Christian Collins used his 2026 Texas Youth Summit speech to say something simple and heavy at the same time: someone has to pick up the mic where Charlie Kirk left off. Right Side Broadcasting Network carried the address as part of its live coverage of the October 9–10 gathering at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott.
The line did not come out of nowhere. After Kirk was killed in September 2025, the previous summit opened with worship and tributes in his honor. Collins had already told young people that the work was to keep speaking, not to fall silent. A year later, he stood at his own conference and returned to that charge. The microphone Kirk used on campuses was never just a piece of equipment. It was a habit: show up, take questions, and tell the truth in public.
That is the work Collins has tried to give the next generation. Texas Youth Summit is the annual conference he founded in 2019 for young conservatives and Christians. He also serves as president of the Texas Youth Foundation, is a credentialed minister with Grace International, and is a seminarian and pro-life speaker. He is the author of the devotional Second Wind. He was raised by missionary parents, has traveled to all 50 states and seven continents, and is married to Dr. Jincy Collins. The through-line in that biography is not a platform. It is a calling to form people who know what they believe and will say it out loud.
RSBN has been a partner in broadcasting the summit, which means the 2026 speech did not stay in the room. Viewers who were not in The Woodlands could still hear the invitation to step forward. For students who have watched campus events grow more tense, including Collins’s own Pick Up the Mic stops, the message is practical. Picking up the mic is not a slogan for a stage. It is a decision to keep showing up in classrooms, churches, and public conversations after a leader is gone.
Collins has been clear that this is about more than politics. He wants Christians engaged in public life, and he wants conservatives to become stronger Christians. The 2026 speech belongs in that frame. Kirk’s death did not end the assignment. It passed the microphone. The question Collins put before the next generation is whether they will take it.
Watch Christian Collins’s 2026 Texas Youth Summit speech, carried by Right Side Broadcasting Network, on X: Watch my Texas Youth Summit speech. The full speech video is on RSBN’s post, Christian Collins Shares His Story Into Politics & the Texas Youth Summit.