About the Summit Cole Mill Campus

Sunday AM service times// 9:00a & 10:45a
1417 Cole Mill Road Durham, NC 27705 Map

Where We Have Been

The Summit began life as a church in the early sixties under the name Homestead Heights Baptist Church. Some of our current members have been a part of the church from the beginning and could tell stories of the blessings they’ve seen and the challenges we’ve been through as a church.

A Fresh Vision

In 1998, Homestead Heights was without a senior pastor and we called Dr. Keith Eitel, then head of the Missions Department at Southeastern Baptist Seminary to be our Interim Pastor. Dr. Eitel taught us about the world outside of Durham and the USA; a world that needed to be reached.

Dr. Eitel led the church to reassess what it meant to be led by God and that it wasn’t about having a church that catered to our own personal preferences. It was about being a church that worshiped God and reached out to the world. A new unity and purpose was born in the church.

In December 2001 the church voted to call J.D. Greear as our new lead pastor. J.D. had been serving as the college pastor. 

Pastor J.D. immediately cast a vision for the church to engage the RDU area with the Gospel. Homestead Heights was “re-launched” as the Summit Church. With a new identity, it was time for a new beginning. Worship attendance at the time was about 400, but a goal was set to have 1,000 in worship that Easter. The members came together in a show of unified energy and focus unlike anything anyone remembered seeing before. On Easter Sunday, more than 1,100 people experienced worship at the Summit.

Within the next two years, it became clear that God had even bigger plans. We had outgrown our facility and began to look for a new location. The church sold the property it had owned since the early sixties and began meeting at Riverside High School. Attendance grew to more than 2000 per week.

A Regional Church

As the Summit grew, we saw people coming from all over the Triangle. Our search for land became more focused on areas that would allow us to continue to reach people from all over RDU. Late in 2006, the church purchased 37 acres on T.W. Alexander Road, near Brier Creek, one of the fastest growing points in the area and a place that would put the Summit in a better location to reach the entire Triangle.

Multiple Campuses

Having outgrown Riverside High, it became necessary to develop a facility plan that wouldn’t take as long as it would to develop 37 acres. In September of 2007, the Summit began meeting in multiple locations. By leasing and renovating warehouse space, we’ve been able to provide an 1100 seat auditorium which has become known as our Brier Creek Campus. Our second location is our Cole Mill Campus, seating 225 and perfectly situated to continue reaching north and west Durham and west along I-85. In the fall of 2008, we launched the West Club Campus, situated in an historic Durham neighborhood within walking distance of  Duke University. The West Club Campus seats 350 for worship. Becoming a multi-site church has enabled us to expand the gospel by allowing people to worship closer to where they live. We will continue to explore opportunities for new campuses throughout RDU.

Vision of the Summit Church

The vision of the Summit Church is summarized in Jesus’ Great Commandment to “Love God, Love Each Other, and Love Our World.” What does that look like in action? Here is how we interpret that…

Loving God

Gospel-Centered Living. We believe the reason people feel so unsettled and unhappy in life is because they have rejected God’s rule over their lives. Our rejection of God’s rule has left us under a state of corruption and condemnation, and His absence has left a huge void in our hearts. Jesus, God in the flesh, in great love absorbed God’s righteous wrath against our sin and bridged the gap between us and the Father. We’re not into superficial answers or spiritual quick-fixes. We don’t believe the way to restore our hearts or our families is found in psychological techniques or behavior modification strategies. We believe we must turn from our self-worshipping, self-serving, narcissistic lifestyles and experience the radical, life-changing love of God in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and become the followers of God we were created to be.

Loving Each Other

The Church is a New Community Love. That is the mark of a real follower of Jesus. We love each other. We’re friends with each other. We eat together. We’re with each other when children are born. We’re there when someone dies. Our members share with each other. We do life together. We believe that Jesus does some of His best work through relationships. We believe that believers should be belongers. We don’t believe you can be a spectator in the body of Christ. We believe that communities ought to be places where people know and are known. So, we are committed to growing “smaller” at the same time that we grow “bigger.” We do this by developing local communities of believers. Through local Summit small groups, local childrens’ and student ministries, and even regional campuses, we want to be in your community, because: “Better is a neighbor nearby than a brother far away.” (Proverbs)

Loving Our World

Blessing our community. I know what you think of when you hear “church.” A list of things that we believe God hates. But we’d rather be known by what we’re for than what we’re against. We’re for people. We’re for our community. We don’t believe the church should be a cultural ghetto, isolated from the rest of the world. We believe that God is the Author of culture and the original Master of creativity. We want to take the kingdom of God into the arts, business, education—and every other dimension of our community. We believe that the real “ministry” happens outside the church Mon-Sat, not inside our auditorium for an hour on Sunday. We believe there is not one square inch of our community over which Jesus does not declare “Mine!”

