PROGRAMS FOR STUDENTS
EXPLORING FAITH AND LEADERSHIP
WORK TOGETHER. PRAY TOGETHER.
This is a working internship. It’s going to be tough. It will push your limits. But, you will come out of it a better candidate for future ministry positions.
It’s not just work though. It’s a chance to join a community of people who are learning to pray together. To listen to God’s Spirit together.
It’s hard work, but it’s also a chance to build a deeper relationship with Jesus.
OUR STORY
Have you ever had that feeling burning inside of you that God desires to do something with your life? Maybe you know what it feels like to be confident that God is preparing you for something important but confused and anxious about what its all going to look like?
Us too.
That’s why a few of years ago we decided to create a new community. We’ve called it The Church Leadership Co-operative. We are the Co-op, a growing network of diverse college students who are discovering what leadership looks like in the local church and exploring God’s call on their life. We believe that you discover God’s call in community with others.
Your story is a part of God’s story.
Come be a part of our story.
READY TO JOIN
THE CO-OP?
OUR TEAM
Chris Mcalilly
Executive Director | chris@theco-op.com
A native Mississippian, Chris is the son and grandson of United Methodist clergy. When people said God might call him to be a pastor like his father, he ran in the other direction towards a job in the publishing industry in Nashville. He read a lot of books and drank a lot of coffee with non-profit leaders, pastors, campus ministers, and leaders in the civil rights movement seeking God’s path. Along the way he realized that God’s call wasn’t just the projection of his father’s story onto his story; it was real and urgent and it would require his life. With a decade of ministry experience, he is passionate about creating ecosystems of support for the next generation of Christian leadership for the church and the world. He loves reading, coaching his son’s soccer team, and riding the superb single-track mountain biking trails in his hometown.
Cody Hickman
Communications Director | Cody@theco-op.com
Growing up, Church was always the place Cody found community and the place to which he felt called. At the age of 14 he picked up a guitar and started leading a worship band. Now, some twenty years later, married, and with four young kids, he still finds his calling in ministry. Recognizing the shifts in technology and culture, he has spent the last ten years studying and adapting creative communications techniques to be used within the Church. He also has a strong desire to help young church creatives and musicians navigate the often unclear waters of vocational ministry. If anyone knows how to have hobbies when you have four kids, he’s open to suggestions.
Katie Heckel
COMMUNITY MENTOR
Katie Heckel is excited to partner with The Co-op this summer as their Community and Retreat Leader. With over a decade of experience working with college students, Katie has a heart for guiding young adults in their faith and lives. Before stepping into counseling, she served as the associate campus minister at MSU Wesley Foundation, where she fostered discipleship, built community, and created spaces for spiritual formation.
Katie is a Provisional Licensed Professional Counselor (P-LPC) and is part of The Homeward Collective in Oxford, where she walks alongside individuals seeking healing, growth, and renewal. She also has a deep joy for music, songwriting, mission work in Africa, her dachshund Annie, family, good conversations over chai lattes, and cultivating spaces where people feel seen and valued.
Katie was part of The Co-op last summer and is excited to return this year. Her role includes facilitating an online community group that meets weekly with students while they serve at various churches and ministries across Mississippi. She also helps host a few retreats throughout the summer, creating space for deeper community, reflection, and spiritual formation.