First, King Saul in the Old Testament: 
“So Saul died for his breach of faith. He broke faith with the Lord in that he did not keep the command of the Lord, and also consulted a medium, seeking guidance.”  1 Chronicles 10:13

Many years later, Saul of Tarsus (who we know as the Apostle Paul): 
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”  2 Timothy 4:7-8

I long to be able to say at the end of my life that I lived well and kept the faith. King Saul started well but finished his life poorly. He broke faith with God. In contrast, Saul of Tarsus started poorly as a persecutor of the church but finished well. He kept the faith. How did Saul of Tarsus stay faithful?

Moses wrote in Psalm 90:12, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” While numbering my days and thinking 20+ years into the future can be helpful, it’s also really abstract and might not affect my practical everyday life. So I’d like for us to consider a shorter increment of time for practicality’s sake – this upcoming Summer. 

You’ve probably made most of your plans already, but my fear is that we’ll all get to Labor Day weekend and look back on a summer with a lot of missed opportunities for God. But what if on Labor Day you could look back over the summer and confidently say “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the summer, I have kept the faith?” 

I could list a lot of ministry opportunities here, and there are some new ones at the bottom of this email for you to consider. But your circumstances may look different than mine. So I invite you to pray with me this week. Seek the Lord for what he would want for you and your family this summer. What could this season look like if we spent as much time seeking God for gospel and discipleship opportunities as we do planning our summer recreation? 

As we go from here, remember that the presence of God is among us wherever we go, and with him at our right hand, we will not be shaken. (Psalm 16:8) 

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At the moment though, the two families (9 people!) are living in a three bedroom apartment. Housing options in Fort Collins are limited right now, so we need your help. These families don’t have a salary or credit history, so they’ll be automatically rejected through the normal channels of rental agreements. 

We would love to find private owners who would be willing to rent to these families. The family of five will need a home ASAP for 6-12 months, and the family of four will need a home starting July 29, also for 6-12 months. If each lease is signed before June 30 of this year, we can activate government funding to pay for 6 months rent up front.

Here are the current housing needs: 

1. Needs to be within a 3 mile radius of CSU for the children’s schooling and ease of access to ESL and our team’s support. 
2. 2-3 bedrooms for a family of 5 (children ages 12, 10, and 4), preferably less than $1,600 per month. 
3. 2 bedroom for a family of 4 (children ages  5 and 1), starting July 29, less than $1,600 per month.
4. If someone is willing to be a co-signer (income=5x rent) it would open us up to more options.

Please pray for these needs to be met. Two Ukrainian refugees are also now in Fort Collins, and the second team from Summitview who is sponsoring them would love your prayers! 

He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 10:18-19

The post Refugee housing help needed! appeared first on Summitview Church.

No, I’m not going to get into which side I think is right and which is wrong in this post. And yes, we’re still friends and still love each other. 

In a battle, some hills are worth dying on. Others really aren’t. But lately it seems no matter who I listen to, they’re demanding that their “hill” of opinion, partisanship or doctrine is one I must choose as most important. 

It’s so tempting for us to get dogmatic, especially when the “sides” are claiming moral superiority. As if every issue in life were binary. 

Jesus could have prescribed a lot of things for his disciples to prioritize. But he described the greatest hill to die on, for the sake of the world knowing him: love. 

John 13:34-35
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Not a love dependent on our conformity of thought, conviction, or preference. Love, just as God loved us. 

A related passage I’ve been dwelling on this week as external voices keep getting louder is Romans 15:5-7. 

“May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”

I didn’t deserve to be loved or welcomed by God, but he demonstrated his love in this: while I was still his enemy, Christ died in order to welcome me into his eternal family. (Romans 5:7-8)

I keep telling myself that I need to love as I engage with people who can’t get along with each other and who disagree on complicated issues. I am to welcome my fellow brother or sister in Christ the same way Christ welcomed me. Jesus set that standard for us when he died while we were his enemies. 

What’s at stake here? Our witness to the world as the church. 

John 17:22-23
“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

Jesus prayed in John 17 that we (his church) would be perfectly one so that the world may know that God loves them. 

In my exhortation today, I don’t mean we need to waffle on our positions and compromise on everything. But we can agree that not every hill is worth dying on. In this divisive season, I’m praying that we love despite our differences, so that the world can see God’s love for them through how we love one another. 

The post While I Was Still His Enemy appeared first on Summitview Church.