We’re here to transform it for God’s glory. Our love is not just talk. We don’t just give poor families a turkey on Thanksgiving and then flip them the bird the rest of the year. Every year this church invests literally hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of man-hours into this community by participating with over a dozen of the most effective city-transforming agencies in the RDU area.

Planting churches. We believe THE most beneficial thing for every community is a church that can proclaim and live out the Gospel of Jesus. We believe the church is THE BEST organization on earth, and we believe it will survive as long as time itself. So, we are committed to planting churches in strategic cities all over the world. And not just where it’s easy, either. The Summit has members living in church plants in four of the hardest, most Christian-unfriendly places on the planet. Each year we give away at least 10% of our budget to these church plants overseas, and send hundreds of volunteers to serve those communities.

Whatever it takes. When it comes to reaching people with the Gospel, we are willing to let go of just about anything. Seriously. Scriptural values and the essential message of the Gospel will never change, but our methods of outreach will. Our cultural traditions are expendable, because we believe sacrificing for the Gospel sometimes starts with giving up what is comfortable to us. We believe that if Christ left the comfort of heaven and clothed Himself in our flesh in order to reach us, we should be willing to go to whatever extents it takes to reach those in our community He died for. We do not believe, however, in growing large at the expense of truth or growing healthy disciples and healthy churches. Our “end game” is not large audiences, but thriving communities of disciples. We believe God is looking not only at the breadth of our ministry, but also the depth.

 

Partnering with You . We can’t raise your children. We can’t fix your marriage. What we can do is partner with you in those things. We can help equip you. Our children’s ministries, student ministries, and family ministries are, hands down, the best thing going at this church. We’ll teach you how to raise your children, love your spouse, and impact your community. We’ll partner with you. But we want to empower you to be the minister.

Pray! We believe the greatest asset of the follower of Jesus is the access to the power of God He has in prayer. We believe two things are limitless in the heart of God: the passion He has for people to see the glory of His name, and the compassion that He has for people. So, we believe that when we ask with those two things as our motives, there is no limit to the power God will pour out for us! The reason we do not have is that we do not ask.

We meet all throughout the city weekly to pray–for each other, for our families, and for what God is doing in our city and around the world. We gather together the second monday of the month as a church body to call out to God for Him to pour out His love and salvation through our church!

This is not a church where you can plop down, navel gaze, get your religion-itch scratched, and stuff your belly full of Bible bon-bons. We are a church of revolutionaries (at least, wannabe revolutionaries!). Wild disciples of counter-cultural Jesus, trying to obey His great commandment (Matthew 22:37–40). We’re not perfect, but with God’s help, we’re trying. Feel free to come and join us!

Where We Are Going

We want to see the Cole Mill Campus spread the fame of Jesus in N. Durham  as it carries out the mission and DNA of the Summit Church (Love God, Love Eachother, Love the World) Romans 10:9-8

We want to see the members of the Summit Church who live in N. Durham to understand their spiritual gifts and use them by getting involved at the Cole Mill campus (serving on a Sunday AM, connected to a small group, living missionally in their community)  1 Cor. 12 & 13

We want CM to develop into a “Community of Love”

“This love was not shared only among the leaders; it was shared between all Christians. In fact, the outworking of faith through the community of a elocal church seems to be Jesus’ most basic evangelism plan. ..Every Christian has a role in making visible the gospel of the invisible God…One of the main reasons that the local church is to be a community of love is so that others will know the God of love.” (The Gospel and Personal Evangelism- Mark Dever (p.50-51)

We want to see the city to be blessed by Cole Mill and really benefit from us being a part of the community

We want to see our campus send out church planters

We want to see our campus start other campuses

-Pastor Ryan D