The Times: A Glance at CCV's Ministry Impact for 2025
As we close 2025, we join hearts in thanksgiving for God’s faithfulness and for how He has used the body of Christ through Church Ambassador Network (CAN), our ministry partner Center for Christian Virtue (CCV), and, most importantly, the local churches to advance His kingdom across Ohio and beyond. The stories below testify to the transformative power of the Gospel when God’s people unite with courage, compassion, and truth.
"But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere."
– 2 Corinthians 2:14 (ESV)
A glimpse of God’s work in 2025: Allie Beth Stuckey and Pastor Luke Barnett shared lessons from Charlie Kirk’s life and the power of the Gospel at CCV’s Cleveland Gala.
CCV’s Ministry Highlights from 2025
CCV's October 2025 Prayer at the Statehouse
Celebrating What Is Good — During 2025, we saw hundreds of believers from around Ohio gather at CAN’s quarterly Prayer at the Statehouse events. The Church united in praise and worship, prayed for state leaders, and received encouragement from the Word.
CAN's Pastors’ Summit on Evangelism, Marriage, and Family Formation in May 2025
Creating What Is Missing — In partnership with the Institute for Family Studies, CCV released the Hope and a Future report in February 2025. The report highlights how declining marriage rates and family-structure breakdown are driving child poverty, violence, addiction, poor educational outcomes, and many other areas of bondage in Ohio communities. To translate the report’s findings into real action, CCV partnered with Communio in June and developed a Church Solutions guide to equip churches with the resources needed to restore marriages and families.
The Cleveland Minnery fellowship cohort in March 2025
Restoring What Is Broken — As the erosion of the biblical worldview becomes increasingly clear in Western society, pastors are seeking resources to help their congregations and communities navigate the current culture.
In response to this request, The Minnery Fellowship for Cultural Engagement was fully rolled out in February 2025. Regional pastor cohorts across Ohio met in the spring and fall for continuing cultural education. Fellows engaged with curated resources, reading assignments, pastoral practicum projects, community outreach activities, insights from current Christian thought-leaders, and monthly regional meetings. Fellows also received small group curriculum for their churches.
All participating pastors were able to do so at no cost to themselves or their churches, thanks to generous full-ride scholarships from The Dalton Foundation.
Center for Christian Virtue (CCV) Executive Policy Director, David Mahan, giving testimony on iGaming in May 2025.
Ending What Is Evil — This year, the CCV policy team helped put an end to a range of culturally and morally destructive practices that have become increasingly mainstream.
Working alongside aligned legislators and strong ministry partners, including pastors who courageously spoke out, CCV helped stop a harmful expansion of online and mobile gambling in Ohio.
CCV delivered a significant setback to Ohio’s marijuana industry by securing dedicated funding for rigorous THC research. This research will examine the biological and psychological effects of marijuana on vulnerable populations, with a special focus on young people under 25—harms that industry advocates often downplay.
CCV successfully advanced a budget provision aligned with the Innocence Act requiring age verification for users accessing online pornography, a critical step toward limiting easy access for minors, especially young men.
Through these efforts and many others like them, CCV is helping bring truth and accountability to industries built entirely on exploitation and outright lies. While these efforts represent meaningful progress, each remains an ongoing fight. These wins are only possible because of engaged pastors and churches. We are grateful for your continued prayers and support as we work to see these protections fully realized. Thank you for standing with us this year as we worked to protect Ohio’s families and its future.
Seeking the Good of Our Neighbor
That’s a wrap, folks! The Ohio Legislature is officially on its holiday break after a productive year for the CCV policy team. We likely won’t see both chambers fully return until early February. Shortly after the New Year, our team will release the 2025 Impact Report, highlighting the Gospel-driven work accomplished at the Statehouse on behalf of our supporters. We can’t wait to share it with you.
In the interim, the policy team continues working on projects that strengthen Ohio and support families. We’re also using this window to maintain strong communication with lawmakers, map out our 2026 Capitol strategy, and prepare for several major initiatives related to gender clinics, public-school sex education, and workforce pathways for the next generation. More news will follow soon on these projects, and each of them will be fully released in the Spring of 2026.
