The Leaders’ Summit
Transformed &
Transforming
Pursuing Wholehearted Leadership
October 12–14, 2026
Fort Myers, FL
Somewhere in the weight of ministry, the person doing the work can start to disappear.
But here's the thing — Christ never loses sight of you. Not in the exhaustion. Not in the drift. You are transformed in him, and his grace is still transforming you. The Leaders Summit is simply a chance to remember that. To slow down long enough to let it be true again.
What does it actually look like to lead from wholeness instead of wounds?
Most leadership culture rewards output. Results. Execution. And the leader learns, slowly, to outsource their soul.
But the damage done from the inside out is the kind nobody talks about at conferences. The slow drift. The shrinking interior. The way hurt begins to shape decisions that should be shaped by love.
There is another way. It begins with the whole person — body, mind, soul — in real communion with Christ. It looks less like striving and more like abiding. And it turns out, it produces more.
That's what we're gathering to explore. Not ministry as productivity. Ministry as formation.
Dates
October 12–14, 2026
Cost
$299 - $399 per person
Tickets will go on sale summer 2026
Discount available for any wife of a lead pastor
Location
Summit Church University
19601 Ben Hill Griffin Pkwy
Fort Myers, FL 3391
Why now?
1
The world got harder & your soul didn't get bigger on its own.
We are leading in one of the most polarized, pressurized moments in modern history. The external noise is deafening. The leader who isn't actively cultivating an interior life will eventually lead from the noise — not above it.
2
This is the last chapter of a five-year story.
Wholehearted leadership is the fifth and final value in Harbor's five-year commitment to develop the whole leader. What we're gathering around in October isn't a topic — it's a culmination. A completion. Come to mark it together.
3
The next chapter of Harbor needs all of us in it.
We'll be casting a fresh vision for what's coming. For how God is calling our churches toward greater involvement, ownership, and investment. The future of thriving churches starts with the conversation we're about to have.
Schedule
Monday
October 12
4:00 PM • Registration
⇀ Sojourn Midtown
7:00 PM • Main Session 1
⇀ Sojourn Midtown
⇀ Sam Allberry, “What is God’s Vision for Friendship?”
9:00 PM • Party
⇀ Sojourn Midtown
Tuesday
October 13
8:00 AM • Harbor Women: Coffee and Connect
⇀ Sojourn Midtown Connect Room
9:30 AM • Main Session 2
⇀ Sojourn Midtown
⇀ Jen Wilkin, “Can We Be Friends? Part 1”
11:00 AM • BREAK
1:00 PM • Ministry Training Workshops
⇀ The Galt House East Tower
4:00 PM • BREAK
7:30 PM • Main Session 3
⇀ Sojourn Midtown
⇀ Charles Shannon,
“Can We Be Friends? Part 2”
9:00 PM • Party
⇀ Sojourn Midtown
Wednesday
October 14
9:30 AM • Main Session 4
⇀ Sojourn Midtown
⇀ Jamin Stinziano, “How Do We Pursue Kingdom Friendships?”
11:00 AM • Dismiss
Speakers
Justin Giboney
Justin E. Giboney (JD, Vanderbilt University) is the cofounder and president of the AND Campaign, a Christian civic organization focused on raising civic literacy, promoting civic pluralism, and equipping Christians to engage politics with the love and truth of Jesus Christ. An ordained minister, attorney, and political strategist, Giboney has been featured in publications such as the New York Times and Christianity Today and is the coauthor of the book Compassion (&) Conviction. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife and three sons.
Co-Founder & President, AND Campaign
Sales ManagerJared C. Wilson
Jared C. Wilson is Assistant Professor of Pastoral Ministry and Author in Residence at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and staff pastor for preaching and Director of The Pastoral Training Center at Liberty Baptist Church in Kansas City, MO. An award-winning author of over 20 books, Jared also hosts the For The Church Podcast and co-hosts The Heart of Pastoring Podcast.
Breakouts
Topical Breakouts
Leading from the Inside Out
What does it actually mean to lead from spiritual health rather than spiritual debt? This session explores the interior habits — prayer, silence, self-examination, community — that form the kind of leader whose presence is itself a ministry. Practical, honest, and grounded in the conviction that who you are is always shaping what you do.
Name of Breakout Leader(s)Marriage, Ministry, and the Miracle of Still Being Here
For leaders navigating the particular pressure of a ministry marriage — the fishbowl, the schedule, the emotional residue that follows you home. This session is for couples and individuals alike who want to tend to the relationship that makes everything else sustainable.
