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Summit Podcasts: BACK40, Sermon Audio, and Leadership Night
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The official podcast network of Summit Church. Here you will find The Back40 Leadership Podcast, Sermon Audio, Leadership Night, and much more.
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Prepare the Way - Week 1 Discussion
2w ago01:12:39Tap to summarizeMel, 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.
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Prepare the Way: The Sermon Discussions
2w ago00:01:14Tap to summarizeThroughout 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.
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Romans - Week 18: Romans 11:1-36
3w ago00:43:33Tap to summarizeThis 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?
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BACK40 E124 - Politics and Secret Sins
3w ago01:08:10Tap to summarizeThis week on the BACK40, Michael Baun sits down with Pastors Mel Masengale and Joel Maus for another round of "Asking for a Friend" — and they take on some of the hardest, most personal questions people are quietly carrying. Is same-sex attraction a sin? Can someone who is gay serve as a volunteer or worship leader? How does a person caught in addiction actually find freedom? And what should politics look like in the life of a follower of Jesus?They draw a careful line between attraction and identity, and between sin and the justification of sin, returning again and again to one truth: shame drives us away from God, but conviction draws us back to Him. They talk honestly about why confession breaks the power of secret sin, why you must flee a sin's associations and not merely the substance, and how to choose wisely the people you confess to. And when the conversation turns to politics, abortion, and marriage, they land somewhere bracing — that the answer is never to be louder, but to treat the person across from you as someone loved by God, an image-bearer to be won to Christ, long before they are ever a vote.
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Leadership Night - Lessons from General Washington
4w ago01:06:42Tap to summarizeThis week on Leadership Night, Pastor Mel explores the leadership of General George Washington during the hardest year of the American Revolution — 1776. Recorded as the country approaches its 250th birthday and drawing on David McCullough's book "1776," the conversation looks past the marble statues to a leader staring down impossible odds: a ragtag army of farmers, shoemakers, and schoolteachers, short on supplies, money, and time, facing one of the most powerful militaries on earth.It's a study in leading through defeat. Britain dismissed the colonies as untrained "rabble" and no real threat — and for much of that first year, the scoreboard agreed with them. Washington drove the British out of Boston, then watched it unravel: defeat at the Battle of Brooklyn, the loss of New York City, and a long, painful retreat through New Jersey. What set him apart was sober realism — "while everyone else slept, he could not, because he knew the danger" — and the resolve, on Christmas Eve with his army nearly spent, to propose something daring and cross the Delaware. The hosts call the nation's survival not luck but Providence.From there the conversation widens into leadership principles you can use anywhere: why attention to detail matters and how success quietly disconnects leaders from the small things; why casting a clear vision and earning buy-in is everything (as John Maxwell puts it, "if no one is following you, you're just going for a walk"); the danger of "pot-committed" all-in moments versus losing your nerve mid-decision; and the conviction that the system is never the answer — the people are. Bad people wreck even the best structure; the right people make almost any structure work.
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Romans - Week 17: Romans 9:30-10:21
4w ago00:40:24Tap to summarizeThis week Pastor Mel preached Romans 10, picking up where guest Pastor Eran Holt left off in Romans 9. The question driving these chapters is a hard one: if God's promises are so good, why did so many in Israel miss their own Messiah? Mel answers it with a single picture — two roads to righteousness. Israel pursued being right with God by works, by keeping the law, and stumbled over the very cornerstone, Jesus. The Gentiles, who weren't chasing it at all, received it by faith. Same God, same offer, two different roads.From there Mel opens the heart of Romans 10: the gospel is near — as close as confessing with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in your heart that God raised him from the dead. The offer is universal — everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, with no distinction between Jew and Gentile. And because the offer is for everyone, the church has a job: faith comes by hearing, so we give, we go, we pray, and we send. Mel closes with God's relentless heart — "all day long I opened my arms to them" — and the reminder that there is a gospel in every believer, as simple as your own story of who you were before and who you are now.1. Mel describes two roads to righteousness: Israel chased being right with God by works and stumbled, while the Gentiles received it by faith. He warns, "they got so focused on just working their way to heaven that they miss the Messiah." Where in your own life are you still trying to earn something from God that he's actually offering as a gift? What would it look like to receive it by faith instead of working for it?2. Mel says, as gently as he can, "Our sincerity is not enough because we can be sincerely wrong. Your sincerity in a lie is still a lie. Your sincerity to an idol is still an idol." Where might you be sincere — but sincerely off — in how you're relating to God? How do you tell the difference between genuine faith and a sincere assumption you've never examined?3. Mel insists salvation is "nearer than your next breath," but also that "your life is a confession of who you think Jesus is." If someone read your life this past week like a confession, what would it say you actually believe about Jesus? Where do the words of your mouth and the witness of your life line up — and where don't they?4. Mel admits, "there are people in my life that I'm not sure will be saved," and yet, "when it says everyone, it means everyone." Who is the person you've quietly written off? What changes in how you treat them this week if you genuinely believe the offer of grace includes them?5. Mel says every lost person "is a person with a name and a face and a story," and that there's a gospel in you — your own two-minute story of who you were before and who you are after. Who is one specific person God is putting on your heart? What is one concrete step this week to give, go, pray, or send toward them?
