Summit Church Lawsuit: Chatham Zoning and Faith Baptist Merger

The Summit Church, the Southern Baptist megachurch led by J.D. Greear in North Carolina’s Triangle region, is currently a plaintiff in a federal religious-discrimination lawsuit against Chatham County over a rezoning denial, and it was recently a central figure in a separate settled dispute over an alleged hostile takeover of Faith Baptist Church in Knightdale. The Summit Church lawsuit against Chatham County is now on appeal before the Fourth Circuit after a district judge froze the county’s denial of the church’s rezoning application in June 2025. The Faith Baptist matter ended in a December 2024 settlement in which Summit walked away from the proposed merger.

The Chatham County Zoning Lawsuit

Summit has run its Chapel Hill congregation out of East Chapel Hill High School and wants a permanent home on roughly 50 acres along U.S. Highway 15-501 in northeastern Chatham County. The application asked the county to rezone three parcels from “Compact Community” to “Office & Institutional” for an 82,000-square-foot, two-story worship building seating 1,200, along with a basketball court, playground, maintenance building, and a future 24,000-square-foot accessory building.¹

The Chatham County Planning Board voted 8-0 on October 1, 2024, to recommend denial.² The Board of Commissioners then rejected the request unanimously on December 16, 2024. The board’s written statement said the rezoning was “not consistent with the county’s land conservation and development plan” and would not add diversity to tax revenue or bring high-quality jobs.¹ Board Chair Karen Howard called the project “a really big, brand new megachurch” that was “a really poor fit” and “antithetical to real rural character preservation,” and questioned whether the congregation would be “overflow from somewhere else.”

What the Church Filed

On February 14, 2025, Summit sued the Board of Commissioners in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, case number 1:25-CV-00113. The complaint alleges violations of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), the First Amendment, and the Fourteenth Amendment, and asks for a declaratory judgment plus an injunction compelling approval of the rezoning.²

RLUIPA prohibits local governments from imposing land use rules that substantially burden religious exercise unless the rule serves a compelling interest through the least restrictive means. It also bars zoning laws that treat religious assemblies worse than comparable secular uses, discriminate on the basis of religion, or unreasonably limit religious institutions in the jurisdiction.³

The County’s Defense and the DOJ’s Entry

Chatham County moved to dismiss in late March 2025, arguing that rezoning is a “legislative act under state law” and that federal courts lack jurisdiction to override it on separation-of-powers grounds. The county called the church’s discrimination claims “a dramatic mischaracterization,” said any burden was “self-imposed,” and pointed to more than 200 pages of public comments focused on traffic, tax implications, and rural character.⁴

On April 22, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division filed a statement of interest supporting the church. The DOJ took the position that RLUIPA applies to zoning decisions regardless of how state law classifies them, and that the court had authority to grant the relief Summit sought.⁵

Injunction Ruling

Judge William L. Osteen heard arguments on June 9, 2025, denied the motion to dismiss, and on June 20 issued a 50-page opinion granting a prohibitory injunction. The ruling made the county’s December 2024 denial “of no force and effect pending further order of the court.” Osteen declined to go further and order approval outright, but he found the church had shown a “likelihood of success on the merits of its substantial burden claim” under RLUIPA, and noted that its equal-terms, religious-discrimination, and unreasonable-limitations claims also appeared to have merit.⁶

The Appeal

Summit posted the required bond on June 25, 2025, and Chatham County appealed on July 18, 2025.⁷ The case is now pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit as No. 25-1832. The county argues that the rezoning decision was legislative and outside RLUIPA’s reach, and that the injunction is an unconstitutional intrusion on local government authority. Sixteen states led by South Carolina had filed an amicus brief supporting the church as of March 2026.⁸

The Faith Baptist Church Merger Dispute

The other legal matter tied to Summit Church involved Faith Baptist Church of Knightdale, a congregation on a 30-acre campus valued at an estimated $25 to $30 million. A group of Faith Baptist members alleged that Summit orchestrated a hostile takeover of their church. Summit rejected that characterization, and the case ended in settlement rather than a merits ruling.

