Our Story

Our Story

On April 25, 2003, fifteen people met in a home to discuss starting a church in Estero, Florida. Each of the families in the group had individually sensed a call from God to begin a new and different kind of church.

This new church would seek to glorify God through presenting the Gospel to every man, woman and child, connecting them into loving relationships with Jesus Christ and with others.

This church, which came to be known as Summit Church, would focus outward – on the Kingdom of God in Southwest Florida and throughout the world, not inward – on merely seeking to meet the needs of a few who are gathered inside the four walls of the church.

During the summer of 2003, Summit Church developed a core group of 75-100 people before officially launching on the campus of Florida Gulf Coast University on September 7, 2003. Since then, Summit has experienced tremendous growth in both breadth and depth of their influence with two campuses in Southwest Florida (Naples & South Fort Myers), seven other church plant partners locally and nationally, and thirty-three various other ministry partners in church planting movements and global engagement around the world. Summit Church’s commitment to world evangelization is exemplified in its current external giving. Twenty-six percent of their current operational giving goes toward advancing God’s Kingdom agenda outside of it’s four walls, growing by one percent per year since their inception.

In addition, Summit has been influential in starting Infinity Alliance to reach every man, woman, and child in America with the Gospel of Jesus Christ through starting and partnering with missional churches in more than twenty regions around the country. Infinity provides envisioning, strategic direction, and training resources to establish city movements in each of these regions such as Mission Southwest Florida. Each city movement aggressively seeks to mobilize the different expressions of the unified Church in a region to act as One Church to reduce lostness in given geographies. The goal is to reach every man, woman, and child with the Gospel, giving them a repeated opportunity to see, hear and respond to the invitation of Jesus Christ. Through a target-driven, missional approach to ministry they strive to first reduce lostness and secondly, become such a cultural force in their locale that if they ceased to exist the community would actually miss them.

On September 16, 2007 Summit Church celebrated the Grand Opening of the first facility in South Ft. Myers on ideally located property graciously donated by the John E. and Aliese Price Foundation under the direction of Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright Miller.