Why we are now The Summit Church Denver

Big news:

This week we will change our name from "Soma Church Denver" to "The Summit Church Denver."

The Reason:

About two weeks ago we began talking with Soma Communities, a church in Tacoma, WA, about their future plans to plant a church in Denver. As they move toward planting a church in the city in the coming years, they believe it is important to maintaining a consistent identity to use the name "Soma." In order to avoid any confusion between the identity of our two churches, we agreed that it was best for us to change names.

We felt like this was the wisest thing to do for the sake of the kingdom and for the sake of our mission in Denver. Soma Communities is a church that we've learned much from and appreciate, and we believed we should honor them in this way, especially if they feel that this is important to their future church planting plans in Denver. From the very beginning of our own church, we want to be a part of helping, rather than hindering, other churches start new works in this city. The need for more churches is overwhelming and we look forward to these guys being in Denver.

Just so there's no misunderstanding, one of their pastors, Jeff Vanderstelt, and I had a great conversation about this and there are no hard feelings in making this decision.

The Future:

The natural question that comes with this change is where do we go from here:

The same evening that we began this conversation with Soma Communities, Megan and I were at our neighborhood association meeting. As we entered the room we saw the familiar face of a local entrepreneur who has become a friend of mine and whose establishment we’ve made a point of frequenting. Largely surprised that he was again seeing another one of our families engaged in some part of the neighborhood, he commented to me, “you and I need to get together sometime – it’s like you’re leading a movement or something.” I told him that I loved that observation, because while some people think of the church as an institution or event, we like to largely think of it as a movement.

As I considered his comment and where our movement began, it was something initiated by our sending church, The Summit, in Durham, NC. And as we searched for our new name, we felt like there was no better way for us to honor the movement God started there than by naming ourselves The Summit Church Denver. The elders at the Summit in Durham are excited about this, Pastor J.D. is excited about this, and our team here on the ground is excited about this as well.

Summary:

So long story short, we are no longer Soma Church Denver, but are now The Summit Church Denver. Our vision is still the same - to be a gospel community on mission to the city of Denver - we just changed the name. We will still be an autonomous, local church here in Denver, and will not be a campus of our sending church in Durham, NC, even though we will still have the same name.

We're very excited about this, and we feel like this is just one small chapter in the story that God is writing through our church here in Denver. Feel free to e-mail me at bryan@summitdenver.org with any questions or concerns.

For the gospel,

Bryan

P.S.

For those of you supporting us financially, right now you do not need to make any changes to your monthly contributions. As we work through the necessary paperwork, we will notify you as soon as we officially change our name with our local bank.