How the Merger Talks Began

Faith Baptist’s longtime pastor Mick Bowen retired in 2021 and was succeeded by Jason Little, who had studied under Greear at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Under Little, the choir and orchestra were disbanded, the preschool closed, and church property was sold. Little was simultaneously being paid $6,000 per month by Summit Church as a contractor for what was described as “research regarding methods and helpful tactics in building strong local church partnerships.”⁹

Summit launched a mobile campus at Knightdale High School in 2023, and Faith Baptist’s leadership subsequently approached Summit about a merger. By November 2023, Little had connected an outside accountant with Summit’s CFO regarding “considering a merger.” At a December 2023 budget meeting, the congregation was told Faith Baptist faced more than $1 million in shortfalls over eight years, a figure some members later questioned as fabricated.⁹

The Vote and the Lawsuit

Before the congregational vote, church leadership reclassified longtime members who opposed the merger as “inactive,” stripping their voting rights.⁹ On March 3, 2024, the vote came in at 97 in favor and 55 against. Opponents said that fell short of the two-thirds supermajority the church’s bylaws required to dissolve the congregation.¹⁰

A dissenting group calling itself the “Defenders of the Faith,” represented by attorney David Gibbs III, sued in Wake County Superior Court in Hopper v. Faith Baptist Church of Knightdale (24 CVS 007245-910).¹¹ They obtained a temporary restraining order the day after the vote and a preliminary injunction halting dissolution in April 2024.¹² On May 10, 2024, Faith Baptist filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Eastern District of North Carolina, which froze the state court proceedings.¹³ Summit contributed $170,000 to Faith Baptist around that time, described as covering legal expenses.⁹

Discovery and Settlement

Discovery brought Summit’s involvement into view. Text messages from Kivett Hicks, pastor of Summit’s Knightdale campus, showed he had toured the Faith Baptist facilities with Little and said Greear was in “fight mode” over the merger.¹² A judge found Summit had been involved from the start and set a videotaped deposition of Greear. Summit’s motion to prevent public sharing of that deposition was denied.¹⁰

On December 3, 2024, the day before Greear’s deposition, the parties settled. Summit backed away from the merger.¹⁰ The bankruptcy case was dismissed on April 8, 2025, and closed on April 24, 2025.¹³

Summit’s Response

Summit’s directional elders said the church “never sought to take anything from Faith Baptist Church” and that its leadership “pursued this path with the utmost integrity at every step.” According to the elders, Faith Baptist’s leadership initiated the merger discussions because of declining attendance and financial instability. They also said they had not been consulted before the Church Reform Initiative’s documentary was released.¹⁰

Where Faith Baptist Stands Now

After the settlement, Faith Baptist recalled its former pastor, Gary Williams, and resumed services in 2025. Williams announced plans to restore the church’s choir, orchestra, and preschool ministry.¹⁴

1
BRNow. The Summit Church Claims Religious Discrimination in Zoning Lawsuit
2
Chapelboro Media. Summit Church Complaint Filing
3
U.S. Department of Justice. Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act
4
Chapelboro. Chatham County Responds, Asks for Dismissal of Summit Church Lawsuit
5
Baptist Press. DOJ Files Statement of Interest in The Summit Church’s Zoning Lawsuit
6
Baptist Press. Judge Halts NC County’s Denial of Summit Church’s Zoning Request in Ongoing Lawsuit
7
MinistryWatch. NC Church Sues County Over Rezoning Denial
8
State of Alaska. Summit Church v. Chatham County Amicus Brief
9
Substack (Sarah Stankorb). A Failed Hostile Takeover
10
Christian Post. Summit Church Denies It Attempted Takeover of NC Church
11
Trellis Law. Hopper v. Faith Baptist Church Motion
12
American Reformer. Silent Takeover
13
Inforuptcy. Bankruptcy Case — Faith Baptist Church of Knightdale
14
The Wartburg Watch. Episode Three — JD Greear Unmasked: Faith Baptist Church Persevered