Our Story

  If you have made a decision to seek and find GOD, we want to open our door to you and invite you to actively be involved in our journey.

For the LOVE OF GOD
    By moving toward a stronger relationship with GOD
For the LOVE OF PEOPLE
By growing our church fellowship
For the LOVE OF COMMUNITY
By participating in out-reach opportunities
    

On September 15, 2024, Summit celebrated our 150th year of serving  the Lord.  We commemorated with a service that included remembrances from our older members who recalled worship service in our original building.  We collected and displayed old memorabilia donated by members and still display those items today in our Upper Room.  The events were captured in a special journal that highlighted the rich history of the Church of the Brethren and Summit. 

Summit stems back in history to the years following 1770, when families of Brethren people came into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia from Pennsylvania and Maryland, settling in Rockingham and Augusta Counties.  These settlers developed the Middle River Congregation.  We are told by 1850 the membership at Middle River had increased to more than five hundred members, scattered over a large territory.  Out of the need for other places of worship, the Pleasant Valley Church was built in 1854 and the Barren Ridge Church was erected in 1856.  During the early eighteen-seventies the western side of the Valley Congregation was divided into two other church communities, where the Summit (organized in 1874) and Lebanon church houses were built.  Five or six Brethren families living in the community had already met in the first old Harmony school house near Seawright Springs, where preaching services were held.  Interest increased and the church grew.  Prior to the erection of the Summit Church house there was discussion around the Milnesville Community as to where to build.  The people finally decided upon a location in a grove of trees on top of a hill, two miles east of Milnesville, which is now called Centerville.