Country United States Website www.summitrdu.com | Weekly attendance 8,500 Founded 1961 (1961) | |
Location Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina Denomination Southern Baptist Convention | ||
The Summit Church is a Southern Baptist multi-site church that meets at nine locations throughout Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. Regular attendance averages nearly 10,000 people weekly. Services are also available through the church website and by podcast.
History
The Summit Church, which originated as Homestead Heights Baptist Church, began in 1961 when Sam James preached the first service at what was then the Grace Baptist Mission in Durham. Within a year, the mission had grown into the new Homestead Heights Baptist Church. The Church grew to a membership of over 150 by 1965 and as it continued to grow, the congregation constructed a new church building in the 1980s to host close to 600 people. Although it briefly exceeded capacity, the 1990s saw little growth and eventually declined to a stable 400 members.
In 2002, Homestead Heights called its college pastor of a year and a half, J.D. Greear, to be pastor. Upon accepting the position, Greear called for the renaming and ultimately the re-launching of the church as the Summit Church. In the first three years, a large influx of members eventually led to the sale of its property located on Holt School Road, and in April 2005 the church began holding services at Riverside High School.
As of October 2015, The Summit Church has 9 campuses.