Your weekly installment of what we’ve been reading (and watching) around the web.

Articles of the Week

Caring for Refugees, J.D. Greear. Over the past week, the news has been dominated by the question of how our country—and the church—should best care for refugees. Pastor J.D.’s response points to several other useful resources, and shows what we, at the Summit, are doing to minister to refugees.

Don’t Be a Gullible Skeptic, Trevin Wax. Too many people in our current society are what Trevin c..

You remember the story where Jesus takes a little boy’s lunch of five loaves of bread and two fish—his “Levite Lunchable” or “Hebrew Hot Pockets”—and turns it into enough food for more than 5,000 people.

But did you ever wonder what Jesus would have done if he didn’t have five loaves and two fish? What if he’d only had one fish and two loaves of bread? It wouldn’t have made a difference; it would have been the same outcome. He could have done the same miraculous work with a bread crumb and a fi..

Over the past few days, the news has been dominated by the question of how our country—and the church—should best care for refugees.

We know that the church has an obligation, given by God, to care for the stranger with all of the passion and compassion with which we care for ourselves. Refugees in our country and in our neighborhoods deserve our unfettered love.

We also know that one of the central roles of government is to protect its people from harm, acting with justice and wisdom.

Within..

Back in 2010, we had a short-lived series called “Ask Anything Friday.” We encouraged blog readers to submit whatever question they wanted, and Pastor J.D. would respond to one each week (ish). No subject was off-limits.

This question is one that has come up in some recent conversations quite a bit, so we thought it would be fruitful to revisit. When should a church member consider leaving a church for good?

So, selfishly I hope this one is not from a Summit member who is looking for a reason ..

One of the benefits of a new year is stopping to take stock of our lives—to assess whether we’re actually spending our time doing what matters most. We’ll never live the life God intends for us unless we intend to, and intending starts with an honest look at how we’ve created our schedules.

Our Spiritual Formations team has created a great tool to help us “audit” our most precious resource—our time. Check it out:

Five Life Resources:

Spiritual – Every person’s heart yearns for something. Addi..

Over the past few years, civil discourse in the United States has seen “religious liberty” become something of a slur. It is placed in scare quotes, with many arguing that the only reason anyone might defend religious liberty is to oppress others. In the fall of 2016, for instance, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a statement that revealed a disturbingly low view of religious liberty.

We don’t know what will become of President Trump’s time in office. But we pray that with this new ad..

You probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that most people have a fear of hell. But you may be one of those people who also has a secret fear about heaven—because sitting against an all-white backdrop, wearing diapers, and playing the harp while Morgan Freeman recites poetry all day just doesn’t sound like your idea of paradise.

Thankfully, the Bible gives a much different picture of the joys of heaven as well as a sharp picture of the torments of hell. The Bible contains all the truth from G..

This guest post is written by KJ Hill, one of the Summit’s local outreach pastors. He will be joining LaToya King, Raudel Hernandez, Walter Strickland, and me (J.D.) for a panel discussion Tuesday, January 17, 7-8:30 p.m., at the Summit en Español venue of our Brier Creek campus. The panel’s topic is “Martin Luther King Jr.: Race, Church, and Culture 50 Years Later.” RSVP today and I’ll see you tomorrow!

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, ..

If you ever want to see the whole gospel displayed in one story in the Old Testament, look no further than the story of Ruth. After following her mother-in-law to an unfamiliar land and making it her own, Ruth meets Boaz, who becomes her kinsman redeemer, restoring her family’s inheritance and turning Naomi’s bitterness into sweetness.

Through Boaz and Ruth’s union, the line of David would be established, from which was born Jesus, who took on the curse of death itself to buy us back and become..

Just after his resurrection, Jesus appeared to a couple of his disciples on the road to Emmaus, and began to explain to them—from Moses and all the prophets, how every story in the Old Testament had been about him. He was trying to give them confidence that he really was who he had told them he was.

You might think that the resurrection itself was enough proof. But evidently Jesus believed it would be even more convincing to show them that every single page of a book written by more than 30 dif..