Every two years, all associate staff and spouses from UB churches around the country are invited to attend the Ministry Leader Summit. This event takes place in Daytona Beach, Florida at the Aku-Tiki Inn. 

The Summit is a great opportunity to get away to relax and refuel after a busy season of ministry. It also provides a space for associate staff to connect with their counterparts from other UB churches to share ideas and encourage one another. 

The dates for the 2026 Ministry Leader Summit are April 27-May 1. More information will be available soon.

Join us Wednesday, August 13, at noon (EDT) for a live interview with Andy Sikora, Director of Church Multiplication. We will chat about the Movement System Training Catalysts that have just launched and set up a series of conversations we will be having with our church planters in the coming weeks.

The conversation will be live at the Church of the United Brethren in Christ Facebook page. Head there now to follow the page so you don’t miss the notification when the conversation begins.

Join us live in the comments during the conversation. We would love to hear from you and take a couple of questions during the stream.

This year at National Conference, Rob Wegner, our keynote speaker, along with Andy Sikora, our director of church multiplication, introduced us to The Movement System — a strategic training system to help churches reproduce at critical points of multiplication. If you missed those sessions or would like a refresher, they will be available soon.

As a follow up to those discussions, we are launching three catalysts for pastors and church leaders who are ready to take the next steps toward multiplication in one of three areas — reproducing disciples, reproducing leaders and reproducing churches.

Each catalyst is made up of…

  • Eight Sessions Over Two Months:  A focused, short-term commitment designed to build lasting disciple-making habits—without feeling like a semester-long course.
  • A Reverse-Classroom:  Engage 2 hours/week through a user-friendly online course with video teaching, readings, journaling, and practical exercises. Come ready to apply what you’re learning—personally and missionally (Luke 14:25–34).
  • Weekly Coaching Huddles:  Gather in small cohorts (max 20 people) for support, accountability, and coaching. You’ll experience the same reproducible model we’re training you to lead (Hebrews 10:25).
  • After the Catalyst:  We help you stay supported and challenged by connecting you with other pastors from our denomination through our Multipliers Network.

These catalysts are launching soon, so register now if you are interested in being part of one.

Learn more about The Movement System, the three catalysts that are kicking off soon and the dates and times for each on our Movement System Training page.

Questions about The Movement System, or about the catalysts being offered, can be directed to Andy Sikora.

The videos of our evening sessions at National Conference are in high demand and many of you have expressed interest in being able to go back and re-watch a service or peek in on a service you were not able to attend. We are thrilled there is so much interest!

There is good news! We will post the videos and share links so you can view them and share them with your congregation. But with that good news come a little bit of bad news. We do not yet have possession of those videos. As soon as we recieve the content from our production team, we will be sure to post them.

In the meantime, here are a few photos from the conference. Thank you for your patience.

National Conference begins two weeks from today and we are looking forward to seeing so many of you there. For those who may have missed the registration deadline, we have good news. We have extended the deadline to Monday, July 7. If you or others in your congregation are still planning to attend, you can still register here.

The reports for the business session have also been posted on the conference webpage and are available for download. If you are serving as a ministerial or lay delegate for the conference, please take a moment to download those documents and read through them before you arrive. We will be adding a few additional documents in the coming days as well, so be sure to visit that page a couple of times this week to ensure you have everything you need to prepare for the conference business session.

Please note, hard copies of these documents will not be provided on site at conference. If you prefer a hard copy, you will need to print it before you leave home.

The countdown is on… We’ll see you soon!

We are six weeks away from kicking off the 2025 UB National Conference and we can’t wait to see you there! But as the kickoff date approaches, so too do the deadlines for registration (June 30) and reserving rooms through our dedicated hotel blocks (June 13 for Hampton Inn and Courtyard and June 22 for Hilton). If you are planning to attend, you can start the registration process now.

Workshops

We have recently updated the list of available workshops, along with descriptions for the majority of them, on the conference website. Stop by for a visit to see what is being offered and start planning your workshop track. The list will continue to be updated

Promotional Materials

Are you still in the process of inviting delegates? Are you local and have people interested in attending the evening worship services? There is a new link on the conference website to download a few promotional materials that can be used during worship services, as announcement slides, or social media posts. That link is available now and will be active through conference but we’ve included it here as well to save you the trouble.

