2025 Speakers

Aaron McRae

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Aaron is the Senior Pastor of Hillside Community Church in Rancho Cucamonga, CA. Hillside is an amazing church with a vision to see God’s hope transform our cities one story at a time. Since May of 2012 Aaron has had the privilege of leading this community into the future God is preparing. Previously Aaron was on staff at Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Chandler, AZ. Aaron and his wife Holly have been married since 2000 and have 3 incredible children: Olivia, Kate and Will.

Ken Elben

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Since 1993, I’ve been privileged to serve on leadership teams in remarkable ministries. I’m currently as the Family Ministries Pastor at Chino Valley Community Church. My passion is equipping and shepherding all generations to fulfill their purpose in Christ. I am deeply committed to encouraging families in their walk with Christ, promoting a Biblical worldview, fostering Christian community growth, and seeing the Great Commission lived out.

Alongside is my amazing wife, Joy, a Southern California native like myself, we have been married since June 1993. Together, we share a love for travel, a heart outreach, and a commitment to serving our local community. In 2004, we joyfully adopted our son, Isaiah, and our journey in adoption and foster care has granted us valuable insights into the needs of families in similar situations. Our family is grateful for the transformative power of God’s Word and remain dedicated to sharing the grace of God through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Evan Wickham

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Evan Wickham is the lead and founding pastor of Park Hill Church in San Diego. He and his wife Sandy have five kids and have been leading worship together since they were high school sweethearts. Ushering people into moments of Encounter is a huge passion of theirs! He has a Masters of Divinity degree from Westerns Seminary and has released four albums of worship songs.

Jim Burns

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Jim Burns is the president of HomeWord. He speaks to thousands of people around the world each year. He has close to 2 million resources in print in 20 languages. He primarily writes and speaks on the values of HomeWord, which are: Strong Marriages, Confident Parents, Empowered Kids, and Healthy Leaders. Some of his most popular books are: Confident Parenting, The Purity Code, Creating an Intimate Marriage, Closer, and Doing Life with Your Adult Children. Jim and his wife, Cathy, live in Southern California and have three grown daughters, Christy, Rebecca, and Heidi; three sons-in-law, Steve, Andy and Matt; and three grandchildren, James, Charlotte and Huxley.

Liz Stevenson

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Liz Stevenson is originally from Dallas and a proud graduate of the University of Oklahoma. Living in Orange County, Liz is happy to now call California her home and takes full advantage of all that beautiful So Cal has to offer.  She works full-time in human resources management and has her Master’s in Business Administration.  Liz has known the Lord from an early age and is passionate about loving people well in the workplace and wherever else the Lord leads. She is also a former HR Director of Forest Home and is always happy to be serving at Forest Home again!

Justin Unger

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Justin has been committed to the local church for over 17 years as a worship pastor.  Passionate about unifying the Body of Christ with the gift of music, he has learned to stand firm amidst the cultural and traditional challenges that many churches face in regards to worship and the Sunday gathering.  He is a pastor of pastors and has a heart to disciple, equip and encourage both young and seasoned worship leaders  that are called to serve the local church.

Justin serves primarily as the Executive Director with Likewise Worship and also as a Speaker & Consultant for churches that are struggling to bring all generations together in worship.

He is married to his wife Falon, and together they have 4 beautiful children.  Visit www.likewiseworship.com to learn more about Justin’s music ministry.

Andrew McCourt

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Andrew is one of the Senior Pastors at Bayside Church. He is married to Isabelle and together they have four children. Originally from Northern Ireland, he has been in active ministry for over 20 years and travels extensively sharing the Christian message in a creative, humorous, and challenging style. He is committed first and foremost to building local churches and raising up multigenerational leaders. As the father of four children, life is never dull, however he still finds the time to enjoy running, mountains, and French food!

Bob Lepine

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Bob Lepine is the teaching pastor at Redeemer Community Church in Little Rock, Arkansas which he helped plant in 2008.  He is known to radio and podcast listeners as the former long-time co-host of FamilyLife Today® and the on-air announcer for Truth for Life with Alistair Begg.  Today, he is the host of Mornings on Family Radio, heard on a network of more than 70 radio stations in the US.

Bob is He serves on the Board of Directors for the Great Commission Collective and as Chairman of the Board for Revive Our Hearts.

He is the author of Build A Stronger Marriage (2022), Twelve Things You (Probably) Didn’t Know About Easter (2023), The Four Emotions of Christmas (2022) Love Like You Mean It: The Heart of a Marriage That Honors God (2020) and The Christian Husband (1999).

Bob and his wife, Mary Ann have five children and eleven grandchildren.

Jeff Whye

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Jeff is a campus pastor at Sandals Church in Riverside California. He spent 8 years in the entertainment industry before God calling him out and into full time ministry.  In the past 16 years, he has been a teaching pastor, youth pastor as well as a campus and online pastor. He also has been on staff at 3 Christian Universities. He has earned degrees from Anderson University in Indiana and Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA. Jeff has been speaking to various groups across the nation and overseas since 2007. Jeff is married to his wife Nicky and together they have 4 kids and reside in Southern California!

David Guzik

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David Guzik serves as the senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara. He is married to Inga-Lill, and has three adult children. David founded Calvary Chapel Simi Valley for fourteen years. David has over 35 years of pastoral ministry, including church planting and directing an international Bible College in Siegen, Germany. David is a popular Bible commentator with millions of people accessing his teachings and commentaries.

