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As we celebrate Christmas and near the end of the year, I want to pause and look back with gratitude and ahead with great expectation.

This has been an extraordinary year for Pinnacle Forum. God has been moving among us in unmistakable ways. Lives are being transformed!

Leaders are rediscovering joy in their walk with Christ. Forums that were once routine are coming alive with vulnerability, truth, and spiritual fire.

What makes this season different is not growth in numbers or new programs. It is maturity. God is shaping us into a ministry marked by depth, excellence, and focus.

We have renewed our commitment to the Forum experience as a pathway of transformation, where leaders grow spiritually, personally, relationally, and vocationally. We have invested deeply in Facilitator development, so Forums are places where real shepherding and disciple-making happen.

The Lord has also provided a strong footing for the future, allowing us to move forward with clarity and confidence, grounded in Christ alone.

As we look ahead to 2026, we do so with anticipation. We will gather as a Pinnacle Forum family in Phoenix this April, and we will continue seeking the Lord as He refines and shapes us for the work ahead.

At the center of everything is the gospel. Our vision is to partner with God in transforming leaders who magnify Christ in their spheres of influence. When leaders are transformed from the inside out, culture begins to change.

Christmas reminds us why this matters. The Son of God stepped into our world to bring light, hope, and redemption. Emmanuel means God with us. That same God is still near, still at work, and still moving through this community of leaders.

On behalf of our entire team, thank you for your partnership, your prayers, and your trust in what God is doing through Pinnacle Forum.

May the peace and presence of Christ fill your hearts and homes as we enter the new year together.

A Note from Connor Hillard, CEO

We’re thrilled to announce the theme for our 2026 National Conference:
Forged for Influence.

This powerful theme reflects the very heart of Pinnacle Forum. Just as metal is shaped in the fire, leaders in our Forums are being refined by Christ, awakened to their divine purpose, and sent out to transform culture with courage.

At its core, Pinnacle Forum is a sacred space where transformation happens. Our 2026 National Conference will be an extension of that experience.

Through inspiring messages, peer engagement, and intentional moments of reflection, our National Conference will be inextricably tied to the Pinnacle Forum experience, highlighting three key subthemes.

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1. Formed by Flame: Refined by Christ

The conference will begin, as every Pinnacle Forum does, with personal spiritual renewal.

This theme reflects the first movement of the Forum journey: being made new in Christ.

You’ll be invited into honest reflection and connection with fellow leaders and partners. You’ll hear powerful speakers who confront the parts of us still being refined. Just as Forums create space for transparency and transformation, our opening sessions will stir your soul and invite the Spirit to do His refining work. 

2. Tempered for Purpose: Living with an Eternal Call

Next, we focus on identity and calling.

In a Pinnacle Forum, Partners come to see that God has uniquely equipped them to lead with purpose.

At the conference, we will explore what it means to discern and live out an eternal calling in the practical, everyday spaces of influence. Through stories, breakout discussions, and tools for discernment, you will gain clarity on the eternal purpose for which you’ve been tempered and how to steward it with excellence.

3. Standing Firm in the Heat: Influencing Culture with Courage

Finally, just like in our Forums, we turn outward.

The conference will culminate in a bold challenge to courageously influence the culture around you.

You’ll hear from leaders who are doing just that. Standing firm in the heat of the cultural moment, armed not with fear, but with conviction, grace, and Truth. Together, we will commission one another to live out our calling and impact our spheres of influence with unwavering faith.

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This conference will be a Pinnacle Forum experience at scale. You’ll be encouraged and equipped to engage and execute, just as our Forum model is designed to do.

This is our collective forge. And from it, God is raising up a generation of courageous, Christ-centered influencers.

This theme is a call to action. It’s a banner over our movement. And it’s just the beginning!More to come, but for now,  Forged for Influence is our declaration in Him!

There are seasons that feel like fire.

Sometimes it’s personal. Sometimes it’s the world around us. We keep showing up, carrying responsibilities, leading where God has placed us,  and still the weight can feel heavy, even overwhelming.

