptist to, in 1877, the Durham Baptist Church to, finally, in 1878, the First Baptist Church of Durham. In 1899, Durham's population swells to 16,000, and the First Baptist Church senses God's call to plant new churches around the rapidly expanding Triangle. They sense a real need in North Durham, so in 1907, they plant the North Durham Church on Hardy Street. In 1921, that church changes its name to Grace Baptist Church.

It's just what we do in Baptist Church is we change our name. In 1959, Grace Baptist begins praying about planting a church even farther north to reach the new people that are moving into there. In 1960, Dr. Sam James, a young, 28-year-old pastor from Greensboro, North Carolina, feels called by God with his wife, Rachel, and their two kids to take the gospel to the unreached nation of Vietnam.

In preparation to go, however, his newborn develops a heart condition, and he and his wife, Rachel, have to spend a frustrating year at Duke Medical Center. During that year, someone from Grace Baptist Church informs him of this burden they have to plant a church up in Northern Durham, and so Dr. James volunteers to lead the effort. In 1961, they open up a mission on Duke Street called the Grace Baptist Mission.

The small mission grows rapidly, and within a year, over 100 people are attending. They officially relaunch themselves as the Homestead Heights Baptist Church on March 4, 1962. Dr. Sam James preaches only one sermon at this new church, only one official sermon at the organized church, and that sermon is from Isaiah 54, 2, and 3, which is William Carey's famous missionary text, where God commands Israel to expand the borders of its tents to make room for the nations. Dr. James prophesies to the Homestead Heights Baptist Church that God is going to use them to bring the gospel to the nations, and he challenges them not just to exist for themselves but to expand the borders of their tents so that people of all nations would find salvation there through them. That afternoon, he and his wife Rachel leave for Vietnam, 1962.

Vietnam, one of the most unreached, and 1962, one of the most dangerous places in the world, especially for an American, where they're going to spend the next 40 years. We'll get back to our teaching in just a moment, but first, I wanted to let you know that it's not too late to get the 2023 day planner created exclusively for our Summit Life listeners. You know, there's nothing magical about the new year, but it does present a natural opportunity for reflection and change, and it's a great time to take stock of your life and set some goals for ways that you want to grow in the coming months. Maybe you want to start reading your Bible every day, or maybe you want to get better at making time for ministry or leading your family in a new way.

Maybe it's a broken relationship that needs mending or an unhealthy habit that you need to break. Whatever it may be, we hope that our 2023 Summit Life day planner will be a great tool to help you prioritize your time and meet those goals. Start your year off right and reserve your copy today by calling 866-335-5220, or visit us online at jdgrier.com. Now let's get back to the final moments of our teaching today here on Summit Life. Once again, here's Pastor J.D. In 1994, God speaks to a college kid at Campbell University as he's studying for a pre-law exam, telling him that he is done with law to finish the exam, yes, but after that, no more law, and that the focus of his life is to be on getting the gospel to people overseas. So in 1997, he leaves for Indonesia, having just met the love of his life and commencing a vigorous two-year letter-writing campaign where he will cajole, swayed, persuade, pressure, manipulate her into marrying him.

He leaves for Indonesia for what he assumes is a lifelong assignment, and that kid was me. In 1999, I return home from Indonesia to complete my PhD in Islamic and Christian theology. While stateside, I attend the Homestead Heights Baptist Church, believing that I'm headed back to Southeast Asia. In December 2001, Homestead Heights Baptist Church extends a call to me to be their pastor. At first, Veronica and I think that God is playing a joke on us.

I've never even had a full-time job, and we're supposed to be overseas, but God makes clear that he has called us here, and that my role in missions, at least for the time being, is to lead a church that is devoted to sending. In March 2002, we changed the name of the Homestead Heights Baptist Church to the Summit Church. Why, you ask?

There are no mountains in Durham. True, but the name sounded cool, and our property did happen to be located at the highest point in Durham County, which is why it was called Homestead Heights. So Summit seemed like a fit. In April 2002, Summit baptizes its first two African American believers, and I marry them a week later. In August 2002, college students discover our church and start to make up a sizable portion of our attendance every weekend. At this point, we know that we're never going to have a lot of money, because college students bring a lot of wonderful things to a church, but money is not one of them.

Amen? But we also know that we're going to have a lot of young, eager believers trying to figure out what to do with their lives. In November 2002, after service, an usher approaches me with an offering bucket that contains a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit in it from McDonald's from a college student with a little note on it that says, Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I unto you. November 7th, 2003, we receive a check from a man in Arizona who had visited our church only one time but was so moved by the amount of college students he saw on that Sunday that that weekend he pledged to give us $200,000. The next weekend, November 14th, 2003, I stand up at the Summit Church and tell the college students they can put all the bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits they want to in the offering. A man from Arizona has paid their offerings forward for them for many years to come. Through stories like this one and many others, God teaches our church that if we'll put his mission first, he'll take care of all of our needs.

November 19th, 2004, Nicolas Cage debuts in the first National Treasure movie, which forever changes not only the history of cinematography, but it also changes every illustration I've told at the Summit Church. December 2004, God burdens the Summit Church for the city of Durham. We realize God has put us here not just to reach it for Jesus but also to bless it, to love it, to better it, to make it, we said, a better place to live. I meet with the mayor, Bill Bell, and ask him what the biggest needs of our city are. He tells me the biggest needs of our city are the homeless population, the orphan, prisoner rehabilitation, the crisis of single mothers, and the growing number of high school dropouts.

