Why Plant a Church in Denver?0
Posted In Blog
Bryan Barley is the Summit Church’s Church Planting Resident and Lead Planter of Soma Church Denver (www.somadenver.org), the Summit’s newest church plant. He and his wife, Megan, along with a team of other members of the Summit will move to Denver in January.
To learn more about Soma’s mission, be sure to check out their Vision Day at the Summit’s North Raleigh Capmus on Nov. 14th at 1:00pm (RSVP for lunch and childcare at www.summitrdu.com/soma).
In the spirit of our recent Sent series and the church planting forum, we wanted to share Bryan’s story:
About twenty months ago, my wife, Megan, and I sat in the Chic-fil-a in Wake Forest discussing our future. While enjoying our waffle fries, we discussed the many good options that are presented to a seminary student and his wife- would we go overseas? Get more education? Go into an established church?
Megan had been gracious to deal with the various options I had thrown out over the first year of seminary, probably knowing that I needed to wrestle through almost every option before we could give ourselves fully to something like urban church planting. Six months before this “Chic-fil-a summit”, Megan and I, along with our good friend, Andy Metzger, took a trip to begin exploring the possibility of planting a church in Denver, CO. We left that trip encouraged and excited, but also wondering if this was what God would have us give our lives to. Now Megan and I were continuing that conversation, trying to wrap our minds around the magnitude of the task and the complexity of the call.
Our greatest desire was to cultivate a “Great Commission marriage” that would be characterized by making disciples who make disciples that in some way reach the nations. We believed firmly that the vehicle for us to do this was the local church, and as we examined our experiences, gifts, and desires, we believed the best place we could do this was Denver.
Denver has tremendous need, with 93-97% of its 2.8 million residents unchurched. It has incredible influence, with over 1400,000 college students, citizens from over seventy-five nations, and people who impact the nation and world. It has an amazing culture, being a city where “urban sophistication meets outdoor adventure.” It was a place where we were excited to plant our lives with the intention of planting God’s church.
With that criteria in mind, a strong desire to go, and a growing feeling that we couldn’t really do anything else, Megan and I left Chic-fil-a resolved to step out in faith and commit to planting a church in urban Denver, beginning in January 2010. Andy stayed on board, and we started communicating this vision to others. We saw our team gow, adding team members Alex and Kristel Acevedo, Drew Witt, and Josh and Liz Bryant. We saw the Summit come behind us and begin intentionally assessing, training, and equipping us to carry out the mission. And we saw God move in tremendous ways to bring together the pieces for us to move our lives to Denver to help build His church.
Today we sit approximately two months away from hitting the ground in Denver, excited about what God is going to do in the city! We want to invite you to be a part of the mission and learn more about what we believe God is doing through us in Denver by attending our Vision Day at the North Raleigh Campus on Nov. 14th. We believe this is a great opportunity to see a tangible example of Summit’s vision to plant churches, and to see how a group of normal people are giving their lives to seeing the gospel grow in the city. Lunch and childcare will be provided, so please RSVP (see above). Hope to see you there!