The following is from a recent meeting with a Reaching the Summit pastor.
“Some of the changes I’ve noticed since we started Reaching the Summit: People are coming to me and asking to help. This never happened before. I have people coming and asking to do things for me or someone else. Just this week we’ve had two deaths. One young deacon called me and said, ‘I know Jack (name changed) is the deacon for this family (just lost a loved one).’” Jack’s family had also lost a family member the day before. This deacon went on to ask, “Is it all right if I go and minister to this family? Jack does not need to deal with this right now. He has his own family to take care of.”
The pastor went on to say, “This has always been a loving church, but in my ten years here, nothing like this has ever happened before. And this is just one incident. I have people calling me asking about me and what they can do for me. That did not happen before. Not the way it is now. Only since we started this process (Reaching the Summit).”
Reaching the Summit has helped many churches in various ways. Reaching the Summit is a process that looks at each church individually. It is not a program or a cookie cutter approach. Every church that I have worked with through the Reaching the Summit process has gained valuable, usable insight and been able to constructively use that insight to be more effective in ministry.
The church mentioned above has seen several shifts and modifications in ministry and they’ve not completed the sessions yet. By changing the way they do small groups Bible studies, they saw an immediate increase of 25%. Whether you’re running 60 or 6,000, 25% is a great increase of people in Bible study. This church is seeing a true disciple-making transformation.
Other churches have seen significant increases in baptisms, community engagement, discipleship, leadership development, and prayer ministry. All of these lead to more effective disciple-making ministry. And it is all principle based.
Reaching the Summit is not a consultant’s view of “if you do these 3 things you’ll be good to go.” Reaching the Summit starts with confronting the brutal facts of your ministry and builds upon what God has placed in your midst, using biblical principles and practices to support those principles.
I am a firm believer in biblically based principles. Whether in your personal life, business, or church if you get the principles right and put practices in place to follow those principles, you will succeed. Let me encourage you to purchase a copy of Reaching the Summit and contact me, George Yates about the possibility of working with your church to be the most effective ministry for which God has set you apart.