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NOEL CASTELLANOS has worked in full-time ministry in urban communities since 1982. He has served in youth ministry, church planting, and community development in San Francisco, San Jose, and Chicago. Noel is a highly sought after speaker, motivator, and mentor to young leaders throughout the USA, and has a deep passion to serve and invest in the lives of emerging leaders. After serving on the Board of the Christian Community Development Association for many years, he has established the new CCDA Institute, which is working to equip emerging church leaders in the philosophy of Christian Community Development, and currently serves as the CEO of CCDA. He and his wife, Marianne, have three children, and make their home in the barrio of La Villita in Chicago.
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SHELLY BEACH has invested her life in the field of communication as an educator, administrator, writer, and writing consultant for the past thirty years. Her writing has been published in both the secular and religious markets in a wide variety of genres including poetry, short stories, feature articles, and interviews. Shelly speaks at writers’ conference, seminars, retreats, schools, and women’s conferences through the Midwest. In the editorial field, Shelly has also served as managing editor of specialty Bibles for Zondervan and was a contributing feature writer for the Stewardship Bible (Crossway Books).Shelly is a graduate of Oakland University and Grand Rapids Theological Seminary. She and her husband Dan reside in Rockford, Michigan, where they attend Blythefield Hills Church. They have two adult children who reside in Iowa and Washington State.
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HAROLD MYRA served as the CEO of Christianity Today International for 32 years. Under his leadership, the organization grew from one magazine to a communications company with a dozen magazines, copublished books, and a major Internet ministry. Myra started his journalistic career with "Youth for Christ" magazine, which under his leadership became "Campus Life" magazine. Author of five novels, numerous children's and nonfiction books, and hundreds of magazine articles, Myra has taught writing and publishing at the Wheaton College Graduate School in Illinois. He holds honorary doctorates from several colleges, including Biola University in California and Gordon College in Massachusetts. Myra has received various awards, among them the prestigious Magazine Publisher's Award and the James Deforest Murch Award from the National Association of Evangelicals. The Evangelical Press Association presented him with its highest honor, the Joseph T. Bayly Award, for his triple career as an editor, author, and publishing executive. Harold and his wife, Jeanette, are the parents of six children and grandparents of five. They reside in Wheaton, Illinois.
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Cai Sujuan, also known in the West as Christiana Tsai, was born the 18th of 24 children in Nanjing, China. Sujuan grew up in a fortunate setting, but she was often sad and a very serious child—she even considered becoming a Buddhist nun. She was fascinated by the English language and was initially introduced to the Gospel at a missionary school. Soon after, though she was inclined to disbelieve, the message of Jesus Christ struck Sujuan’s heart and she became a Christian.Sujuan grew in love and faith, and upon graduation decided to return home to bring her family to Christ. In all, 55 members of her family eventually followed the Lord.Later in life, Sujuan contracted malaria and spent much of the rest of her life bedridden. But her ministry only grew! From her bedside, Sujuan was able to comfort lost and broken souls more effectively than she ever had before.After many decades of faithful service to the Lord, never losing her love for her homeland, Sujuan went to be with Jesus on August 25th, 1984.
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DOUGLAS A. SWEENEY is Professor of Church History and the History of Christian Thought and Director of the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He formerly served as a lecturer at Yale University, as an adjunct professor as Aquinas College, and as a visiting professor at both Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and Reformed Theological Seminary. Sweeney is the author of a number of books and articles about religious history and the American theologian, Jonathan Edwards. He resides with his wife, Wilma, and their son in Lindenhurst, Illinois.
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EVA STUART WATT was born in Australia in 1891. Her father was a successful businessman in the tea trade in Great Britain. He was an agnostic, but converted to Christ during D.L. Moody’s tour in Great Britain from 1873-1875. Ten years later, her father and mother left the Isles to be missionaries in Africa, but because of health concerns they moved to Australia. It was on this respite that Eva Watt was born. At the age of ten she went to Ireland for the first time so she could get an education. In 1914, she returned to Africa to serve alongside her parents. In 1928, after fourteen hard years in the field in which she lost her father and brother to fever, she returned to Ireland where she founded the Young Ireland for Christ mission in Dublin. She continued ministry in her home country until her death. During her lifetime she wrote many books about her missionary efforts both in Ireland and in Africa.
