The annual Wee Kirk Northeast Conference in Mt Pleasant, PA, is a time for learning but also to renew friendships.
It was TJ Spruill’s first time attending the Wee Kirk Northeast Conference. The Washington Presbytery pulpit supply preacher was thrilled to worship and learn alongside small church leaders at the annual gathering at the Laurelville Retreat Center in Mt. Pleasant, PA.
“I had heard of it in the past but wasn’t really sure what it was,” she said of her initial trip to the three-day event in 2023. “I was super excited to go and had heard great things about it over the years but didn’t realize that it was open to anyone to go.”
While sitting in a pre-conference gathering of attendees known as “Pre Kirk,” she received a phone call that a beloved colleague, Pastor Doug Bush, had passed away. Overcome with grief and sorrow, she left the meeting area to sit in nature and collect her thoughts and emotions.
“We hit a break, and I went outside and just broke down crying,” TJ recalled. “The amount of people that just stopped what they were doing to come make sure that I was OK was very overwhelming. These are people that I’ve never met, they don’t know me, they don’t know what’s going on, but they are over there asking me how can they help me, how can they pray for me, what can they do, do I need anything. That was so refreshing.”
Attendees travel from around the country to attend Wee Kirk. Case in point is Helen Kester, who handles the conference’s registration from her home in Phoenix, AZ. But that distance doesn’t keep the former Huntingdon and Redstone Presbytery pastor and 2017 Synod of the Trinity co-moderator from making the trip east each fall.
“It gives my husband and I an excuse to come back in October, which is the most beautiful time of the year in western Pennsylvania,” Helen said of her yearly travels to Wee Kirk, which annually begins on Indigenous Peoples’ Day on a mid-October Monday and continues into Wednesday.
Click here to view the 2025 Wee Kirk pamphlet with registration information.
Aside from the beauty of the Mt. Pleasant area, the conference provides important insight into leading a small congregation and the importance of it.
“It serves a purpose that I’m not sure too much in the larger church does,” Helen continued. “The resources of the larger church are not always geared to micro-churches. A lot of times you’re made to feel that if you were any good at your job the church would be growing. But if your church is sitting in a wheat field halfway between Nowhere and Podunk and you have 10 folks coming on a Sunday morning that are committed and are serving the area in which they’re in, you may have a greater impact than a mega church in a big city.”
While learning tactics to help a small church thrive in its community is a key component of Wee Kirk, there is an underlying theme that shouldn’t be overlooked.
“I think the most important thing that goes on is fellowship,” Helen said. “Rather than a conference at times I thought we should call it a retreat. Yes, we do bring in really good speakers who mostly come out of the goodness of their heart. We’re really intentional about, if you’re a first timer, making sure that somebody sits with you and talks with you.
“We have a lot of returning folk. If you come once, you’ll come again.”
Skip Noftzger, left, catches up with Molly Hall during a recent Wee Kirk at Laurelville Retreat Center.
There are planned spaces for attendees to get to know one another, from the Pre Kirk to a Tuesday evening worship service to an evening snack time where pastors are encouraged to share their challenges with others.
As TJ can attest, the conference is more than just a place to become better equipped to serve a small congregation. It’s a community of church leaders who truly care about one another in and out of the pulpit.
“I have encouraged so many people to do it if they have the opportunity,” TJ said. “I’ve met people who have been going there for 30 years, and I’ve met people who were there for the first time. Just to be able to sit down and talk with everybody about what it means to be in ministry and how we can work together. Doing the various workshops that they offered. I loved hearing how other people do things because I want to see things from as many points of view as possible.”
TJ keeps in contact with her Wee Kirk friends through social media but is excited for the face-to-face interactions in October.
“I look forward to seeing people I only see at Wee Kirk,” she said. “I’m always excited about what I’m going to learn when I’m there, who I’m going to meet and how that’s going to shape the way that I do ministry.”
Aside from meeting new people, TJ looks forward to the various workshops that are offered at Wee Kirk each year. She has been particularly impacted by sessions on “Preaching from the Lefthand Side of the Bible,” which relates to preparing Old Testament sermons.
“I think a lot of people, at least myself specifically, tend not to preach as much from the Old Testament,” TJ said of a segment at Wee Kirk that was presented by Steve Tuell. “To get that kind of excitement over that made me look at the Old Testament more. We need to peach from this as much as we’re preaching from the Gospel.
“I learned so much in that very short amount of time. I told my pastor that this is going to be one of those things where I want to be able to look back and say I’ve been doing this for the last 30 years.”
Wee Kirk, with “wee” meaning small and “kirk” being the Scottish word for church, used to have conferences in different parts of the country. Currently, only the Northeast conference at the Laurelville Retreat Center and a similar gathering at the Montreat Conference Center in North Carolina remain.
Kiskiminetas pastors Matt Gress, left, and Marty Neal take part in an exercise during Wee Kirk.
About 100-110 people annually attend the Wee Kirk Northeast Conference, which is a homecoming in more ways than one for Helen.
“I’ve been going for 20 years,” she said. “It’s about meeting old friends – and then meeting new friends. I like being a registrar because I’m the first person they meet. I like the fact that we support those ordained and commissioned lay pastors that I think are doing the hardest work in the church.
“We offer a great gift to our commissioned ruling elders who are really good, dedicated people but don’t have a seminary training. We try to really help them get those deeper understandings that will just help them in their work.”
A mainstay at Wee Kirk is an appearance by Byron Borger from Hearts & Minds Bookstore who will bring a selection of books with him and offer suggested readings to those who ask. Workshops this year range from “Cultivating Harmony” to “Robert’s Rules of Order.” This year, a workshop that caught TJ’s eye is focusing on end-of-life care.
“That, I have found, has been an area that I really like and enjoy,” she said. “There’s something about being able to be there when people are in a hard time.”
For someone who has never been to Wee Kirk, TJ suggests they give it a try.
“It’s a good way to learn about things and to get perspective that they don’t currently have,” she said. “Even if you’ve spent decades in ministry, you can always learn something. Things change with how we have to approach things.
“My initial reaction was how beautiful it was. For me it was a glimpse into what our world could be if we all got back to Jesus. To be around that many people who you know are there because they love God and want to share God and his Word with everyone around them was super meaningful. It was a clear vision of how I want our world to be.
“I just highly recommend for anybody to experience it. It’s so beautiful up there. The area is great, the people are wonderful. It’s just a great place to go, recharge and be renewed with the Holy Spirit.”
Helen agrees that anyone who attends will walk away with meaningful relationships and resources to help them continue their ministerial journey.
“Come for the fellowship and stay for the conference,” she said with a chuckle. “It’s a really great time in a beautiful, beautiful place.”