Dr. Chris and Alisa Grace

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Dr. Chris and Alisa Grace met in 1986 when they were seated at the “singles” table at a friend’s wedding. He fell in love with her quick wit, she fell in love with his motorcycle, and (after selling the motorcycle to buy her engagement ring) they were married just a year later. Now, for more than 30 years the Graces have been writing, teaching, and speaking nationally to thousands of couples, churches, and college students on healthy Christ-centered relationships, dating, and marriage. Together, they co-lead the Center for Marriage and Relationships at Biola University, where Chris is a social psychologist and full professor, and Alisa is an adjunct faculty member. They also co-teach an undergraduate course on Christian relationships and co-host the popular podcast, The Art of Relationships. The Graces co-authored the Marriage Mentoring Workbook and Video Series, and serve on the speaking team for FamilyLife’s Weekend to Remember marriage conferences.
Chris and Alisa live in Southern California and have two adult children married to fabulous spouses, as well as their unexpected blessing who attends Biola University.

Jared Burke

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Jared Burke is the pastor over fellowship and serving at Maranatha Chapel in San Diego, his great passion is seeing the body of Christ grow through fellowship and serving God in the use of there gifts. Jared serves with his wife Jessi at Maranatha and they have three children: Owen, Asher and Finley.

Mandie Pinto

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At the age of 14, Mandie Pinto clearly heard the call to minister through music and set out to sing at churches at conferences and services throughout the world. Currently, she attends and serves as a Worship Leader at Shepherd Church in Porter Ranch. Mandie also is the Worship Director at West Valley Christian Church in West Hills, CA, teaches voice privately and makes spiritual and musical development with mentorship a priority coaching worship leaders around the country. She enjoys regularly singing the National and Canadian Anthem for professional sports including the LA Dodgers, Anaheim Angels, LA Kings and LA Galaxy. Mandie resides in Southern California with her husband, Jeremy to whom she is happily married for 17 years and is a blessed mama to their two young beautiful daughters, Bridgette & Brielle.

John Randall

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As a child (in 1974) John’s family began attending Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. There he attended elementary school, junior high and high school at Calvary Chapel High School. Following his graduation, John joined the staff at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa as a janitor. During that time he met his wife, Michelle who was an elementary school teacher at Calvary. Within 19 days, the two were engaged and a few months later, they were married. John and Michelle celebrated 31 years of marriage in 2023!

After four years on staff serving in the children’s ministry, high school ministry and in worship, John joined the staff at Calvary Chapel Vista in California.

In 1997, the Lord called the Randall family (John, Michelle & their 2 young boys) to take a step of faith and move to the west coast of Florida. It was there that they planted their first church—Calvary Chapel of Brandon. After 10 years of ministry in Florida, the Lord called them back to Southern California where John currently pastors Calvary South OC in San Clemente (formerly known as Calvary Chapel San Juan Capistrano).

Pastor John has been serving in pastoral ministry for 30 years. He is also the featured speaker on the Bible teaching radio program “A Daily Walk”, and is known for his clear and relatable presentation of the Scriptures.
John and his wife Michelle have 4 children (3 of whom are married) and they welcomed their first grandson in 2023.

Jason Carson

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Jason Carson is the Senior Pastor of Encounter Church in Mission Viejo, CA.  He loves his family more than anything on the planet.  Jason and his wife Julie were married in 1998 and have 4 amazing children: Halley, Lucy, Janey, and Shane.  Jason was the Youth Pastor at Mission Hills Community Church in Rancho Santa Margarita for 14 years and saw it grow from 11 to 160. After transitioning to adult and family ministry for a couple of years, Jason got the clear call from God to plant a church in his hometown of Mission Viejo in March of 2015. His true passion is shepherding people and caring for them as they encounter a life changing God, and become passionate followers of Christ.

Formerly, Jason was the founding member of The OC Supertones, one of the most popular bands in all of Christian music. While serving in the band, Jason delivered the message of the gospel to over one million people.  He has spoken at numerous Harvest Crusades, Billy Graham crusades, Food for the Hungry events, Creation festivals, for the Pope, and at several youth camps.  Before the band, Jason worked as a small group leader, teacher, worship leader and youth director at Mission Hills Church in Mission Viejo, CA for 7 years.

Jason graduated with a degree in Pastoral Ministries from Vanguard University in Southern California.

Paul Twiss

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Paul serves as the teaching pastor at Bethany Bible Church in Thousand Oaks, CA. He is also an associate faculty member at The Master’s Seminary. Paul loves to preach and teach the Bible. He is blessed to be a husband to Laura and a father to six young children.

Paul and Virginia Friesen

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Drs. Paul and Virginia Friesen were married in 1976 and are the parents of three young women, two of whom are now married to wonderful, Godly men.  They have been involved in Family Ministries for over 40 years through family camps, church staff positions, speaking, consulting, and writing. In 2003, they founded Home Improvement Ministries (www.HIMweb.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to equipping individuals and churches to better encourage marriages and families in living out God’s design for healthy relationships.

As the lead resource couple at Home Improvement Ministries, the Friesens regularly speak at marriage, men’s, and women’s conferences in the US and internationally, as well as local family and parenting seminars, and have an ongoing ministry with professional athletes.  Paul and Virginia both have Doctorates in Marriage and Family Therapy from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

The Friesens have authored over ten books and curriculums on parenting and marriage, including Letters to My Daughters, In Our Image, Raising a Trailblazer, Before You Save the Date, and most recently, The Marriage App.

Paul and Virginia’s greatest joy in life is knowing that their children are walking in the Truth.