A Legacy of Unity Continues: National Preaching Summit Transitions to Renew.org, Carrying Forward Don DeWelt’s Vision

In 1982, Don DeWelt suffered two heart attacks in rapid succession. Lying in his hospital bed, the founder of College Press Publishing Company opened his Bible to John 17 and read again the words of Jesus: “That all of them may be one … so that the world may believe.” He later wrote that the impact of that text had never before hit him with the force he believed the Lord intended. Out of that experience grew a conviction that would define the rest of his ministry: that the divided streams of the Restoration Movement—the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ on one side, the a cappella Churches of Christ on the other—needed to find one another again.

DeWelt spent the remaining years of his life pursuing that vision. He helped launch the Restoration Forums, a series of gatherings that brought leaders from both fellowships together for conversation and prayer. He founded One Body magazine to give that dialogue a permanent voice. He collaborated with a cappella scholars on bilateral commentaries that modeled what it looked like to study Scripture together across the divide. He never saw full unity in his lifetime. But he believed it was coming.

More than forty years later, a new chapter in that story is being written—and it begins with a preaching conference.

A Conference Born of Preachers but Cultivated by College Press

The National Preaching Summit has its roots in 1995, when a group of young preachers came together with a simple conviction: that those who stand behind pulpits every week need a place to sharpen their craft, find fellowship, and be spiritually fed. For a decade that gathering took shape informally. Then in 2005, College Press Publishing Company stepped in to organize and host the Summit, giving it a permanent institutional home and a growing platform. Since 2009, NPS has been held each spring at The Creek in Indianapolis—a partnership born when The Creek’s leadership not only opened their facilities but embraced the Summit as a shared ministry. Over the past two decades, it has grown into one of the Restoration Movement’s most consistent annual gatherings for preachers at every stage of ministry.

This year, College Press is announcing a significant transition. The National Preaching Summit will move under the leadership of RENEW.org Network, the ministry led by Bobby Harrington that has built one of the largest discipleship networks in the Restoration Movement, with nearly 500 senior church leaders and a database of over 55,000 disciples of Jesus, largely from Christian Church and a cappella Church of Christ churches. College Press will remain connected to the event—present each year, committed to its success—but operational leadership passes to RENEW.org, effective with the 2027 conference.

It is a transition that Don DeWelt, were he alive today, might have seen coming.

Building Bridges Across the Divide

At the center of this transition is Dr. Scott Sager, who will serve as the inaugural Executive Director of NPS under RENEW.org’s leadership. Sager brings a credential that is both rare and significant: he comes from the a cappella Churches of Christ tradition, having been educated at Abilene Christian and then teaching and preaching at Lipscomb University in Nashville for the past 15 years. Sager has spent his ministry career among non-instrumental congregations in Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky. He has been building deep ties with Independent Christian Churches for over a decade and is also a collaborator and co-author with Bobby Harrington, giving him deep relationships on both sides of the fellowship divide.

That combination is not accidental. One of the primary ambitions of NPS under RENEW.org’s leadership is to grow the summit into a gathering that draws preachers from both the Christian Churches and the a cappella Churches of Christ—something NPS has never fully achieved, and something that would represent a significant step toward the kind of fellowship Don DeWelt dreamed of.

The numbers suggest the opportunity is real. There are an estimated 11,875 a cappella Churches of Christ congregations in the United States, representing a large and largely untapped community of preachers who share the Restoration Movement’s heritage and commitments. RENEW.org’s existing network and Scott Sager’s relationships give NPS a genuine on-ramp into that world for the first time.

In Their Own Words

Bobby Harrington, RENEW.org Network: “RENEW.org Network looks forward to helping preachers with the vitally important task of preaching. We believe that good theology is at the heart of excellent preaching and our Network was built to emphasize good theology. Furthermore, we believe that good theology and effective preaching are vital to the mission of our churches, which is disciple making. We hope to help the National Preaching Summit to be a reflection of our mission, which is: We renew the teachings of Jesus to fuel disciple making.”

Scott Sager, incoming NPS Executive Director: “For the past ten years, three things have been the driving force behind my ministry work at Lipscomb and in the local church: making Disciples who make disciples; reaching into the Independent Christian Church to build friendships; and raising up and equipping the next generation of young preachers for Restoration Churches. Those three initiatives converge in the opportunity to serve the National Preaching Summit, and I could not be more humbled or excited. We are building an Advisory Team to help us think deeply and reach broadly into our churches. We plan to be a trusted partner of preachers! We are thinking long-term about the future of preaching, aiming to be a trusted resource and friend to preachers for generations to come.”

Dru Ashwell, Former NPS Executive Director: “It’s been one of the greatest privileges of my ministry to lead the NPS since 2005. The Summit continues to encourage and equip preachers to be better biblical communicators and I am so glad that the RENEW.org Network and Scott Sager will invest the time, energy, marketing horsepower, and Kingdom vision to take the Summit to new levels, hopefully bringing in more preachers than ever from all sides of the keyboard. I will prayerfully cheer them on in the months and years ahead!”

Continuing a Vision

Don DeWelt never used the word “unity” lightly. For him it was not a diplomatic nicety or a lowest-common-denominator ecumenism. It was a theological conviction rooted in the prayer of Jesus himself. He believed that the divisions within the Restoration Movement—divisions over instruments and institutions, over history and hermeneutics—were real, but not ultimate. He believed the things that bound the movement together were deeper than the things that had pulled it apart.

The transition of NPS to RENEW.org is, in one sense, an ordinary organizational handoff: a conference changing hands, a new team taking the helm. But in another sense, it is something more. It is a gathering designed to serve preachers—those who stand in pulpits every week and call others to follow Jesus—being intentionally shaped to include voices from across a divide that has persisted for more than a century.

The 2027 National Preaching Summit will be hosted in three venues—as a one-day preaching summit at the front-end of the RENEW.org National Gathering in Indianapolis, Monday, April 12, 2027; as a preaching summit in Nashville (a city with deep roots in both streams of the Restoration Movement), noon Monday through noon Tuesday, August 30-31, 2027; and, as a one-day preaching summit at the front-end of the Nehemiah Summit in Atlanta, Tuesday, November 9, 2027.

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Whether it will draw the diverse crowd its organizers hope for remains to be seen. But the intention is clear, the relationships are real, and the vision is one that Don DeWelt would have recognized.

Perhaps Jesus’ prayer in John 17 is being answered, at least in part, in preaching conferences in Indianapolis, Nashville, and Atlanta. Don DeWelt would have liked that.

Author: Karl Halverson

Karl Halverson is President of College Press Publishing Company and Executive Director of Literature and Teaching Ministries. He holds master’s degrees in theology, missions, and Christian leadership, and is pursuing a PhD in organizational leadership at Columbia International University.