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Romans - Week 16: Romans 9:1-29
Jun 1400:58:32Tap to summarizeThis week Pastor Aaron Holt preached Romans 9. If you have been following along with us in the book of Romans, you know that Romans 8 ends with one of the most powerful declarations in all of Scripture. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. And then you turn the page to chapter 9 and the mood shifts completely. Paul is in anguish. He is grieving. Because the question he is sitting with is: if God's promises are so good and nothing can separate us from his love, then why have most of the Jewish people rejected Jesus as the Messiah? Have God's promises failed?That question is the engine that drives all of Romans 9, 10, and 11. And Pastor Aaron gives you the interpretive keys you need to read these chapters well -- chapter 9 is about Israel's past, chapter 10 is about Israel's present, and chapter 11 is about Israel's future.He works through the whole chapter and surfaces three major promises. God's grace is greater than your failures. God's mercy is greater than your understanding. And God's purposes are greater than your circumstances. Each one is unpacked carefully, and he does not shy away from the hard parts -- election, predestination, the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, the potter and the clay. He handles all of it with clarity.Eran opens by naming the central tension of Romans 9: what do we do when what we expected from God doesn't match what we experience? He points to Israel — recipients of every covenant blessing — still rejecting Christ as the test case. Where in your own life does it feel like God hasn't held up his end of a promise? How does Paul's answer — "it is not as though God's word has failed" — land for you in that situation?Eran argues that faith cannot be inherited — at some point every person has to claim it from the inside out, not perform it from the outside in. Are there areas of your spiritual life that are more habit, family tradition, or cultural identity than genuine personal conviction? What would it look like to own your faith in those areas rather than simply carry it?On the question of God's fairness, Eran makes this point: "If God is fair, we all lose — the wages of sin is death, and that's fair. You don't want fairness, you want mercy." Where in your life have you been demanding fairness from God when what you actually need is mercy? How does that reframe what you're asking him for?Eran uses the image of a pilot: you don't need to understand how a plane works to trust the person flying it — trust is built on confidence in the one who's in control, and understanding often comes later. In your relationships, where do you require understanding before you'll extend trust? How does the model of faith — trust first, understanding follows — challenge that pattern?Eran closes with the promise from Hosea: God takes those labeled "not my people" and calls them "my people." He rewrites the names spoken over us by failure, loss, diagnosis, or shame. What label has been spoken over your life — by someone else or by yourself — that God may be in the process of rewriting? Identify one specific way this week to live as if God's word about you is more true than that label.
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BACK40 E123 - Charisma, God's Holiness, How to Fight
Jun 1401:13:03Tap to summarizeIn this episode we start with something I think is a real blind spot -- not just in the church, but anywhere there are people who need to be led. The problem is that we are drawn to charisma even when we know better. Even when there is clear evidence of poor character, the charisma wins. We talk through what makes someone charismatic. Warmth and competency are the two research-backed traits. But we dig underneath that to find the meta-characteristic, the thing that might be even more powerful, which is conviction. The strength of what someone believes and how they communicate that belief. It explains a lot about why people follow leaders who lead them somewhere terrible.From there we get into a deep dive on the holiness of God. Is holiness a limitation on God, or does God define holiness? Divine command theory, the incarnation, and what it means that Christ chose to limit himself to reveal himself. We talk about large language models as an analogy for how definition is what gives something the ability to act.We close the episode talking about conflict. How do you fight well? With your spouse. With your boss. With the people you love. We talk through what fair fighting looks like. How to depersonalize the issue. Why you should never fight on social media or text message. and why leaving conflict unresolved does not end the conflict. it just loads the gun.
