2026: The Year of Illumination

Every year at Summit, students eagerly await the announcement of the new theme, an opportunity to focus our hearts and minds on what God wants to speak to us in this season. This year’s theme was unveiled with great anticipation by our President Dr. Conlon, and it’s one that challenges us deeply and beautifully: The Year of Illumination.

Illumination means an awakening of the mind and heart to spiritual truth. It’s not enough to simply know about God; true transformation happens when what we know in our heads moves into our hearts and changes the way we live.

Our experience at Summit is incomplete if we only accumulate knowledge. Knowledge alone can make us proud, but illumination humbles and transforms us. It teaches us compassion, care, sacrifice, and how to live for the benefit of others. If our heads grow faster than our hearts, we risk losing the very essence of faith. The Pharisees knew Scripture well, yet they failed to recognize Jesus when He stood before them. Knowledge without illumination can actually put the Word of God to death in our hearts.

At Summit, we want more than full minds, we want illuminated hearts. The real evidence of illumination isn’t found in how spiritual someone sounds, but in how they love. Who walks with others through difficult times? Who serves sacrificially? Who brings light and life wherever they go?

When illumination happens, truth becomes personal; it lights us up inside. We begin to understand ministry not as performance or position, but as compassion in action. Illumination removes the “moral clouds” that dull us to truth and replaces them with spiritual clarity and understanding.

This year’s theme is rooted in 2 Corinthians 4:6, which reminds us, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.” As God illuminates His truth in our hearts by showing us His face, we can't help but reflect that light to the world around us.

Students are already excited and encouraged to live out these truths this academic year! We are ready to walk in the light of Christ and let that illumination shine through our lives.