The Summit Church

The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina traces its roots to 1961, when a small mission became Homestead Heights Baptist Church. The modern story starts in 2002, when the congregation called its young college pastor, J.D. Greear, as senior pastor. Greear relaunched the church as The Summit Church, and it grew from around 400 people into a Southern Baptist multisite megachurch with 12 campuses across the Research Triangle and weekly attendance north of 11,000. Greear served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 2018 to 2021, which gives the church a national profile beyond its footprint.

Summit is active on three of the four major platforms with 94,856 combined followers. Instagram leads at 40,256 followers on @summitrdu. YouTube sits at 27,600 subscribers and grew 20 percent over the past year, with new video published as recently as June 9, 2026. Facebook rounds out the family at 27,000 followers. The distribution is unusually even. No single platform carries the whole load.

What stands out is the velocity score of 60, one of the higher marks in the back half of the top 100. A 20 percent annual YouTube growth rate from an established Southern Baptist church is not normal. Most churches with a 25-year history and a dozen campuses coast on legacy reach. Summit is doing the opposite: smaller total audience than most of its rank neighbors at under 95,000, but compounding faster than nearly all of them. The 82.5 breadth score shows the effort is spread across platforms, not concentrated in one. The reach will catch up to the rank if this pace holds.