Speakers & Artists

Andy Stanley

Andy Stanley is the senior pastor of North Point Community Church, Buckhead Church, Browns Bridge Community Church, Gwinnett Church and Watermarke Church. He also founded North Point Ministries. Andy received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Georgia State University and later earned a master’s degree from Dallas Theological Seminary. After working for several years as associate pastor and minister to students at First Baptist Church of Atlanta, he and five others founded North Point Community Church in 1995. Andy now lives in Alpharetta, Georgia, with his wife, Sandra, and his three children: Andrew, Garrett and Alli.

Craig Groeschel

Craig Groeschel is the founding and senior pastor of LifeChurch.tv. Craig’s creative leadership is changing the way church is done worldwide. Under his leadership, LifeChurch.tv has become one of the country’s first multi-campus churches, with over 70 weekend services at 15 locations. LifeChurch.tv also partners with 200 Network churches that view its messages every weekend. Craig is the author of several books, including The Christian Atheist: Believing in God but Living As If He Doesn’t Exist, It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It, Chazown: A Different Way to See Your Life, Confessions of a Pastor, Going All the Way and his most recent, Weird. Craig, his wife Amy, and their six children live in the Edmond, Oklahoma, area where LifeChurch.tv began in 1996.

Reggie Joiner

Reggie is the founder of Orange. He is also one of the founding pastors of North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Georgia. In his role there as the executive director of family ministry, Reggie developed the concepts of ministry for preschoolers, children, students, and married adults over the course of his 11 years with the church. He is the co-author of Seven Practices of Effective Ministries and the author of Think Orange, Parent Beyond Your Capacity, as well as the Orange Leaders Handbook. Reggie and Debbie Joiner live in Cumming, Georgia, and have four grown children.

Lanny Donoho

President and Creative Director of BigStuf Productions and BigStuf Camps, Lanny has been working with kids, producing events, and creating environments for ministry since 1975. Most recently, he founded the 410 Bridge, a non-profit organization focused on partnering churches in America with churches in Kenya to help meet the specific needs of Kenyans. Since visiting Kenya in 2005, Lanny has had a passion to see this vision come to life. He and his talented and creative wife, Peggy, live in Alpharetta, Georgia, and are presently enjoying the challenge of raising their three sons: Landon, Andrew and Evan.

Jon Acuff

Since 2007, Jon has spent the last three years exploring what it means to take ideas to unexpected places. Called “hilarious and insightful” by Group Magazine and featured as a regular contributor on CNN.com, Jon has a wealth of ideas to share with anyone from dairy farmers to CEOs of billion-dollar companies. With two books under his belt, conference keynotes throughout the year, and one of the most popular blogs in the world, he’s just getting started.

Mawi Asgedom

Mawi Asgedom has written five books that are used in thousands of classrooms across North America and spoken to over 500,000 students and educators. A nationally recognized educator, Mawi has trained leaders at The Harvard School of Education, The Midwest Principals Center, and numerous international conferences. As a child, Mawi fled civil war in Ethiopia and survived a Sudanese refugee camp for three years. After being resettled in the United States, he overcame poverty, language barriers and personal tragedy to graduate from Harvard University, where he gave the Commencement address to an audience of 30,000. Through his organization, Mental Karate, Mawi trains educators to unlock student achievement. He has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show which was cited as “…one of the 20 best shows of Oprah’s career.” And Mawi was also named one of “The 40 Most Inspiring African-Americans” by ESSENCE magazine.

David Kinnaman

David is the president and strategic leader of The Barna Group. He is the author of the Barna report, Ministry to Mosaics: Teens and the Supernatural, and unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity…and Why it Matters. The son of a megachurch pastor, David has served in various roles, including working with teenagers, teaching, and providing strategic consulting. David and his wife, Jill, live in Ventura, California, with their three kids.

Kara Powell

Dr. Kara Powell serves as an assistant professor in youth and family ministry and the executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute. She holds a Ph.D. in practical theology from Fuller Seminary as well as a B.A. in human biology from Stanford University. Kara serves as a small group leader for high school girls at Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena, California. In the Fall of 2011, Kara’s latest book will be released, Sticky Faith, as well as a companion curriculum for leaders, parents and students. Kara lives in Pasadena, California, with her husband, Dave, and their three children.

Joel Manby

Joel is the current Chairman of the Board, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Herschend Family Entertainment, a privately owned themed-entertainment company that owns and operates 24 properties across nine states, including Stone Mountain Park, Dollywood, and Silver Dollar City. He and his company were featured in the seventh episode of the first season of CBS’s Undercover Boss.

