Consistency is a Superpower
If you’ve attended a service at Summit Orlando in the last decade, Barbara Cooper has likely been a part of your story whether you know it or not. As a member of our Worship Tech Team, Barbara has been running slides in our tech booth in the back of the sanctuary once or twice a month, consistently since 2012! She also has been coming in on Wednesday mornings for almost as long to load visuals and proofread lyric and scripture slides ahead of Sunday.
Parent Seminar Blog
This summer, Base Camp welcomed parents and caregivers to For Parents: A Seminar, to glean wisdom from a professional counselor we had the honor of hosting. Brianna Edwards is an Orlando-based Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC), Registered Play Therapist (RPT), and TBRI Practitioner (Trust-Based Relational Intervention) specializing in children and teens (ages 3-18), trauma, and attachment and parenting.
Backpacks and Promises
If you’ve been around Summit for more than a year, you’ve likely seen our Backpack Drive promoted as we near the end of summer. Over the years, we’ve promoted the drive with fun videos and even heard firsthand testimony of how the drive has benefited lives. Most of us associate the mountains of backpacks that pile in the lobby with local schools and our ongoing commitment to supporting vulnerable children in Central Florida. What many people don’t know, though, is that some of these backpacks go to AFCO (Africans Family and Community Outreach)!
Growing Through Service
Recently, we caught up with some of our Student Ministry volunteers, Nathan and Alexis Meeks, two dedicated volunteers in our Student Ministry, who shared their stories of growth and impact. Over the years, they’ve poured their hearts into mentoring students, and this time has been particularly meaningful for them. Along the way, they got married and started a family, welcoming two daughters into the world, but their commitment to serving never wavered. Nathan and Alexis's journey is a testament to the transformative power of investing in others and the profound impact it can have in our lives.
Living out B.L.E.S.S
The Great Commission is daunting, but B.L.E.S.S. gave us some basic pathways to follow Jesus’ leading in our modern context. Now, summer is almost here, and we’re hearing story after story about how these practices are changing Summit for the better. Angela is a Connect Group leader who, after reading through B.L.E.S.S., was inspired to make some changes in her life, but one was just a subtle change in how she attended Sunday services...
Dreaming of Prayer
Each week, at the end of service, we hear our ministers say, "To the right of the stage, there will be volunteers that would love to pray with you...", and if you’ve ever lingered in the sanctuary after service, you’ve seen our Prayer Team in action. These are volunteers who faithfully show up and step into the stories of our congregation, meeting them where they are, ready to intercede.
Disciples of Every Age
Every week in Base Camp, kids and volunteers gather to connect with God and one another. It’s everything you’d expect to find in a high-energy children’s ministry environment. But what you see on a Sunday morning is just a snapshot of something much deeper and richer taking shape over time. Within Base Camp, a fabric of Christ-centered relationships is being woven each week across generational divides. Communities of volunteers, growing deeper in their own faith, walk alongside families through the ups and downs of life, serving kids who will move on to Surge and Edge and return to lead small groups of their own, guiding the ones who come after them.
The Blessings We Bring
As a church, we are stepping into this call, reaching through relationship. We’re rolling out a whole new framework for how we accomplish the “Reach” portion of Summit’s Vision Statement. In other words, in this next season we’re basing how the whole church goes about “reaching lost people” on a practical book called B.L.E.S.S.: 5 Everyday Ways to Love Your Neighbor, and we want everyone, I mean everyone, to read this thing!
The Courage to Grow
Plants, whether new sprouts or 1,000-year-old redwoods, ocean-dwelling or hanging right here on this wall, need the same four components present to grow. They need sunlight, air, water, and nutrients, otherwise they’re sure to wither away.
Spiritually, we need the right nourishment too, and we get it from the Word through which all things were made, the air breathed by our Creator, the living water of the Holy Spirit, the light that shines in the darkness, which the darkness could not overcome. Jesus, himself, is our source of life.
Christmas Eve Offering
Commission 127 is a non-profit organization aimed at equipping churches to support foster, adoptive, and biological families in crisis. They helped us set up our own Family Advocacy Ministry, and we’ve only just begun to hear the stories of how our support teams are helping foster families in and around Summit. We’ve seen the fruit of their work first hand, and we believe they can do the same for other churches in our area. That’s why we want to take our support of this great organization a step further this year by making them the recipient of our annual Christmas Eve Offering.
United Together in Prayer
Praying can seem so simple. It’s just talking to God after all, right? We can send off a fleeting, even nonsensical thought out into the ether in between sitting in traffic and glancing back down at our phones, or we can formally kneel, fold our hands, and speak aloud trying our best to sound “holy.” Scripture claims that through Christ’s work on the cross this ability to approach the throne of God anywhere, anytime is open to us all. One of the reasons he came down was to connect with his sons and daughters. It’s apparent—God longs to hear our prayers no matter how they come.
