This year’s Climb Small Church Leadership Conference was a great success and encouragement. Over 150 small church leaders gathered in Lansing, Michigan, where the Lansing Area Church of Christ (led by Josh and Michelle Lutz) did an amazing job hosting the conference. So many remarked that they felt like it was a few days of rare abundance for church leaders who are more accustomed to scarcity. Overflowing snack tables, food trucks, robust round tables, a packed schedule, and many opportunities for prayer made the three-day event feel like a whirlwind of inspiration and encouragement.
The bi-annual Climb Conference started in 2019 in Eau Claire, WI, when Joel Peed and Rob Skinner had a vision to specifically pour into the unique needs of small church leaders. They added Joel Nagel to the planning team and held the conference in Dallas-Fort Worth in 2021 and 2023 before this year’s event in Lansing, where Joel Nagel is an evangelist and teacher.
This year’s lessons focused on the theme from Isaiah 43, “A New Thing,” and seemed to all touch on the conviction that small churches each have unique needs that should be addressed with prayerful creativity. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. This requires small church leaders to be extremely entrepreneurial. The Climb Conference has always selected ideologically diverse speakers who have helped their ministries to be vibrant in different ways. We believe this is a great example of how we can be united without having to be uniform.
There were many opportunities to pray at this year’s event. We gathered for prayer each morning on the Michigan capitol steps. We had a prayer room which had prayers from every participant hanging from the ceiling (which we took down and mailed out randomly so we could keep praying for each other), and we ended the event with a beautiful and moving time of prayer and worship around a bonfire.
Throughout the conference, we asked participants to think about what they were learning, how they could change, and what their ministries could do differently because of Climb by using the framework of knowing, being, and doing. That framework became the structure of three opportunities to pray at the bonfire. It was moving to hear church leaders beg God to form them as ministers or to help their ministries because of what the Spirit put on their hearts during the conference.
Just as the conference focused on prayer, we ask that you would pray for us and for the future of the conference as we pass it on to a new generation of small church leaders and discern next steps. We’re so grateful for the small church leaders in our fellowship and for the encouragement that Climb has provided.
Want to see what Climb was all about? Check out the lessons on our Climb YouTube Channel.