Craig Jutila

Craig is a leadership coach, consultant and communicator on the topics of leadership, family and marriage. He has written several books including Leadership Essentials for Children’s Ministry, Healthy Essentials for Children’s Ministry, 2 Minute Encouragers for Teachers and most recently From Hectic to Healthy: The Journey to a Balanced Life which he wrote with his wife Mary. Craig was voted by Group Magazine as one of the Pioneers of the Decade and one of the top 20 influencers of the last 20 years. He founded Empowering Kids, Inc (www.empoweringkids.net) and together with Mary founded Orphan Impact International (www.orphanimpact.com).

Sue Miller

Sue Miller joined Orange in 2005 after 17 years of leading Promiseland children’s ministry at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois.  Sue was instrumental in leading the change process that grew Promiseland into a cutting edge ministry known around the world. The story of how all that happened is told in her book, Making Your Children’s Ministry the Best Hour of Every Kid’s Week.

Sue travels extensively teaching and helping churches partner with parents.  She mentors leaders, inspires volunteers, and serves as a consultant for churches who want to go Orange.  And in her spare time, she leads the charge with the First Look curriculum team at Orange.

Carey Nieuwhof

Carey Nieuwhof is the lead pastor of Connexus Community Church, a multi-campus church north of Toronto and strategic partner of North Point Community Church. Before starting Connexus in 2007, Carey served for 12 years within a mainline denomination, transitioning three small rural congregations into a new congregation that experienced significant growth.  He speaks to church leaders across North America about change, leadership, parenting and the strategy behind Orange.  Carey co-authored Parenting Beyond Your Capacity with Reggie Joiner.  He and his wife, Toni, live near Barrie, Ontario, and have two teenage sons, Jordan and Sam.  In his spare time, you can find him cycling his heart out on a back road somewhere.

Jared Herd

Jared serves as the creative director for XP3 Students, the junior high and senior high curriculum published by Orange. He also serves as the voice and personality of many podcasts and webcasts at Orange. During the summer months, you can find Jared speaking at BigStuf Camps. He often travels to other locations around the country to communicate the hope of Jesus with a humorous and captivating approach that has reached thousands of teenagers and college students. Jared and his wife, Rosanna, live in Alpharetta, Georgia.

Kendra Fleming

Kendra Fleming is the multi-campus Children’s Director for North Point Ministries in Alpharetta, Georgia. In this position she oversees the ministries on each campus for Waumba Land (babies-pre-k), UpStreet (K-5th grade), and KidStuf which serves over 5,000 children each Sunday. It is her passion to create irresistible environments for kids that connect them to their Heavenly Father. In addition, Kendra works with the multi-campus strategy of North Point Community Church by serving as part of the NPM leadership team. She lives in Cumming, Georgia, with her husband Gary and their four children, Jessica, Catherine, Jack and Emily.

Cass Brannan

Cass is a husband, daddy, and a preschool minister at Calvary Tuscaloosa. Cass is a graduate of Georgia Southern University and Southeastern Seminary and is passionate about preschoolers and families, and partnering them with the church. Cass lives in Northport, Alabama, and loves spending time with his wife and three boys.

Meaghan Wall

Meaghan is the Special Needs Ministry Coordinator for Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas, where she has been on staff for the past five years. Stonebriar currently welcomes 80 families with special needs, many impacted by autism. Since college Meaghan has worked in several roles which have shaped her for her ministry at Stonebriar, serving on staff at a church in Lubbock, Texas, and Easter Seals in Colorado. Meaghan is a licensed and experienced social worker with a degree from Texas Tech University. She regularly participates in professional and ministry-related training for those serving individuals with various disabilities.

Matt McKee

Matt is a speaker, writer, strategist and entrepreneur. Formerly with Fellowship Church in Texas, he now leads a company, ROAR, focused on mobile apps and social media for churches.  He also does social media and helps write a curriculum for leaders called YouLead for Orange. You can find his ebook Be Social: The Social Media Handbook for Churches in the Amazon Kindle Store. Matt resides in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife Jessica and two boys, Patriot and Azlan.

Linda Martin

Linda is a board-certified music therapist with a Masters degree in music education, music therapy.  Linda serves as the program coordinator for the Autism Discovery Institute at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, California, in addition to providing music therapy assessments and consultation in several southern California school districts. Linda developed and leads the Miracle 139 Special Needs Ministry at The Rock Church in San Diego. She also consults with California area churches looking to start or grow a special needs ministry, as well as provides training for those teaching children with special needs in Central and South America.