 In Isaiah 48:10, God says: “I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.”

Even in affliction, His purpose is not destruction but refinement. God doesn’t waste the fire. He uses it to shape His people for what lies ahead.

If you feel that heat in your own life or leadership right now, remember this: you are not abandoned. The same God who allows the refining also walks with His people through it. And He is shaping a kind of courage and influence that can only be formed in the fire.

Whether you’re discovering Pinnacle Forum for the first time or looking to introduce it to someone in your sphere of influence, its true impact can be difficult to capture without experiencing a Forum firsthand. Many initially assume Pinnacle Forum is simply a prayer group, Bible study, or small group. While it shares elements of each, it is far more.

First and foremost, and unlike any other ministry, Pinnacle Forum is for you, the Christian leader of influence. Pinnacle Forum is an invitation-only, highly confidential, highly vulnerable, Spirit-filled place where you, as a Christian leader, can be poured into by true, authentic peers on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. Our Forums meet for an hour and provide our Partners with a place to engage with the trials, tribulations, opportunities, and blessings they encounter as leaders and influencers who follow Christ Jesus. 

While some Forums engage with books or studies, content isn’t the focus—the content of the character of our Partners is. The men or women in your Forum commit to confidentiality, transparency, and authenticity. By showing up fully engaged, Partners experience the Holy Spirit move through a powerful exchange of wisdom, support, prayer, and transparency that often leads to profound personal and spiritual transformation. These conversations are not only deeply personal but also intellectually and theologically rich, challenging Partners to think critically, wrestle with Truth, and grow in both faith and impact with depth and rigor. For many leaders, finding true peers—people who can genuinely say, “I understand what you’re facing”—is rare. In Pinnacle Forum, you’ll find those peers: people who see the calling God has placed on your life and nurture it.

Furthermore, we believe that if these influencers, our Partners, are encouraged and equipped in the aforementioned ways their faith can be activated in big, bold, new ways which will then multiply their impact on our culture in a way that glorifies Christ and creates an environment rich for the planting and growing of faith.

Too often, these same leaders are overlooked by everyone, including the church, expected to have it all together while constantly pouring themselves out. Pinnacle Forum doesn’t compete with the church; it complements the Church. By equipping and encouraging leaders, we empower them to better engage and execute for impact as God uses them to transform their church, their families, their careers, their communities, and the broader culture—all for the glory of God.

Pinnacle Forum exists to transform leaders, who in turn transform culture.

By Mathew Swinson, Owner, Mathew Swinson Coaching LLC

Friday mornings are essential to me.

Not because I sleep in. Not because I ease into the day. But because, at the start of each week’s end, I sit in a Forum with a group of high-caliber, young leaders who love Jesus deeply and are hungry to grow. These men just “get me.”

My Forum is a place where honest conversation meets spiritual depth, and where growth isn’t optional, it’s inevitable. These men are the real deal. Leaders in their industries, influencers in their spheres, and passionate followers of Christ. But what strikes me most isn’t just their resumes or even our week-to-week topic of discussion. It’s the questions.

They ask questions that cut through the noise. The kind that makes you pause, dig deep, and wrestle with the heart of God’s calling on your life. It’s in these moments, sometimes uncomfortable, always refining, that I find myself growing. Not just in my day job, but as a man, a leader, and as a disciple of and influencer for Christ.

As someone who spends most of my time pouring into others, helping individuals and couples walk into healing, purpose, and transformation, it’s easy to get used to giving. But my Forum? They pour back into me. They see me. They support me. They challenge me in love. They remind me that I don’t always have to have the answers to truly lead.

There’s a phrase we often hear in the Pinnacle Forum: “God never designed us to lead alone.” I’ve never found that more true than in my Friday morning Forum. These brothers aren’t just fellow leaders, they’re a lifeline. A mirror. A compass pointing me back to the One who called me.

This is my experience. It looks like growth. It looks like vulnerability. It looks like brotherhood. It looks like a group of young men choosing to rise together for Christ, for each other, and for impact on the culture.

That’s my Forum. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.