Acts 17:22-23
“So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: ‘Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: “To the unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you…’”
 

The 4 R’s are: 

Recognize 
“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit…”

What do I need to be aware of? How has this affected our world/me? In what ways do I need to “get above” it in order to have the ability to evaluate it instead of being controlled by it?

Receive
“…according to Christ…”

How is this noble/commendable? What overlap is there with Biblical truth? How does it bridge to the Gospel?

Reject
“…philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world.”

What needs to be exposed, confronted, and outright denied in light of scripture? What errors need correcting? What lies are these ideas built on?

Redeem
“As I…observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you…”

What opportunities do we have to present an attractive/persuasive contrast – as in, is there an altar to the unknown god here somewhere? How can we be light against the darkness? How might Christ be presented more clearly as the answer?
 

When it comes to analyzing our culture, it can be tempting to fall into the cultural narrative we’re all swimming in and engage in the same all-or-nothing methodology. Obviously there are hills to die on as Christians, like the God-breathed authority of the Bible and the centrality of the gospel and the historical Jesus, as reflected in scripture. But as we engage the world’s narratives, it is necessary for Christians to rise above the polarizing methodology of our culture. 

And as we do so, I pray this tool will help us engage our world with humility, love, and wisdom in order to reach more friends and neighbors for Christ. 

The post A Tool to Help You Navigate a Polarized Culture appeared first on Summitview Church.

It’s a word that we have all heard in church. But sometimes I hear “Christian” words and they go in one ear and out the other. Autopilot becomes the default. Our brains prefer easy pathways and abstractions and simplicity rather than complex thought. But what if we didn’t go on autopilot this time? 

Honestly, much of the time, I want to remain on autopilot. Spout the “Christianese” and just move on to something more entertaining, something more interesting. But that’s the very problem our modern technology has foisted upon us. We take the easy path of scrolling and swiping to the next thing. And we find ourselves scrolling with equal apathy past the latest pop star’s outfit as well as the murder of innocents in some distant place of geography. 

What is going on in our minds? We’re at war. War against our flesh, which wants to lead us through the easy brain paths. It takes strength to machete-whack my way through the overgrown paths of empathy.

Let me take a different tactic with this word I mentioned earlier. Omnipresence. Thanks to this brightly lit piece of electronic bliss in my pocket, I can literally see into anywhere on the planet. I can see into the world’s war zones. I can see into people’s living rooms. Their bedrooms and bathrooms. I’m everywhere at once. At least, that’s what my brain thinks. I’m obviously not everywhere at once, but I’m experiencing so much of the world in real time that I might as well be, as far my feeble mortal brain is capable of handling. 

So now I’ve got a pseudo-omnipresence and my soul can’t ever rest. Because I see tragedy and gossip and relational tension and I can’t sort it all out. Not only do I not have time any more to sit and process, I don’t have the power to take action in any of these situations. 

So I feel anxious. Sad. Constantly moving and in tension. 

Stress. 

Fatigue. 

Then . . . apathy. Because it’s too hard to care this much. 

Now, a text from someone in my small group comes in. Or from a close family member. Tragedy has hit. Or, maybe they need help moving. My attention, my time, and my generosity are requested. My gut response? Apathy. 

Because it’s just one more equal input to my soul and I’m processing it on the same level as the pop star’s new outfit and the murder of innocents. 

So I sit. 

And I scroll. 

I’m everywhere at once.

Omni-apathetic. 

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If I was taken captive and brought to a foreign land, I think my main instinct would be survival: hunker down, lay low, stay out of the limelight. But for Daniel and his friends, survival wasn’t proof of success. God intended more for them than survival and allowed them to rise to places of influence and power in Babylonian culture. He made them strong and dangerous. 

We’re rounding out 18 months of COVID, cultural division, anger, and misinformation. It can seem easy to take on a survivalist identity, especially as we’re inundated with memes, ads, and messages from our culture that try to teach us sin is okay and it’s actually evil to point out that sin is wrong. And the daily bombardment can be very subtle. Consider how Satan twisted the truth in the Garden to deceive Eve. His message sounded reasonable, and even seemed to contain truth. 

My kids were excited to watch the Olympics this year, which we did, in a limited capacity. Limited, because you couldn’t watch for more than five minutes without being fed cultural lies packaged and celebrated as beautiful truths. We learned we were supposed to celebrate men switching genders and weightlifting as women, while commercial breaks reminded us to celebrate same sex couples.

