400 Men Gather on Mountain in Inverell Australia as 11 Are Baptised at Mighty Men Weekend

Four hundred blokes stood on a mountain in Inverell, under a wooden cross, and sang loud enough for the whole hillside to hear. By Sunday morning, eleven of them had stepped into a portable pool to be baptised.

The weekend was the Inverell Mighty Men gathering, held from October 2 to 4, 2026, at 8075 Gwydir Highway, Inverell, according to the event's official weekend information. It was open to all men aged 13 and up, and all weekends are free, the organisers say, with an invitation to bring mates, sons, and neighbours. Sunday mornings are for everyone, so families and friends were welcome to join the Sunday morning session at half past nine without a ticket.

OurStory, reporting on the weekend, says it usually takes a few hours, or even days, for the men to settle in and open up. This year, the report says, there was an openness among the men from the very first night. Under the wooden cross, more than 100 men gathered to ask the prayer team for prayer across the weekend.

That number matters because it is not a crowd figure. It is a count of men who walked forward, in front of other men, and asked for prayer. One man described the worship simply, in words OurStory quotes from an attendee: just being on the top of a hill in the country, belting out praise to God, among men who were hungry and bold.

Eleven Baptisms in a Portable Pool on Sunday Morning

On Sunday morning, eleven men were baptised in a portable pool the team had set up on the mountain, OurStory reports. One of the men summed up the morning in a line the report quotes directly: the Holy Spirit was thick on Sunday. The report does not name the eleven men, and this article does not guess at their stories beyond what the attendees themselves shared.

For one man, baptism was a response of gratitude for what God had done. OurStory quotes him saying he got baptised while he was there so he could let Jesus know how thankful he is for giving him a new life, and that it was the least he could do. For others, the weekend was a chance to recommit, to forgive, and to take responsibility at home.

One man shared that God was challenging him to stand up and take leadership in his life and in his family. Another said he was challenged to forgive someone he did not think he could. A third said his highlight was seeing his son go forward and recommit his life to the Lord, while another said the highlight was inviting a friend who was having trouble in his life, who has since given himself to Jesus Christ.

The feedback from those who attended was overwhelmingly encouraging, OurStory reports, with many describing how God challenged them to deepen their faith, take responsibility for their families, and experience freedom. Those are the attendees' own words, reported anonymously, and they are presented here as their testimony, not as measured outcomes.

Repentance, Holiness, and Freedom on the Mountain

Mighty Men weekends follow a consistent flow, OurStory explains. There is a Gospel presentation on Friday, a deeper exploration of an issue on Saturday morning, a focus on freedom on Saturday night, and a time of sending out on Sunday morning. This year, Saturday morning focused on genuine repentance and holiness, and on men helping set their families free from sin.

The team unpacked generational sin and brokenness, and Danny Everingham, one of the organisers of Mighty Men, says this was a particularly powerful time for the men at the camp, according to OurStory. One man put it this way: releasing generational stuff was huge for us, fears were replaced by hope, and self was replaced by trust. Another said he was shown how great God is, and that God loves him and knows him by name.

The wider Mighty Men movement began in South Africa, when farmer and evangelist Angus Buchan felt called to challenge men to surrender their lives fully to Christ and live faithfully in their marriages, families, workplaces, churches, and communities, according to a Military Christian Fellowship Australia account of the Riverina conference. The Inverell gathering is led by men from a wide range of churches across rural New South Wales, that account says, united by a common desire to see men follow Jesus wholeheartedly.

What happend on the mountain does not stay on the mountain, at least not in the way the men describe it. One attendee said God challenged him in his walk and encouraged him to recommit wholeheartedly and work at removing small sins that still persist and hold him back. Another said the Holy Spirit was convicting him to live at a deeper level in his walk with Jesus.

Readers who follow gatherings where faith is declared in public can also read nearly 600 students turning to Christ at a University of South Alabama worship night, a church closed for 15 years opening its doors again in northern England, and Josh Baldwin sharing the story behind his new album. A fourth strand is UK church leaders gathering as young people fuel five years of church growth.

The pool has been packed away, the cross still stands on the hill, and 400 men have gone back to farms, building sites, offices, and kitchens across eastern Australia. The next Mighty Men weekend on the organisers' calendar is Riverina, on April 9-11, 2027, and the question the Inverell weekend leaves behind is the one every man carried down the mountain with him: what does Monday morning look like when the singing stops?

But the most surprising part of this story is yet to come — keep reading.