Sales ManagerWhen the Work Becomes the Wound
Every leader carries some version of this story: the moment ministry started forming scar tissue instead of fruit. This breakout creates space to name it — and to explore how grace meets us in the places where hurt has quietly become a leadership driver. Not therapy. Not a fix. Just an honest conversation about what wholehearted leadership costs and what it heals.
FounderNavigating Polarization Without Losing Your People
The cultural and political landscape has never been more fractured — and your congregation reflects it. This breakout offers leaders a framework for holding tension without taking sides, speaking truth without weaponizing it, and keeping the unity of the Spirit as the organizing principle of a divided room.
FounderThriving Churches Don’t Happen By Accident
A look at the conditions — spiritual, relational, structural — that produce genuine church health over time. Drawing from Harbor Network's experience planting and developing churches across the country, this session offers both a vision and a vocabulary for what thriving actually looks like from the inside.
Sales ManagerSabbath as Strategy
Rest isn't a reward for finishing — it's a rhythm built into the fabric of creation. This session makes the biblical and practical case for Sabbath as one of the most countercultural, generative, and frankly underused leadership tools available. Come skeptical. Leave with a plan.
FounderRole Specific Breakouts
The Lead Pastor’s Room
A candid, closed-door conversation for lead pastors only. No agenda. No performance. Just the people who carry the weight of the whole — talking honestly about loneliness, decision fatigue, vision, and what it means to stay spiritually alive in the most exposed seat in the building.
FounderWorship Leaders: The Minister Behind the Music
Worship leaders are often the most spiritually exposed people on a ministry team — forming the congregation's experience of God while managing musicians, navigating criticism, and carrying their own interior life through it all. This is a space to be seen, not just heard.
Sales ManagerThe Executive Pastor’s Room
For the leaders who make the vision actually work — who live in the space between the idea and the implementation. This session explores the unique pressures, gifts, and spiritual formation of the operational leader: how to serve the vision without losing yourself in it.
FounderNext Gen Ministry Leaders
For children's directors, student pastors, and family ministry leaders: the people forming the faith of the next generation while often feeling like the footnote in the church's larger story. This breakout centers your work, your challenges, and the irreplaceable role you play in the long arc of a church's health.
FounderThe Church Planter’s Table
For planters at every stage — dreaming, launching, surviving, or thriving. This is a low-pretense conversation about what it actually takes: the faith, the fear, the funding, the loneliness, and the moments that remind you why you said yes. Bring your real questions. Leave with people who get it.
Sales ManagerWomen in Ministry Leadership
A gathering for women serving in ministry leadership roles — navigating the particular dynamics of leading, being led, finding their voice, and sustaining their own formation in contexts that don't always know what to do with them. Honest, hopeful, and long overdue.
Founder15
We have something worth celebrating.
Fifteen years of planting churches. Of coming alongside pastors in their hardest moments. Of believing that thriving churches aren't an accident — they're the fruit of patient, faithful, wholehearted leadership.
On Tuesday evening, we close Leaders Summit 2026 the way you close fifteen years of anything worth doing: outside, together, with food and music and faces from all chapters of the story.
Bring your memories. Bring your gratitude. Come ready to laugh and tear up a little and raise a glass to the God who is not finished with any of us yet.
FAQs
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We’re partnering with the Galt House Hotel this year. It’s only about 10 minutes from Sojourn Midtown and it’s where our breakouts will take place. They’ve given us a great rate of $169/night. Book here. However, you’re more than welcome to stay in an airbnb, with a friend, or anywhere else!
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The conference starts on Tuesday evening and concludes on Thursday morning. You’ll only need lodging for Tuesday night and Wednesday night, unless you want to stay and explore Louisville for longer! You can book here.
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Your registration fee includes access to each main session and breakouts. It also includes an invitation to the evening receptions.
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We’ll enjoy snacks on Tuesday night and dessert on Wednesday night. There will, of course, be coffee and water at every main session and breakout.
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We won’t be offering a digital ticket. However, we will send the audio of the main sessions to attendees for free after the conference.
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Yes! Email our Events Manager, Jerrica, at jerrica@harbornetwork.com if you’re interested in sponsoring!
The leader you want to be is still becoming.
Come be shaped. Come be known. Come be sent back into the work with something that nothing can take from you.
Still have questions?
You're welcome to reach out to our team. We'd be happy to answer any questions you have.