Reflections: Brian & Melissa Turney
There are a lot of exciting developments happening at The Summit! In anticipation of planting our AM Congregation on February 15, we asked some of our members to share their experiences of what it's looked like to be part of the Summit family.
Corrie ten Boom once said so perfectly, "Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God." There have been plenty of times in our marriage that God has taught us the power in trusting Him who loves us to infinitely, but never more so than when we decided to buy a house in the city of Denver.
When the idea of buying a house came up, we had been in Denver for over a year and half. The idea of buying a house – of really committing, of putting down roots in a city across the country from our families was pretty scary. Aside from the commitment aspect, finances were another issue, yet as we explored the idea and sought out wisdom in prayer - something just seemed to be right about it. We knew Denver was home. We had fallen in love with this place almost immediately after moving here. More than mountains or craft beer, our love for Denver was fueled by a church full of people whom we loved and who loved us back; people who we were excited to live on mission with to share the love of Jesus with the people around us. So when a house opened up, and finances miraculously came together, we were ready to go all in and make Denver our home for the foreseeable future.
We wish we could end this post here, and that’d be the story of how the Turneys bought a house. Unfortunately, things did not go quite as smoothly as we had planned.
Our seemingly known future suddenly became very unknown when there was a title mix-up between the bank and the seller of the home we were under contract for. The purchase of our home was delayed, although we had no idea for how long, nor did we have another place to live – our lease at the apartment that we had been renting to that point had lapsed. We were essentially homeless - the two of us, our 8 month-old son Charlie and our dog Oreo.
Enter Chris and Jen Wooten, who offered their home to us in our time of uncertainty. Oftentimes, as Christians, we want to be generous - we give some money here and there and practice generosity in the least messy ways possible - the kind of ways that allow us to go home unaltered and seriously unaffected by those acts of generosity. But not the Wootens, they invited us to an open-ended stay and never once made us feel like we were in the way. They loved us more than their comfort. They loved us radically as Christ does.
What we hoped would be a couple weeks eventually turned into a four-month ordeal and ended in us never getting the original house we wanted (we found a better and cheaper one - thank you Jesus!). The whole time, the Wootens and other families like the Barleys and Gambills generously served and cared for us. Countless friends offering to babysit so we could take time to have real conversation and time together to grow in our faith and relationship as our family was growing too (Did we mention that we discovered we were pregnant with Zoie during this time?). Despite the adversity, we came away from the whole thing more firmly committed to being a part of The Summit family and its mission to Denver.
Bryan promised us before we ever moved here that God would use Denver and the Summit to push us, to show us His love and character more than we could imagine. Four years later that has proven to be so very true, especially in the times we can’t see the path clearly. It is in those times that the gospel, the fact that Christ laid aside all comfort to love us in a way that would hurt him so much, but bring us to know Him more, is our known in the unknown.