Like The Trees
When some dear friends and I were writing songs for “Children of Light” back in 2017, I thought there might be something missing from my debut worship album. I’m admittedly not a “nature person” (Ha!). That may be the understatement of the century, but my concept for the record was to take listeners out of the hustle and bustle and into the mountains or the woods—a more natural setting—where they could reconnect to a more primitive faith, a purer spirituality. But the album did need something earnest and straight from the heart.
To Be Seen and Valued: Reflections on AAPI Heritage Month
It has been over 40 years since President Jimmy Carter signed the first commemoration of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage month into existence, though many Americans have only recently become aware of it. This is not an indictment on my fellow Americans, but rather part of a pattern of erasure and silencing of AAPI folks that is deeply familiar to AAPI community members like me.
Playgrounds, Splash Pads, and Hikes -- Oh My!
At some point over the summer, you’ll likely be asking the question, “What should we do this week?”, and we’ve got you covered with some nearby outdoor fun!
We asked you (the experts!) on Instagram to share some of your favorite playgrounds, splash pads, and family hikes, and you came through in a big way.
We’ve compiled your ideas into a helpful map for you to pick and choose from for your next family outing (you could even make the choosing fun by blindfolding one of your kids and letting them choose, sort of like a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey).
We hope you enjoy getting out and exploring these different central Florida playgrounds, splash pads, and hikes this summer!
Parent to Parent: Wisdom from the speaker series
Parent to Parent:
Wisdom from the speaker series
As summer approaches, the school year comes to an end, and families prepare for more time spent together at home, how can parents find a healthy balance making time for themselves?
In the summers of 2019 and 2021, we had the privilege of sitting down with some folks we admire to ask them about their journeys in parenting. Following these interviews, we shared as much of the wisdom and goodness as possible through in-person gatherings called “Parent to Parent: A speaker series.”
Meditations for Lent
As we enter this Lenten season, it’s my hope that we’ll lean into the wisdom of walking the labyrinth, of slowing down to connect with God. Lent is a season when we contemplate our need for him, honestly and intentionally, preparing our hearts to celebrate Jesus’ victory over sin and death at Easter. I’d like to invite you to enter the labyrinth with us over the next six weeks—or at least, a version of one.
Parenting Through Seasons of Loss
Parenting Through Seasons of Loss
An interview with Joe and Keijo Bollinger
The past two years have been tumultuous for many families. Would you mind sharing a bit about what your family’s experience has been like?
JOE: For us, 2019 was new and exciting, our first year with no preschoolers—then the pandemic hit before the school year was over and we had all four of our children back at home for eighteen months. We don't have a house that allows for any extra space, so it was very disruptive.
KEIJO: Life has been so unpredictable, and I know it hasn’t been this way for everyone, but I can’t think of a single part of our lives that hasn’t been impacted. We’re constantly re-evaluating and trying to figure things out, and that hasn’t wrapped up for us yet. I’ve seen in me, and in others, that our capacity to handle stress has been squeezed.
I Shall Wear A Crown
"I shall wear a crown."
It was between wine-colored pews and the melodic homilies given by robe-draped choirs where I found Jesus.
Jesus—the one familiar with the sorrows of the parishioners and the beckoning call of a better tomorrow—was preached from pulpits and presented as not only an option, but a necessity for life.
For those of us with darker hues, Jesus was introduced as the great liberator and the one who shall present a crown on the heads of those who "made it over."
The Black church served and still serves as a haven for the unspoken burdens of those wandering through a majority culture. In these spaces, I was introduced to the words of Thomas Whitfield:
"When it's all over. I am going to put on my robe and tell the story of how I made it over."
Worthy of Our Love
When asked which of the commandments found in God’s Law is the greatest, Jesus responds with a simple prayer—a child’s prayer—that every Israelite would know:
Hear, O Israel:
The Lord is our God, the Lord is one.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
Deuteronomy 6:4–5
This prayer—named for its first word, “Shema!” (Listen!)—was given by Moses to the people of God as they left their former slavery in Egypt. It was intended to keep this truth constantly in mind: that God is the only god worthy of our love.
Covered in Dust: Thoughts for the New Year
There was a blessing commonly given to disciples in the day of Jesus: “May you be covered in the dust of your rabbi.” It is an image of walking so closely behind your teacher that the dust from the ancient Palestinian roads on which they travel ends up on you. It’s a blessing of position relative to the one you follow—because your position, relative to the one you follow, matters. As we head into a new year, with a God who makes all things now, may we be covered in the dust of our rabbi. And may that bring hope, joy and purpose to our days ahead.