FOLLOW 2026 will gather students and young adults December 28-31, 2026, in Cincinnati, Ohio, for worship, discipleship, community and spiritual growth. Every student who walks through the doors carries a story, and sometimes one caring adult can change the direction of that story forever.
The following testimony comes from Charlie Alcock, whose life was changed at a Wesleyan youth conference in 1982.
I was a kid who would have gone anywhere to get out of the house. When I got in the old church van in 1982, I did not know yet that the trip in front of me was going to change the direction of my whole life.
I did not have all the money to go. Lola Forsyth, from Whiteford Wesleyan Church, told me to bring whatever I had. When I arrived and handed her the little I had managed to save, she told me not to worry. It covered my registration and food. I have thought about Lola a thousand times since. She did not have to notice me. She did not have to cover the difference. But she did, and that one act of kindness is a big part of the reason I am still standing here.
That church loved my family and me without condition, and Lola was the face of that love. She was not just getting me to a conference. She was telling a kid that he mattered, that he was worth the cost. I had spent my whole life feeling like I was outside of everything. She put me on the inside.
I will never forget walking into that hall. I did not think there were that many Christians on the whole planet. Until then, I figured I was the only one at my high school. But that room was something else. Thousands of teenagers, all in one place, and for the first time I believed I could live this out. What Lola started with a covered registration fee, that room finished. I walked in running from home and walked out with a future.
That is why FOLLOW matters. It is why leaders keep putting students on planes, buses and vans from places like San Diego to gatherings in Cincinnati and Charlotte. If we do not do this for them, who will? Who stands in the gap for the students whose churches cannot fill a van, let alone buy a plane ticket?
Most of the churches FOLLOW serves are small. Many do not have a full-time youth pastor. What they do have are people like Lola Forsyth — adults willing to say, bring what you have, and mean it.
Maybe your church cannot send a crowd, but it can sponsor one student from a church that cannot send anyone. And when that student finally walks into a room filled with thousands of peers, hears the name of Jesus proclaimed and discovers they are not alone, something can stir. A calling can begin.
That is the heart of FOLLOW 2026. Hosted by The Wesleyan Church, FOLLOW brings students and leaders together for worship, discipleship, prayer, community and spiritual growth designed to empower kingdom leaders within the next generation today. It is not simply a youth ministry event. It is the entire Wesleyan Church standing together for a generation that needs somewhere to belong … and that belonging is here and now, a part of our church family.
Speakers will be booked. Worship will be planned. Details will be managed. But that is not the reason to invest. We invest for the student in the back row who finally believes he is not alone. We invest for the teenager who starts to wonder if God might be calling her too. We invest because one person once did that for me. We invest for one more Charlie, who matters.
More than four decades later, Charlie has led planning and producing seminars and main sessions for Wesleyan conventions and equips future ministry leaders as a professor at Indiana Wesleyan University. The investment Lola Forsyth made in one teenager has multiplied into thousands of lives touched. That’s the quiet power of one faithful act of generosity.
FOLLOW 2026 takes place December 28-31, 2026, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Register, invite and consider sponsoring a student or church that needs help getting there. One covered registration, one open seat, one act of generosity could change the direction of a life.
For more information on FOLLOW 2026, visit followconference.org.
*This testimony was shared by Reverend Dr. Charlie Alcock at the Crossroads District Conference on June 27, 2026.
