Sharing Some Grace Summit History

Life is good.
Today I talked with Diane M. at SBC about advertising Grace Summit in the Yellow Pages and Smartpages.com. I shared with her a bit of the history of Grace Summit and how we merged with Grace Covenant 9 years ago - and how humble the Grace Covenant families were and what a great merger it has been. She said, "What a neat story! You could write a book." I even told her the Post Script about Dennis's family being very involved in our association now (one son a pastor, another leading worship at college...), and about his Going Home - and a bit about Linda's story and what an example of grace and perseverance she has been to us. Again, she said, "You could write a book!" I said, "Maybe a newspaper article" - and she said, "you ought to call Terry Pluto." I told her how Terry actually knew Dennis, through the prison ministry and Terry coming to share with our Men's group. Maybe if TheRockCleveland merges with this other church... the saga continues.

I went back and read a bit from our anniversary service last November. After I had shared about our history, Dennis talked about our Present:

"Our church life is so important to us. Our church life is the expression of our relationship with Christ. When we look back, we realize - what we do affects our lives. We live about 70 years -- it may seem small in the corridor of time, but it is all we have. We look at our church - and the segment of history here - and we can be thankful. Look at the lives that have been changed- the circumstances of other circles have been changed by what has happened here. The reason that has happened is simply this: There have been many people committed to The Cause. We have been placed on the track of the Lord Jesus and have stuck to it. By the grace of God, our wheels haven't come off that track. We have hit some bumps, but we have stuck to the task. Commitment - how you affect your own life over the long haul and the life of others. How others go out and affect other circles...

We are unique - when you look at our church - whatever portion of life - in most organizations, 20% of the people do 80% of the work. Except in this church - we wouldn't make it if only 20% did the work - it is a lot higher than that - we have a very high participation. Because of the commitment level of YOU!"

Thanks, Dennis. I needed that encouragement today.