This week Pastor Mel opened a new series called The Kingdom with the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds (Matthew 13:24-30, with its explanation in 13:36-43). A farmer plants good seed, but while everyone sleeps an enemy sows weeds among the wheat. When the servants offer to pull them, the farmer refuses and says to let both grow together until the harvest. Here is the tension: there is a weed called darnel — a "false wheat" — that is nearly impossible to tell apart from the real thing until the very end. So how do we live faithfully in a field where wheat and weeds grow side by side?

Mel reads the parable on two levels. First, personally: the weeds are the things that quietly grow up in our own lives and choke out what God planted. Second, and more soberly: the field is the world, and it holds true faith and false faith together, which is exactly why we are so slow to judge — "we can't tell. So often we can't tell." Jesus' own interpretation ends with a final separation at the end of the age, when "the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father's kingdom." Mel turns to 1 Corinthians 5 to sort out what judgment is and isn't ours, and closes with the story of a student told to study a single fish — "Look at the fish" — calling us past a surface faith to truly know Jesus.

1. The farmer refuses to rip out the weeds and says to let both grow together until the harvest. Where in your life are you tempted to force a verdict — on yourself or on someone else — that God may be asking you to leave to the harvest?

2. Mel describes the weeds in our own lives as the things that quietly grow up and steal our time and attention from God. What is one weed that has taken root in yours, and what would it look like to name it honestly this week?

3. On judging others, Mel said, "We judge, but we're gonna judge with the best in mind and the best in prayer... with open hands generously." How is that different from the way you are tempted to judge people? Where do you need more open hands?

4. Jesus says the field is the world and the harvest is the end of the age, when "the righteous will shine like the sun." Does the reality of a final sorting comfort you, unsettle you, or both — and why?

5. The message closes with "Look at the fish" — the call to stop settling for knowing about Jesus and to actually know him. Name one specific way this week you will slow down and truly look at Jesus, rather than rushing past him.

Mel, Joel, and Michael discuss the finale of the Prepare the Way series - Pastor Christina's message on calling.

They dig into why God's call rests on relationship with him rather than our talent or gifting - which means everyone is called, both liberating and terrifying - how a vocation differs from a calling, and the humbling truth that God works in spite of us, not because of us. No savior complex, just stewardship.

From there they walk Christina's three obstacles to calling: shattered expectations (Moses' failed first attempt, and Christina's own five-year ache when she pictured rescuing orphans overseas but was called to children's ministry), inadequacy ("who am I?"), and authority ("I AM WHO I AM," Matthew 28), anchoring it all in a God who is faithful and true. They close where Christina did, in Exodus 2 - your calling was never about you, but about the people God intends to rescue, including the one who is hardest to love.

Mel and Michael discuss how to hold grace and truth together. Is all sin equal? When does genuine love for a person actually require a firm, non-negotiable boundary?

From there the conversation moves through three arcs. First, grace and guardrails — why some offenses carry stakes so high they demand a policy with no exceptions, why a good shepherd will protect their flock, and why redemption is never a reset to zero. Second, knowing when to leave — how to tell God's call to stay and suffer from simple pride or fear, and why pain is not an indication that you're outside of God's will. Third, politics and conspiracy — how to pastor someone gripped by anxiety and outrage, why that work happens one-on-one and not from the platform, and how Mel decides what is worth addressing publicly (including his own statement to the church on the U.S. strike in Iran). Grace and truth, held together, all the way through.

This week's message worked through Exodus 40:34-38 - the cloud and the fire settling over the tabernacle - inside the Prepare the Way series anchored on Isaiah 40:3. The central flip: we usually ask God to prepare our way, to make our path straight and our lives easier, but Scripture invites us to prepare his way instead, to clear the obstacles so God can move freely in and through us.

Mel, Joel, and Michael work through what actually blocks that movement - pride that contends with God's lordship, comfort and complacency, and distraction in an age of information overload - before turning to Exodus 40's picture of Israel moving only when the cloud lifted, tents pitched in line of sight, ready to break camp at a moment's notice. They do not shy away from the hard parts: the fear that keeps us settled, the way success dulls our watchfulness, and how God redeems even the decisions we make without him.

This week on Leadership Night, Pastor Mel teaches on the importance of mentoring — why most leaders underestimate it, and what it costs us to try to go it alone. He opens with a reminder that the Global Leadership Summit is coming to Summit Church on August 6th and 7th, then makes the case with the data: employees who receive mentoring are promoted about five times more often, roughly three-quarters of executives credit mentoring as key to their careers, and mentoring quietly drives retention along with real cultural and financial benefits for an organization.

From there Mel gets practical about how to actually find a mentor. First, go find one — aspire rather than settle, be a "big game hunter," and don't limit yourself to a single person; pursue different mentors for the different areas you want to grow. Second, look for what a prospective mentor is genuinely passionate about. Third, be willing to ask — ask many people, and don't ask the first time you meet them (he tells of pursuing Dan Reiland, considered one of the first executive pastors in the country, and fighting to get a single hour on his calendar). Fourth, evaluate the relationship honestly. He names his own mentors along the way, including Pastor John Nuzzo of Victory Family Church.

Then he turns the whole thing around: you weren't made only to find a mentor — you were made to become one. His warning lands hard for anyone winning right now but pouring into no one: that kind of success has a short shelf life, because nothing is being replicated. The challenge is to measure your leadership not by what you're building, but by who you're raising up.

