Collaboration: Many Gifts, One Spirit

Over the past two months, I have reflected on stewardship, sustainability, and the resilience of leaders across the CHHSM network. Those reflections have centered on the realities many of you navigate each day as you guide ministries that provide care, stability, and hope in communities across our country.

This month, as we prepare to gather in just a few days, I want to turn our attention to what ultimately sustains this work and propels it forward: the gifts we bring to this shared ministry and the power that emerges when those gifts are brought together in community.

The challenges facing health and human service organizations today are complex. Workforce shortages, shifting funding landscapes, growing community needs, and evolving policy environments all require leaders to think creatively while remaining grounded in the values that define our ministries. Yet faithful leadership also reminds us that innovation and resilience are rarely the work of any single leader or organization.

That is why the theme of this year’s The Gathering—Many Gifts, One Spirit—speaks so powerfully to this moment. Drawing from 1 Corinthians 12, we are reminded that while our gifts, ministries, and approaches may differ, they are all moved by the same Spirit and given for the common good. Each of us brings unique experiences, perspectives, and insights to this work. When those gifts are shared openly and generously, they strengthen not only our individual organizations but the collective impact of our shared ministry.

None of this work happens in isolation. The strength of CHHSM has always been rooted in our commitment to community and collaboration, the belief that we are stronger, wiser, and our work more impactful when we learn from one another and support one another along the way. That spirit is exactly what brings us together at The Gathering. In just a few days, leaders from across our network will come together to learn, reconnect, reflect, and renew our shared commitment to the work ahead.

I am especially looking forward to the conversations that happen between sessions, the moments when colleagues exchange ideas, offer encouragement, and discover new opportunities for partnership. Those often are the spaces where relationships deepen and new possibilities emerge, reminding us that the Spirit is at work not only in our programs and ministries, but also in the connections we build with one another.

As we prepare to gather, I encourage each of us to come with curiosity and openness, because the future of health and human service ministries will not be shaped by any single organization or leader, but rather by communities of leaders who recognize that their gifts are strengthened when they are shared, and that together we can accomplish far more than any of us could alone.

I look forward to seeing many of you very soon at The Gathering. Until then, please know how grateful I am for the faithful leadership you bring to this work every day, and for the ways you continue to embody hope in communities across our country.