Earlier today I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Eric Becoats the new Superintendent for the Durham Public School System. Dr. Becoats was touring our neighborhood school, E.K. Powe Elementary School. We have been partnering with E.K. Powe for almost two years now and I was invited to be a part of the tour by Michele, an active parent at E.K. Powe and a resident of Old West Durham.

I met Michele during the Week of ServeRDU. She came over to our West Club office and talked about the gardening projects that are taking place at E.K. Powe. These were the projects that I personally helped to oversee during our ServeRDU project. Michele was moved by the generosity and servant spirit of our church family. She commented on several occasions about being astonished by our commitment to meet the needs in our community. It was our demonstration of generosity and love that led Michele to invite me to the tour today. During her allotted time to speak about the gardening projects, she stopped and gave a shout out to the Summit Church. She mentioned all of the work that we had done for E.K. Powe and expressed her gratitude in front of Dr. Becoats.

Well you and I know that our commitment to this city goes well beyond E.K. Powe! During the week of ServeRDU we took care of 8 schools within the Durham Public School System alone. We had over 800 volunteers serve in these schools and those volunteers donated more than 3,000 volunteer hours. We are making an impact!

Galatians 6:9-10 says, “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. ¹⁰So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”

As a campus, I believe that we are poised to take some amazing strides this fall. It will require that our lives and actions are rooted in the Gospel. For us to take some of these strides many of you will be asked to make changes! Some of you will be asked to help us create a 3rd worship option at WCC. Others of you are being asked to plant new small groups and some of you will be asked to take on new leadership roles. None of us should grow weary in doing good because Christ has endured on our behalf. Now we, out of what he has already done for us, have the opportunity to do good to those in the faith family here at WCC, to our neighbors in Watts-Hospital Hillandale/Old West Durham/Walltown and around the world.

Are you ready? This is going to be exciting!

Brad

If you are a WCC’er and you are on facebook, then you need to stop everything you are doing and go “like” our new page! We are deleting our old group that we set up two years ago and we are moving everything over to our brand new page. Take a second and check out our new page. Once you are on the page, this is what we want you to do:

1) “like” us
2) Suggest our new page to all of your friends that are a part of WCC! This will help us to get the word out to more people. You can be a huge help to us by doing this.
3) Share the new page with everyone by talking about it! Go to the bottom of the page and click share. That will allow you to talk about WCC on via your profile with a link to our new page.

All of this should take you about 3 minutes, but it will be a huge help to us! We want to make sure that everyone at WCC that has a facebook profile is connected to us via our new page!

Thanks for your help and we will see you Sunday!
brad

Well Part 2 has been a long time coming. You’re right, it’s been a couple weeks. OK. ok…it’s been over a month. Well without further adieu, here it is! In part 1,which is here, we talked about how our members and regular attenders can play an integral role in getting our guests connected for the purpose of Gospel growth and advancement. I promised in this post I would give you some ideas about how you can specifically do that.

If you go to the same worship gathering, you know almost everyone you sit around. During the summer, there are only about 125-175 people that  you familiarize yourself with. We all know that human habit usually forces us to sit in the same place too. Every Sunday without fail, you sit on the right side, 4th row from the front, or whatever your favorite seat is. You notice people who sit in your area that don’t usually sit there, don’t you?

If you don’t, we are asking you to notice! Why is this important? Well, the Gospel radically changes ones view of people. We understand that God loves EACH individual who walks into our doors more than we could imagine. This means that our task is to make sure that we identify them and demonstrate this very fact to them. This is not an optional task. This task is vital and urgent! Ok, ok…I’m sure you get it (atleast I hope). How do you, and myself, do this?

Well the Summit has identified small groups as the key to getting people connected to the Summit and being vessels of the Gospel. Let me first say that I don’t at all disagree with that. I love small groups. There is something missing though, specifically at West Club ( back off small group pastors, I come in peace). I believe we are missing You as the vital connector in that process. Most people are reticent to jump from attending church to being in a small group. The story from Part 1 is definitely the exception but something happened there that contains the key to people feeling like they belong at the Summit.

The vital connector is Friendship. One writer calls this the “Have a friend, Be a friend” mentality. Think about it! Since you were created as a relational being, don’t youcrave friendship? Our guests are craving friendship but right off the bat, they are not craving a small group necessarily. To get them to a small group, where I do believe Gospel change occurs, we need to first be their friend. Before they will believe our message of the Gospel they most likely want to see that we are a friendly people who really care for them and not just about pushing them through to the next step.

Sounds easy right? Wrong! It’s time consuming. It’s frustrating. Friendship is hard because a true friend has to put away the selfish desire to talk about himself and care for himself and focus on the person at hand. But it is worth it. The Gospel is at stake. No easy route here! Are you willing to help?

Are you willing to be a friend on Sunday mornings? Are you willing to halt from your rush to get to Chubby’s (or insert your favorite restaurant here) so that you can get to know the person in the row in front of you who looks new? The Gospel is at stake! Friendship…I wholeheartedly believe is the key to connection and belonging. Proverbs 18:24 says it well, “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” We don’t want you and our guests to have many “companions” or acquaintances, we want you and them to have people that can be leaned on in a time of trouble. We want the people of the Summit to Love each other as this demonstrates the Gospel.

Here’s your opportunity to love on the O’Brien’s and their gorgeous baby girl, Calliah Grace. There will be a drop-in baby shower for them this Sunday after the 2nd Worship Gathering from 12:45 until 2pm in the Fellowship Hall. They are registered at Buy Buy Baby (Registry #11461053) and Babies R Us (Registry #45087452). If you have any questions, please contact Tori Young at ToriKYoung1@gmail.com.

There is only one worship gathering this Sunday at West Club. It kicks off at 10:30am. Get there early because it will be near capacity. After worship we are having a bring (or buy) your own lunch picnic on the front lawn. Please bring chairs/blankets and join us for a great lunch! Only Burger will be parked on the street for your convenience if you would like to take advantage of their options!