Out of this grows what we called the Hope Pudge Strategy, which just stood for homeless, orphan, prisoner, unwed mother, and high school dropout. We say we want our city not just to know we stand for Jesus, but we start to say we want people in our city to say we may not believe what those crazy people at Summit believe, but thank God they're here, because if not, we'd all have to raise our taxes. In 2005, we've outgrown our property on Holt School Road, so we sell it and move into Riverside High School. We sense God has called us not only to reach North Durham but all of the Triangle. At first, we look to purchase a 100-acre piece of property on Coal Mill Road, onto which we plan to build this Six Flags Over Jesus facility that people from all over the Triangle can drive to, but God shuts that door decisively. God instead reveals to us that instead of developing one large property, we should seek to establish smaller locations throughout the Triangle where believers can stay in their communities and invite their neighbors. We move our host campus to Briar Creek, leaving behind a community of believers in North Durham as our first multi-site location, led now by the inimitable Gus Pacheco. In January 2006, we start to search for land to build a new permanent facility for our North Durham campus since we had sold their initial Homestead Heights location out from under them. In May 2007, God leads us to adopt the goal of planting 1,000 churches out of our church within our generation.

Nobody is quite sure, by the way, where that number came from. We have asked. We think I spontaneously threw it out in a sermon.

It's not in any transcript, but it starts to feel like a God thing, so we just embrace it. February 2009, we launched Summit in Espanol to reach the growing Hispanic population in Durham. This is going to be followed by Summit Mandarin and Summit Arabic, as well as campuses and our local women's and men's prison facilities. September 2015, the Summit Church leads the state of North Carolina in both yearly baptisms and missions giving. August 2016, Summit celebrates the planting of its first granddaughter church as Summit Denver plants the Heights and the suburbs of Denver. Each year, more granddaughter churches are going to be added to our family. Currently, 14 of our 78 domestic plants are granddaughter churches, churches that have been planted by churches that we planted.

Also, in 2016, we launched the Summit Institute, which is committed to training up men and women for full-time ministry. November 2017, we're recognized as the top-sending church in the nation by both the International Mission Board for sending overseas missionaries and the North American Mission Board for planting domestic churches. December 2018, we celebrate the sending out of our 1,000th member on a church planting team and our 250th church planted. November 2021, the largest attendance and fastest-growing churches in both Greensboro and Winston-Salem are now Summit plants, Mercy Hill and Two Cities.

Both count representatives to the U.S. Congress among their membership. Each weekend, more than twice as many people attend Summit plants in North America as come to the Summit Church in the Triangle. For every one member we have sent out, there are 20 new people worshiping in the kingdom somewhere in the world. In December 2021, the Summit's offering is $10 million in a single month. That is by far the largest month of giving in the history of the Summit Church.

$10 million in one month, which is 20 times more than our annual budget in 2001. We believe that symbolizes God's commitment to us for the next 20 years. On January 30, 2022, the Summit Church, now a church of more than 12,000 weekly attenders in 12 campuses around the Triangle, celebrates its 20th anniversary, marveling at all that God has done in two decades.

In 20 years, they've welcomed in over 92,000 first-time guests through their doors. They've seen 8,172 people baptized. They've planted 492 churches around the world. Each weekend, more than 26,000 people worship in churches planted by the Summit. Our church planters are now telling us stories we find hard to believe, like Nathan Rostenpore, who will be baptizing 30 new believers in Iran this year and planting 14 new churches there. This is the beginning of a church-planting movement in Iran.

Or Samantha, a Summit member who leads a team in the slums in the Red Light District in one of the biggest cities in South Asia. She reports to us that in 2021, 186 people professed faith in Christ through her ministry. A tiny new church was planted there in the Red Light District. Think of that Summit Church. This weekend, as we gather and celebrate 492 churches around the world, one of those is made up of women who previously were victims of the sex trade in South Asia.

And as usual, you did. J.D., why don't you share a little about what they're giving accomplished? Yeah, Molly, like we said in December, the end of the year is a critical time financially for ministries like Summit Life. And I just want to say to all of you who stepped up and joined with us how thankful I am. Thank you for the faith and the sacrifice and the generosity that you showed that enabled us to close out the year in a very solid position and also enabled us to take some bold steps forward in ministry. Thanks to your generosity, we're able to give crucial support to a brand new church in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We've been able to expand our presence on air so that more people can listen.

And we've been busy, busy creating more content for you. So again, we just really want to say thank you. Thank you to everybody who supported us. We would not be here without you. And we would not really have a lot to look forward to in the future if it weren't for your generosity opening up these doors.

So thank you. And we're excited as we go forward together, join with you in faith, exploring the opportunities God is putting in front of us in the new year. And you know, it's never too late to join us in our mission to bring gospel-centered Bible teaching to the radio and web. You can start the year off by becoming a monthly gospel partner or by giving a single gift of $35 or more. And when you do, we'll say thanks by sending you an exclusive resource, the 2023 Summit Life Planner.

It's got plenty of room to keep track of your schedule. And we've also included Bible verses and a Bible reading plan. Grab this resource today so you can start the year off right with God at the center. Ask for the Summit Life Planner when you give today by calling 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or you can give and request the planner online at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Bidevich, so glad to have you with us as we kick off the new year. Be sure to join us tomorrow when Pastor JD demonstrates how to expect great things of God and attempt great things for God as you work to complete your mission on earth. Join us Tuesday on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.