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RITA A. SCHULTE is a licensed professional counselor who specializes in the treatment of mental health disorders. In 2011, she created Heartline Radio, a broadcast show that addresses cutting-edge mental health issues and provides content to educate and equip listeners in how mental health affects our culture. Rita is frequent contributor to many publications and is the author of Shattered: Finding Hope and Healing through the Losses of Life; Imposter: Gain Confidence, Eradicate Shame and Become Who God Made You to Be, and Think This Not That: Rewiring Your Brain to Eliminate Toxic Thinking. She speaks around the country on mental health-related issues. She received her B.S. in psychology and her master's degree in counseling from Liberty University. Rita is no stranger to loss and suffering. In 2013, she lost her beloved husband to suicide and her world was decimated. She speaks candidly about this loss at her national workshops in the hope of helping others heal. Rita makes her home in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.
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WILLIAM LANE CRAIG is a Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. He earned a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Birmingham, England, and a doctorate in theology from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen, Germany, where he was for two years a Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung. Prior to his appointment at Talbot he spent seven years at the Higher Institute of Philosophy of the Katholike Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. He has authored or edited over forty books, including The Kalam Cosmological Argument; Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus; Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom; Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology and God, Time, and Eternity, as well as over 150 articles in professional publications of philosophy and theology, including The Journal of Philosophy, New Testament Studies, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, American Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy, and British Journal for Philosophy of Science. His website is www.reasonablefaith.org.
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DAVID M. HOWARD Jr. (B.S., Geneva College; M.A., Wheaton College; A.M., Ph.D., The University of Michigan), is professor of Old Testament at Bethel Theological Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the author of four books, including An Introduction to the Old Testament Historical Books, What Makes a Missionary, and The Structure of Psalms 93-100, as well as several dozen articles in scholarly journals and Bible encyclopedias. He resides in Shoreview, Minnesota.
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DR. HENRY CLOUD (B.S., Southern Methodist University; Ph.D., Biola University) is a clinical psychologist, leadership consultant, best-selling author and communicator. He has written or co-authored more than 20 books, including the two million seller Boundaries, Integrity, 9 Things You Simply Must Do To Succeed in Love and Life, and, most recently, Necessary Endings. Dr. Cloud is the co-host of the nationally syndicated radio program New Life Live.
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BRUCE WALTKE (B.A., Houghton College; Th.M. and Th.D., Dallas Theological Seminary; Ph.D., Harvard University) is a preeminent Old Testament scholar. His teaching appointments at Dallas Theological Seminary, Regent College, Knox Theological Seminary, and Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando, have earned him a reputation as a master teacher with a pastoral heart. Among his many books are Genesis: A Commentary and An Old Testament Theology, both of which were awarded the Gold Medallion Book Award in Biblical reference works and commentaries by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. An autobiography of Bruce can be found in Why I (Still) Believe, Byron and Lohr, eds. (Zondervan, 2015).
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DR. PAUL NYQUIST was the 9th president of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago—a higher education and media ministry founded by evangelist D. L. Moody in 1886. He graduated from the University of Nebraska with a Bachelor of Science degree in Architectural Studies and received a Th.M. and a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Dallas Theological Seminary. He is the author of several books including Prepare: Living Your Faith in an Increasingly Hostile Culture.
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ELLA K. LINDVALL was a mother and former elementary school teacher. She spent 20 years teaching Kindergarten, first, and second grades in Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. Ella was a skilled children’s editor and writer, and served until retirement as the managing editor for Moody Publishers. Among her many children’s books are The Bible in Pictures for Toddlers and the acclaimed Read-Aloud Bible Stories series, the first volume of which is an ECPA Gold Medallion winner and C.S. Lewis Honor Book.
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WENDY LAWTON, an award-winning writer, sculptor, and doll designer, founded the Lawton Doll Company in 1979. She currently works as an agent for the Books & Such Literary Agency. Wendy has written numerous books, including six for her Daughters of Faith series and four for her Real TV series. Wendy is active in her church and is a frequent speaker for women's groups. Wendy and her husband, Keith, are parents to three adult children and live in Hilmar, California.
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