Plans are in place and more of the details are coming into focus. As they do, we will continue to post new updates to the National Conference site.

This week you will find two new updates:

  • The business session is now available in the list of menu options. While there is not much yet to share, you will find information related to how many lay delegates your church can send as voting members of the conference.
  • You can now register for the golf outing. The outing will take place on Thursday, July 17, with a shotgun start at 1:00 pm. The cost is $60 per golfer. Visit the event registration page for more details.

There are a few more updates coming soon:

  • We are preparing to launch an online, print-on-demand store where you will be able to purchase 2025 National Conference apparel and other United Brethren gear, and have it shipped directly to your home.
  • For those interested in the UB Youth Camp (for high school students and youth leaders) or the middle school day away (both hosted by Huntington University), keep an eye out for a Frequently Asked Questions link on the Student Events page.

One final update the you will not find on that site:

  • We have over 100 people registered for National Conference already and we hope you can join us. Registration is open until June 30, but why wait? Register now!

 

The US National Conference of the Church or the United Brethren in Christ will once again convene in Fort Wayne, Indiana, July 15-18, 2025. Every two years we come together around a particular theme that is meant not only to unify the body at the event, but also to cast a vision that will propel UB churches in a unified direction for the next two years. So what is the theme that will do that for us in 2025?

 

 

Let’s Move is a call to action. It is a call to multiply disciples, multiply leaders, and mulitply churches. Rob Wegner, Movement System Director for NewThing, one of our strategic partners, will be our keynote speaker and will help cast that vision and offer some practical tools and resources to help us move.

The conference website will be live early in January. Registration for this event, which will open soon after the website goes live, will be $100 for adults (18+) and $50 for children (17 and under). Childcare will be provided for children up through 5th grade.

Keep an on ub.org for more information.

Huntington University is hosting several events that same week for our middle school and high school students. Middle school students will have the opportunity to participate in a one-day getaway on campus to catch a glimpse of high school camp (more on that in a moment) and life at the university. High school students are invited to attend the four day UB Youth Camp taking place the same days as national conference where they will focus on mind (asking good questions about the fatih), mission, mental health, and marketplace readiness. Registration for these events hosted by Huntinton University is separate from the national conference registration and is currently open. You can find that here.

Students attending the UB Youth Camp do not need to register through the national conference website.

 

The Ministry Leader Summit took place on the sunny shores of Daytona Beach, Florida, from April 29th to May 3rd, 2024. This year, 31 associate staff members from UB churches across the country with responsibilities ranging from children’s ministry to world missions attended the event.

We caught up with a few of them and asked why they value the summit. Here’s what they had to say:

 

 

Keynote speaker Dr. Terry Linhart, a professor at Bethel University and author of “The Self-Aware Leader,” offered valuable insights on leadership. He encouraged ministry leaders to always do the hard work of caring for themselves and nurturing their own inner lives in order to be effective leaders in the ministries to which they have been called. His message resonated with attendees, prompting much reflection and discussion.

 

 

Key Learnings and Takeaways

The Ministry Leader Summit provided a valuable space for ministry associates to connect, share experiences, and develop their leadership skills. We spoke with some attendees about their biggest takeaways from this year’s summit:

 

 

We want to say a big thank you to Bobby Culler (Mount Pleasant Church) and Craig Mickey (Emmanuel Community Church) for putting together the plans for this year’s summit, and to Cathy Reich (UB National Office) for helping make it all happen.

This event happens every other year and is available for any and all associate staff serving in United Brethren churches throughout the country. The pastor and spouse summits are coming this fall for all senior and solo pastors and their spouses. More information on those events can be found here.

Videos of the four main services from the 2023 US National Conference have been posted online. You can now view each entire service, or just the message part.

  • You’ll also find three other resources:
  • The “In Memoriam” video about UB ministers and missionaries who passed away during the previous two years.
  • A “Remember Your Baptism” video used during the opening service.
  • A playlist of the songs used by the worship team throughout the conference.

View the videos here.