I’ve felt compelled to engage my kids on these difficult topics rather than avoid them, and talk frankly about the tensions we’re facing as Jesus followers in this season. Have you ever discussed transgenderism with your 9 year old while driving down the road? We have now. These conversations can get pretty raw as we discuss abortion, race issues, equality, COVID-19, capitalism and socialism, as well as moral quandaries we have about political engagement. 

Our kids may be getting tired of our repetition, but we tell them continually about the inclination of the human heart towards evil. How Satan’s lies can sound reasonable so they need to be wary. But how Jesus has overcome the world and that he lives in us. And the Bible teaches us that greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world, so they not only can have hope, they can courageously and confidently stand strong in this dark world. 

The church has always been resisted. In the first century, it was made illegal. It was persecuted. And yet, it grew because Jesus is Lord. And as our culture becomes increasingly hostile to Christianity, we must not retreat. We must not merely survive. God has called us to so much more than that. We’re called to advance with hope and courageously take ground. 

So how do we engage the world but not fall captive to it? How do we walk that line? 

It’s important not to assume that we’ll all see the cultural lies clearly, particularly as next generations come of age. We have to talk about the things the world is already talking about. And we’ve got to do it Biblically, counter-culturally, and in community. 

One of those topics is social justice. The world is talking about it in terms of equality, justice, and love, which are words we Christians love. And yet, there’s a spin of deception in each of these terms as the world redefines them. As pastors, we are convinced that we need to invest time digging into the topic of justice. So much so that we’re interrupting our series on the Gospel of John for the next 5 weeks in order to talk about it. 

Can I ask you to lean into the conversation over the next 5 Sundays? It’s important not to miss any of the weeks, as the logic in each sermon will build on the previous week’s content. And join in on the conversation in your small group and families via discussion questions each week. We can’t wait to dive into this topic with you this Sunday. 

-Travis, on behalf of the Summitview Pastors

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Church, our Missions Campaign goal was $50,000 and as of this afternoon, you’ve pledged $60,000.55! (To the person who added $0.55 to your pledge, I kinda love how it makes what would have been a wonderfully round number a bit more memorable.) 

And more will likely come in over the next few days. We’ll update you on Sunday during the service.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your generosity! Through your contribution, you’re enabling missionaries to be supported around the world, a church plant effort to go forward, and two young men to join our local staff and invest in the next generation. 

But in a lot of ways, this is just the beginning. Many of us made personal commitment pledges on Sunday. What do we do now?

I mentioned on Sunday that Christians often think backwards about how the church is to operate. Some think Summitview has just 4 ministers (myself, Aaron, John, and Perry), but that’s not true. Summitview actually has HUNDREDS of ministers, all of whom are called to the Great Commission. 

Ephesians 3:10 says that God’s intent is for his manifold wisdom to be made known to the world through the church. God’s manifold wisdom is the boundless riches of Christ – the good news of the gospel. The “making known” is the work of sharing that gospel and making disciples. And God’s plan is to do this through YOU – the church. 

Remember the whys outlined on Sunday – why would someone spend their time and resources on this church thing? 

1. So that we can be resilient, not tossed to and fro by a deceitful culture (Ephesians 4:14)
2. To be a blessing to others through the gifts God has given us (1 Corinthians 12:7) 
3. So the world will see and believe God (John 17:21-23) 

I think we all want to see this happen! But it takes all of us. So lean in now. Engage in conversation with your family, friends, and small group leaders. Consider how we can help each other put into practice the commitments that we’ve made!

– Travis Swan

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None of us has had to navigate a global pandemic and a series of gigantic crises before 2020. If we’re honest, many of us instinctively moved into personal survival mode at some point. It seemed more reasonable to expect risk taking, innovation, and church growth to happen in better times.

But the church of Jesus Christ is designed for advance – no matter what is happening. How do we know this? Because Jesus is in charge of building the church. As he said in Matthew 16:18, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” In Acts 1:8 he foretold that his disciples would receive the Holy Spirit’s power, and he outlined a 3-part plan for how he would build his early church through the witness of his disciples. The book of Acts chronicles that advance. 

First, the city. Peter preached a Holy Spirit-empowered sermon in Acts 2 and the church in Jerusalem literally turned into a megachurch overnight. 

Second, the region. As persecution scattered God’s people (Acts 8), they preached the gospel wherever they went. The church’s message expanded throughout the neighboring communities of Judea and Samaria. 

Third, the nations. Paul, the persecutor of the church, did a complete about-face and devoted his life to sharing the gospel with unreached Gentiles. Despite great opposition and peril to Paul’s life, the gospel spread rapidly throughout the known world. 

