Summit Ministries
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Summit Ministries is an evangelical Christian organization that seeks to prepare Christians to defend the biblical Christian faith by articulating Biblical Christianity as a coherent paradigmatic system and contrasting its basic assumptions with those of the other major worldviews of western civilization. Summit's main venue is a series of two-week intensive leadership camp sessions held during the summer, aimed primarily at high school and college students. Summit's leadership camps are attended by over 1300 students per year. Lecturers include such prominent evangelical intellectuals as: Michael Bauman, Francis Beckwith, J.P. Moreland, Ronald Nash, Jeff Myers, Norman Geisler, Mark Cahill, and Eric and Leslie Ludy, as well as the organization's founder, David A. Noebel.
The organization also sponsors conferences for pastors and educators, and publishes educational curriculum for people of all ages, including courses for elementary school age children, bible study groups, and resources for individual study. In addition, the organization's website provides a large collection of essays by noted Christians on worldview issues and apologetics.
[edit] History
Summit Ministries was founded in 1962 by David A. Noebel in Manitou Springs, Colorado, in response to his near rejection of Christianity while studying philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The program remained small, graduating approximately 350 students a year, until 1988, when Focus on the Family president James Dobson featured the program on his radio show after his son participated in one of the summer leadership camps.
In 1991, Summit Ministries began offering a year-long program for Christian high school students with the same goals as the organization as a whole – to teach students to articulate and defend their faith in the face of competing worldviews. 3,500 students complete the program each year. In recent years, new Summit programs have been launched at Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee and Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Summit also sponsors similar programs in Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand. [1].