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Romans - Week 15: Romans 8:18-39
Jun 700:53:12Tap to summarizeThis week Pastor Mel takes us through the second half of Romans 8. The sermon opens with a reframe that sets the tone for everything that follows. When Paul talks about glory in Romans 8, Mel argues he is not primarily talking about heaven. He is talking about God's Spirit tabernacling in believers -- the same dwelling presence that was in the wilderness with Israel -- and about the goodness of God's Spirit being manifest through us for dominion in a broken world. Psalm 8 comes in here, and the connection between crowned with glory and given dominion over creation is one of the most striking moments in the message.That leads into the central question Mel keeps returning to throughout: what if God is not saving us from the world, but for the world? Creation is groaning like a woman in childbirth, waiting for the sons and daughters of God to be revealed. And Mel makes the case that every time Summit does teacher appreciation or shows up for first responders, something is happening in the spirit -- the sons and daughters of God are being revealed and a little of the brokenness of the world gets relieved.From there he works through the Holy Spirit interceding for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words, and makes a careful distinction between this and tongues -- these are sighs, the same word used in Luke 10 when Martha asks Mary to come help her. The Holy Spirit is not waiting on God to work. He is waiting on us.Mel handles the suffering question honestly: suffering is not evidence that God does not love you. It is part of what it means to be co-heirs with Christ.Mel argues that Paul's vision of glory in Romans 8 is not only about heaven someday, but about God's Spirit dwelling in and manifesting through believers now. How has your understanding of "glory" been shaped by Western individualism — and how does the truth that glory and suffering are inseparable change the way you think about what it means to walk with God?Mel poses the question: "What if God is not saving us from the world, but for it?" Where in your life have you built walls to protect yourself from brokenness rather than stepping into it as a carrier of God's glory? What would it look like to move from escape mode to engagement mode in your neighborhood, workplace, or community?Mel describes the Holy Spirit interceding for us with "groanings that cannot be expressed in words" — meeting us in moments when we simply don't know how to pray. Can you think of a situation in your life right now where you genuinely have no words? How does it change your posture to know the Holy Spirit is already interceding in that situation on your behalf?Mel argues the Holy Spirit works in conjunction with us — not instead of us — and that many believers either never get to prayer, or stop there without ever taking action. What is one specific broken situation in your life or community that God may be calling you to both pray about and actively move toward? What has kept you from doing both?Romans 8:38–39 declares that nothing in all creation can separate us from God's love in Christ. Mel is careful to distinguish this from a prosperity gospel promise — it doesn't mean life will be easy, but that God's love is immovable regardless of circumstances. Where in your life are you currently judging God's love by what you see, feel, or experience? How does Paul's declaration reframe what you're going through?
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Romans - Week 3 Discussion Part 2
Jun 600:54:20Tap to summarizeThis is Part 2 of the Week 3 discussion on Romans, and I'm back with Caleb and Joel for another wide-ranging conversation that covers a remarkable amount of theological ground.We open with the Pharaoh question -- the quintessential hard heart story in Scripture. Caleb walks through the alternating pattern of Pharaoh hardening his own heart and God hardening it, and raises the provocative idea that God may have been giving Pharaoh enough resolve to ensure his repentance would be genuine rather than just coerced by pain. From there we get into the Egyptian magicians -- and Caleb makes clear that the Prince of Egypt movie has misled people here -- these men had real power, not sleight of hand. And that raises an important question about where that power came from.That question becomes a conversation about how you distinguish the voice of God from your own imagination or something darker. We land on some really practical wisdom: the danger of taking the Lord's name in vain by attributing to God things he never said, why biblical illiteracy is so dangerous, and -- one of the most memorable moments in the episode -- Caleb's point that you are allowed to just say something is on your heart without stamping it with God's name.From there we talk about God as impartial judge, which leads into an unexpected and fascinating cultural observation about what happens when people replace God as judge with a political figure -- and what Trump derangement syndrome might actually be revealing about us.The episode closes with Caleb introducing Anselm's debt argument for the necessity of the incarnation. It is one of the clearest explanations of why Jesus had to be both fully God and fully human.
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