This stopped our USCCC board meeting cold
As we entered the new year, an insight emerged during our most recent U.S. Christian Chamber of Commerce board meeting that stopped the year-in-review cold.
As I presented our SWC 2026 overview, I shared that nearly every sponsorship and expo booth is already filled—four months early. Forty booths are sold. Title, stage, media, technology, and marketplace sponsorships are secured. By every measurable standard, the Expo is thriving.
And yet.
There are two expo booths remaining—which is expected given the total available—and one—and only one—major sponsorship opportunity still open.
Only one Leadership Lab sponsorship remains.
- Not AI.
- Not Currency.
- Not Policy.
- Not Faith & Work.
Unity.
Our Chairman, Ford Taylor, slowed the moment and asked me to repeat what remained. When I did, it fully registered in the room. There was a pause. Then clarity. Then conviction.
Unity wasn’t left because it is unimportant.
It was left because it is hard.
And that is exactly why it is essential.
This year’s Unity Lab—Breaking Down Barriers, Building Up the Body—is not a panel or a polite conversation. It is a 100-person, high-trust think tank designed to address the real fractures holding Christian business back—including race, denomination, class, politics, and posture.
Not to debate them endlessly.
But to identify what actually divides us, how leaders overcome it, and what becomes possible when we get this right.
The subject-matter experts guiding this lab have spent their lives doing exactly that—uniting, not posturing; building, not blaming. This is not theory. It is lived leadership.
And here’s the moment that caused our entire board to pause:
Unity being the last Leadership Lab still seeking sponsorship is not a failure of the conference.
It is a mirror of the moment.
We say unity matters.
We applaud it from a distance.
But when it requires an investment of time, resources, humility, and courage—we hesitate.
Meanwhile, Scripture is unambiguous. When God’s people come together, aligned in purpose, they become formidable. When they divide, they stall—not because the mission lacks power, but because the force is scattered.
Imagine if the builders in Nehemiah had torn each other down instead of rebuilding the wall. Or if the people marching around Jericho had turned on one another before the seventh lap. The work would have ended before the breakthrough ever came.
Christian business leaders understand something the broader culture has forgotten: unity is not agreement—it is alignment.
Teams don’t thrive without it.
Businesses don’t scale without it.
Movements don’t advance without it.
Kingdom Commerce is not built through fragmentation.
The irony is impossible to ignore:
Unity is the one lab that touches every other lab.
Without it, influence fractures.
With it, impact multiplies.
This article is not about selling a sponsorship.
It is about facing the moment we are in.
If Christian leaders can unite around a shared mission and a shared commitment to live out their faith with integrity in the marketplace, we are not fragile.
We are immovable.
That is the opportunity before us in 2026 and beyond.
Unity will not happen accidentally.
It will be built by leaders willing to show up and do the work.
Be in the room.
Be part of the solution.
