The Life Shift Church will host a summit Oct. 16 and 17 featuring two guest speakers who will address setbacks, success and the challenges facing people in their everyday lives.
Bishop Noel Jones and Bishop Liston Page II will headline the event. Jones will lead a free seminar on the opening night focused on people who have struggled to move forward after major setbacks.
Jones said circumstances such as divorce, bankruptcy and illness can derail people who once had ambitions for their lives.
"There's so many people that had great aspirations, great dreams to do something wonderful and marvelous," he said. "But something occurred, something happened. Life happens, right, as they say. And whatever it may have been, whether it was a divorce, whether it was bankruptcy, whether it was sickness, it just kind of threw them for a loop and they were never able to get back on track."
Bishop Darren Gayle of Life Shift Church said Jones' presentation will focus on how people can move forward after experiencing failure.
"He's going to be teaching us that night how to live beyond the failure. Sometimes failure is actually the bedrock or becomes actually the springboard to your success," he said.
The second seminar will continue the summit's focus on personal and financial challenges, with Page discussing ways to pursue success despite having fewer resources.
"He's going to be teaching on how to live successfully with less and other subject matters that's very applicable for anyone that desires to be successful," Gayle said.
Gayle said the summit is intended to bring people together regardless of their religious or cultural backgrounds as residents deal with challenges in their communities.
"This is a message of hope. This is a message to encourage each person, whether you are a Christian or not, whether you're a Catholic, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Methodist, whether you're black, white, Hispanic, Japanese, Asian, it doesn't make a difference. We all have something in common," he said. "And what we have in common is as long as we are in this society, we are subject to the issues, the blight and all of the things that comes along with our society."
Gayle said he hopes attendees leave with practical ideas they can use in their lives.
"Not only would they be inspired, but they'll have some strategy that they can implement to improve their lives. There'll be some patterns that they can submit to that will change their life, that their life will become a reflection of who they're supposed to be and not what they've necessarily become," he said.
Life Shift Church also operates charitable programs in the community, including free meals, a health fair and back-to-school giveaways.