Mel, Joel, and Michael wrestle with a question that sounds simple and turns out to be anything but: we tell leaders to be convictional, but is conviction really the same thing as certainty? What happens when a leader's certainty quietly outruns the evidence — and how would you ever catch that in yourself, from the inside?

The conversation moves from character and maturity to why leaders hide. They talk about pride and the refusal to change your mind, how audiences accept sounding certain as being certain, and the insecurity that makes us want to look sure even when we're not (with a nod to Moses leaving the veil on so no one would see the glory had faded). Along the way they land on a grizzly-bear picture of trust and character: you can only trust a person as far as their proven character warrants, and you shouldn't be shocked when someone acts out of the character they've already shown.

From there they discuss vulnerability, accountability, and confession. Not as punishment, but as a pathway back to health. They contrast honest transparency with the performative "pay attention to me" kind, make the case for living above reproach, and reframe accountability as something that's genuinely for your good. Mel closes with the story of a well-known pastor who secretly hid a drink until the Holy Spirit confronted him with why he felt he had to hide it — and who, by confessing and receiving grace, found years of renewed fruitfulness. The takeaway: confession is a doorway forward, not a death sentence.

Mel, Joel, and Michael unpack Week 2 of the Prepare the Way series - Pastor Mel's message on blessing and obedience.

They start by challenging how we use the word "blessing." In the Western world we've tied it to what we own - the car, the bank account - but tracing it back to the Hebrew (barak, which also means to kneel) and the Greek (makarios), the trio lands on a different definition: blessing is God's presence, being with him, not what he can give us. Next they talk about discerning good things that draw us toward God from ones that pull us away, the rich young ruler whose "blessings" hardened his heart, and Jesus' words in Luke 11: blessed are those who hear the word of God and put it into practice. Blessing, it turns out, is bound up in obedience.

The back half turns to 1 Samuel 15 and King Saul - sparing what God told him to destroy and dressing it up as worship. Mel names the ways we disguise disobedience in spiritual language ("you don't have a prayer chain, you have a gossip chain"; "I'll pray about it"), why there's no such thing as partial obedience, how the things we neglect today get handed down to the people who come after us, and the difference between humility and insecurity that sat at the root of Saul's downfall.

A candid, wide-ranging companion to the Prepare the Way message - with a few classic BACK40 detours along the way. If it helps you, share it with someone.

Mel, Joel, and Michael sit down to unpack Week 1 of the Prepare the Way series — the message that set the theme for the entire year. Their conversation centers on a searching question: what does it actually mean to prepare the way of the Lord, not as a one-time event but as a daily practice? They talk candidly about spiritual seasons, the let-down of living only for the next big moment, and the unglamorous work of building the “infrastructure” of a growing life — drawing on real pastoral experience: churches outpaced by their own growth, Joel’s transition into ministry, and the everyday discipline of ordering your life so you’re ready when God moves.

Throughout the month of July, Summit is rebroadcasting Prepare the Way — the series that set the theme for 2026. This year the rebroadcast comes with something new: for each week of the series, Pastor Mel, Pastor Joel, and Michael Baun sat down for an hour-long unedited conversation starting right where the sermon ends. These discussions have never been seen before and will premiere during the rebroadcast. Tune in at normal service times — Saturday at 5 p.m. and Sunday at 9 and 11 a.m. — on Facebook, YouTube, or live.summitpa.church. Note that At the Movies, Summit's in-person July series, will not be streamed due to copyright restrictions.

This week Pastor Mel preaches Romans 11, the climax of Paul's three-chapter argument about Israel — and he opens with the question driving all of it: has God rejected his own people? Paul's answer is immediate: of course not. God has not rejected the people he chose from the beginning.

Mel uses the chapter to address a real fault line. He explains and pushes back on replacement theology — the view that the Church has replaced Israel in covenant — arguing instead that the Gentile Church was grafted in, while God still holds a special covenant with Israel. He teaches the faithful remnant, prevenient grace, and the hardening of hearts, then slows down on the heart of the passage: Paul's olive-tree picture, where a wild Gentile branch is grafted into Israel's cultivated root and — because the root is good — begins to bear good fruit. He ties it to Jesus in John 15: apart from me you can do nothing.

Along the way Mel answers whether a believer can lose their salvation (you can't lose it accidentally, but you can forfeit it), surveys the three views of what "all Israel will be saved" means, and lands on the truth that holds it all together: God's gifts and his call can never be withdrawn. The invitation never expires.

1. Where do you feel like you're the "only one" still following Jesus — and how does the truth of the remnant (1 Kings 19) change the way you carry it?

2. The Church didn't replace Israel — it was grafted in. Pride sneaks into faith as a quiet sense of having earned our place. Where do you catch yourself acting like the root rather than a branch?

3. "If the root is good, the fruit is good." What does staying connected to the root look like in your actual week — and where have you been trying to produce fruit on your own strength?

4. Mel says you can't lose your salvation accidentally, but you can forfeit it through persistent, unrepentant disobedience. Is there an area where you "know what God wants" but have quietly decided God will adjust to you?

5. "God's gifts and his call can never be withdrawn." Who in your life has said "no" to God? How does knowing the invitation is still open change how you pray for and pursue them?