God’s plan for his kingdom advancing has often included opposition and crisis. This season has been hard for all of us, but his heart is for the good news of the gospel to advance throughout the world so that every person hears. And because that advance depends on his power and not ours, we can trust that no matter the crisis, God’s kingdom will advance.  

So instead of shrinking back and going into survival mode, we believe God is calling Summitview to advance and to pioneer new missions initiatives this year. 

Our 2021 missions campaign began this past Sunday and will run through May 9. Throughout this time, we’re praying for God to provide $50,000 to fund various missions initiatives. This year’s campaign will follow the same structure the early church did in the book of Acts – City, Region, and Nations. 

Read more about this 3-part initiative on our missions page, and be sure to join us for the next three Sundays to hear how you can be part of God’s advance.

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One thing is certain. Perry taught last week on Palm Sunday that Jesus’ death and resurrection is historical fact. You don’t have to turn off your brain to believe in the resurrection – the evidence is compelling. It happened in real space and time. 

And yet, Christianity has to be more than just a set of historical details. Academic belief in facts alone won’t save us. Think about it – if you don’t believe the facts of the resurrection, you’re left with only an idea, an example to follow. If Jesus is still dead, you can’t actually talk to him, he can’t talk to you, and he’s not a real force that can supernaturally intervene in your life. It’s also possible to believe the historical facts and not understand the power of the resurrection. You can believe it as fact but not know it as an experience. Either way, what you’re left with is a form of religion without power or hope. 

True hope will get us through these times of uncertainty. The beginning of that hope is found in two big words – forgiveness and justification – central to the work Jesus accomplished for us. We’re going to gather on April 2 for our Good Friday service to contemplate this. 

But forgiveness and justification are just a path on the road to hope. Our ultimate hope is in knowing Jesus. The Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 3 that his passion was to know Jesus, to know – to experience – the power of his resurrection. Hope is found in knowing Jesus Christ and the power of his resurrection. Knowing that the same divine presence that raised Jesus from the dead now lives in you. 

Let’s gather together on Easter Sunday to immerse ourselves not just in the facts but the person of Jesus. He’s alive, we can know him personally, and we can experience the power of his resurrection.

– Travis Swan

Easter Week Services

Good Friday
April 2, 6 p.m.
The nursery will be open for Good Friday (self service,
no volunteers) with the livestream of the service.

Easter Sunday
April 4, 9:30 a.m.

Worship Sunday
April 11, 9:30 a.m.  

The post Resurrection Hope appeared first on Summitview Church.

What if I told you all you need to do right now to reach that one person is have an open lunch hour after church on Sunday? 
 

When everything shut down in March we didn’t have much online presence. Like everyone else, we scrambled around for a bit learning how to livestream, and behind the scenes did a massive overhaul of our website and social media accounts. 

I wasn’t sure what to expect in that season, or as we’ve started in-person gatherings again. But it looks like this internet thing is here to stay, and everyone we’re trying to reach is online. It’s opened up a whole new front door into our church! 

Someone reached out to us recently via social media whose family lives in another state and is moving to Fort Collins soon. They have been joining us via livestream for a while and when they move here are planning to join us in person. 

We’ve had multiple people contact us saying they’re new to town. Community has been tough to find with the COVID-19 shutdown, so they jumped onto our livestream and have been connecting there. Some have said they’ve now decided Summitview is their home church, even though they’ve never attended in person. We’ve even had new people engage from out of state and out of the country over the past few months! 

Something new is happening! I assumed the restrictions of this season would inhibit new people checking out Summitview, but that hasn’t been the case! Last Sunday I met several people who were attending for the first time. They had checked us out online first, decided they liked what they saw, and joined us in person, masks and all! 

I have to admit it was a little tough to tell whether I knew them or not because half their faces were covered with a mask, but I walked up and introduced myself anyway. My small group was able to have one of these new people over at my house after church and we had a great time together. 

As we together as a church consider how to reach the end of the earth, keep in mind that people are coming to us! Consider leaving space for lunch on Sundays with the intent of meeting someone new at church, and inviting them to eat with you! 

And if you’re home joining us via the livestream, remember to say hi and engage in conversation on Facebook or YouTube. I’m grateful for the technology that’s bringing new people to us in the midst of a global pandemic. 

Pray for a great harvest. And for more workers in the field. God is on the move! 

– Travis (on behalf of the Summitview Pastors)

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