When legislators return in late January or early February, we’ll push to advance several key bills before the pace of the 2026 election year accelerates. We also plan to host multiple briefings at our office to equip lawmakers on issues including marijuana, gambling expansion, and restoring work as a key to family stability for Ohio’s men. Time will be tight in 2026, but we’re confident we can move our priorities across the finish line before the 136th General Assembly concludes in December of next year.
"And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." – Colossians 3:17 (ESV)
Legislative Tracker
Review the December 2025 Legislative Tracker to see where all of the Center for Christian Virtue (CCV)-backed bills currently stand in the 136th General Assembly and pray over the bills that will be moving in 2026.
Click here to learn how a bill becomes a law in Ohio.
Pray for Ohio
We have partnered with Pray for Ohio to bring you a monthly topical prayer guide that can be shared with your church!
The Prayer Guide for January, along with the accompanying prayer letter, focuses on the sanctity of life.
Prayer Requests
Church Ambassador Network’s Hope and a Future Tour is off and running. Praise God for successful events in October, November, and December! Pray with us as we continue to share our Hope and a Future initiative with churches around the state in 2026.
Praise God that we are approaching 10 cohorts for The Minnery Fellowship! Pray with us for the pastors who will join those cohorts in 2026.
Send prayer requests to Ruth Edmonds at ruthedmonds@ccv.org so our team and intercessors around the state can pray.
Resources
Check out these recent episodes of The Narrative podcast:
The Battle for Civilization, featuring world-renowned author Os Guinness, addresses the premise of his book The Magna Carta of Humanity, and cross-examines two competing worldviews adopted by many Americans today. Guinness projects the potential impact of both worldviews on our modern society and culture, speaking to the Church’s responsibility to promote the gospel and engage our current culture, especially through the socio-political sphere, which is increasingly presenting moral dilemmas that only the application of Scripture can resolve.
How Technology is Rewriting Humanity with Carl Trueman addresses the implications of technology, especially AI, for how we live our lives and what we believe it means to be human. In this episode, Carl Trueman makes the case that technology is causing people to view themselves in ways contrary to God’s perfect design for human beings and marriage.
If you believe other pastors in your network would benefit from receiving The Times, please forward this to them and encourage them to subscribe!
Upcoming Events
Register now for one or more of CAN's Hope and a Future tour stops!
Zanesville: Thursday, January 22, from 9 am to 11 am. Register here.
Columbus: Thursday, February 5, from 9 am to 11 am. Register here.
Pastors will hear about CAN’s mission to revitalize marriage and families in Ohio and how state legislators are supporting it.
Let us know if you’d like your community to be on the tour stop list!
Rest and Renewal
To wrap up the year, here is a collection of retreat options for your consideration. If you have stayed at any of these, please let us know whether you would recommend them to other pastors!
If you have additional Rest and Renewal suggestions to share with the pastors in our network, please let us know. We are compiling a list of properties/retreats that we will share each month in The Times!
Pastor Testimony
We praise God for the work of the CCV and Church Ambassador Network! Their staff loves the Lord and strives to serve and resource the churches across Ohio. We are inspired by their passion to help the Church build stronger families. Through their leadership, we have connected with Communio.
We believe the CCV’s partnership with Communio will lead to many people being saved and to marriages and families experiencing wholeness across our great state! – Adam Pursel (Lead Pastor, Lifepoint Church Mount Vernon)
Looking Ahead — What’s Next for 2026
CAN will continue to expand full-circle relationship ministries in partnership with Communio to see communities transformed through the local church.
The Minnery Fellowship will start new cohorts, offering pastors tools for cultural engagement, worldview assessment, sermon resources, and community outreach opportunities.
For Prayer at the Statehouse, CAN will launch a collaboration with Christian universities and major denominations in 2026, and will provide greater opportunities for pastors and students to pray for, encourage, and meet with representatives from their area.
Serving and Resourcing Pastors in Ohio
A number of churches have decided to support CCV and the Church Ambassador Network financially through their budgets.
To set up a recurring monthly donation to CCV, please visit CCV.org/Donate and click the check box at the end of the form—above the comments field—before submitting your gift.
We would be honored if you chose to invest a portion of God’s resources into our effort to serve and support churches in Ohio with resources to help them carry out the Great Commission in the spirit of The Greatest Commandments in our current cultural context.
We hope you have a Happy New Year!
