Speakers
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Vicki CourtneyVicki Courtney is an author and speaker with a ministry that reaches over 150,000 girls and mothers a year through events, books, and online resources. A mother herself, she seeks to provide tweens, teens, and their parents with the tools necessary to navigate today’s promiscuous culture. She has done hundreds of radio and newspaper interviews and appeared on CNN, Fox News, and CNN Headline News as a youth culture commentator to address various issues impacting tweens and teens. She is a national speaker to women of all ages and the best-selling author of numerous books and Bible studies including, 5 Conversations You Must Have With Your Daughter, 5 Conversations You Must Have With Your Son (due to release in June, 2011), Your Girl, Your Boy, The Virtuous Woman, TeenVirtue, and Between. Vicki is a two-time ECPA Christian Book Award winner and her book 5 Conversations You Must Have With Your Daughter was recently awarded a Mom’s Choice Award. Vicki resides in Austin, Texas with her husband, Keith. Her children are Ryan and Casey Courtney, Paige, and Hayden. |
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Carol KentCarol Kent is a popular international public speaker best known for being dynamic, humorous, encouraging, and biblical. She is a former radio show co-host and her messages have been featured on Focus on the Family. She has been a keynote speaker at Women of Faith, Time Out for Women, Heritage Keepers, The Praise Gathering for Believers, Vision New England’s Congress, Extraordinary Women, Women of Joy events. She has spoken internationally and regularly appears on a wide variety of nationally syndicated radio and television broadcasts. She is the president of Speak Up Speaker Services, a Christian speakers’ bureau, and the founder and director of Speak Up With Confidence seminars, a ministry committed to helping Christians develop their communication skills. She has founded the nonprofit organization, Speak Up for Hope, which benefits inmates and their families. Her books include: Between a Rock and a Grace Place, A New Kind of Normal, When I Lay My Isaac Down, Becoming a Woman of Influence, Mothers Have Angel Wings, Secret Longings of the Heart, Tame Your Fears, Speak Up With Confidence, and Detours, Tow Trucks, and Angels in Disguise. She has also co-written with Karen Lee-Thorp the Designed for Influence Bible Studies (six books in the series). Carol was the co-author and general editor of the Kisses of Sunshine Series of five books. She has been featured on the cover of Today’s Christian Woman, Christian Living Today, and Significant Living, and her articles have been published in a wide variety of magazines. |
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Donna GainesDonna Gaines is known as a woman of prayer and a devoted student of God’s Word. She is married to Steve Gaines, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee. There she teaches a weekly Bible Fellowship class for college women, leads Women’s Bible studies, and leads the Staff Wives’ Ministry. A gifted and passionate spokesman for the Lord, Donna shares with women at retreats, conferences, and meetings beyond the borders of her home state of Tennessee. She serves as chairman of the board for the Pastors Wives’ Session of the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors’ Conference. In 2009 she was appointed by the Southern Baptist Convention to serve on the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force. Her fervent desire to share the Gospel has taken her on mission trips to Honduras, Romania, and India. Donna’s first book, There’s Gotta Be More: Enjoying the Spirit-Filled Life, encapsulates her life’s message: “There is a way to find the satisfaction we are all seeking, and we find it in relationship with Jesus Christ.” The six original Bible studies she has written inspire others to share her single-minded purpose to know Christ intimately: Seated: Experiencing the Unfathomable Riches of Christ (A study of Ephesians), The Designer’s Label (A study of the Book of Colossians), Heartsong (Lessons from 1 and 2 Peter), Show Me Your Glory (A study of the Book of Exodus), There’s Gotta Be More (A study on the Spirit-filled Life), Just Do It (A study of the Book of James). Together with her husband, Steve, Donna has raised a beautiful family to know, love, and serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Her children are Grant & Melisa Gaines, Ryan & Lindsey Wingo, Gentry and Allison Hill, and Bethany Gaines. They enjoy two grandchildren. |
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Ariyana RimsonAriyana Rimson is the Women’s Director for the Emerging Leaders program of DownLine Ministries. Since surrendering her life to the Lord at the age of 19, she has been committed to living for the Lord and making it her life goal to share, teach and live out the gospel with women. She has been discipling teenage and young adult women for the past 11 years through teaching and life on life experiences. Her passion is to make sure women know the word of God and know their purpose in the plan God has. She has taught locally and internationally at youth conferences, camps and women’s conferences on the topics of purity, biblical womanhood and discipleship. Psalm 19:14 and Colossians 1:28 are her foundational verses for life and ministry. |
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Cheri HolcombCheri Holcomb is the author of “God Sent Me Tulips”, a book about generational disciple making through a Great Commission lifestyle. She is the founder of In The Cross-Ties Discipleship Ministries and is a multi-generational disciple maker! Her Ministry is committed to building the lives of generational multipliers through teaching and training in the biblical standard of Disciple-Making according to 2 Timothy 2:2. Her legacy of re-producers reaches throughout the United States into the International nations of the world. Cheri shares with a passion, the transforming power of God in the life of ordinary people through an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and the Great Commission lifestyle of disciple making. |
