Mike Handler

MIKE HANDLER serves as the Chief Innovation Officer for Awana. Prior to Awana, Mike was a pastor, a church planter as well as the principle of a creative agency. Mike is a coauthor of Resilient and the cofounder of the Child Discipleship Forum. Now in the Nashville area, Mike and his family are originally from Chicagoland and miss the food there.

Kat Shultis

KAT SHULTIS lives in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, with her husband, Casey, and their son. Their company, HeWouldLoveFirst.com, answers the question What Would Jesus Do? She leads a ministry called Be a Blessing to help girls with body image and disordered eating habits and shares encouragement online for women with various struggles she has walked through as well.

Sally Clarkson

SALLY CLARKSON is a beloved and bestselling speaker, mentor, and author of over twenty books who has spent three decades encouraging and supporting Christian women. She hosts the popular podcast At Home With Sally, which inspires countless women around the world. She has been married to her husband, Clay, for over forty years with whom she raised four children. She lives between the mountains of Colorado and the cobblestone streets of Oxford, England.

Laurie Davies

A former journalist, women’s ministry director, and lay counselor, LAURIE DAVIES knows the burdens that weigh women down. As an author and speaker, she encourages women to trade their “emotional hoards” for freedom. Her exploration of “emotional hoarding” comes from first-hand observation of the toll that physical hoarding has taken on the lives of those she loves. Laurie lives in Mesa, Arizona, with her husband of 30 years, Greg. Their adult son, Morgan, lives nearby.

Darrell Bock

DARRELL BOCK (BA, University of Texas; ThM, Dallas Theological Seminary; PhD, University of Aberdeen) has earned recognition as a Humboldt Scholar (Tubingen University in Germany), and is the author of more than forty books, including well-regarded commentaries on Luke and Acts and studies of the historical Jesus. He was president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) for 2000-2001, is a consulting editor for Christianity Today, and serves on the boards of Wheaton College and Chosen People Ministries. His articles appear in leading publications, and he is often an expert for the media on New Testament issues. Dr. Bock has been a New York Times best-selling author in nonfiction and is elder emeritus at Trinity Fellowship Church in Dallas. When traveling overseas, he will tune into the current game involving his favorite teams from Houston, even in the wee hours of the morning. Married for over forty years to Sally, he is a proud father of two daughters and a son, and is also a grandfather.

Memorizing Scripture Devo 2025

08.22.2023

Harry Schaumburg

HARRY W. SCHAUMBURG, MA, MS, DMin, LMFT, speaker, author and counselor, is the founder and Executive Director of Stone Gate Resources, Inc., a ministry that has addressed the problems of sexual sin within the church for more than eighteen years. Offering real change, his pioneering Brief Intensive CounselingSM program has drawn over two thousand five hundred laity and clergy from the U.S. and eighteen foreign countries. For nearly thirty years, Dr. Schaumburg has been involved in pointing people away from sexual sin to restored intimacy with God and others. He is the author of False Intimacy: Understanding the Struggle of Sexual Addiction, the first book on the subject from a biblical perspective, and Sexual Redemption. Married forty years to his wife Rosemary, they have two adult sons.

Karl Vaters

Brian Sanders

BRIAN SANDERS is the founder of the Underground Network, an international coalition of churches united by the prophetic call to love the poor, reach the lost, and seek biblical justice. The Underground is a new form of church designed and empowered for mission. A serial entrepreneur, Brian has helped to start hundreds of missional enterprises, including churches, non-profits, and businesses all over the world. He holds a degree in communication from the University of Florida, a Masters Degree in Religious Studies from the University of South Florida, and a Masters Degree in Applied Theology from Spurgeon's College. Brian has lived in intentional community in the inner city for more than twenty years, embodying the ideas that drive him. He lives in Tampa, Florida with his wife Monica and their six children.

Jeff Simmons

JEFF SIMMONS is the founding and senior pastor of Rolling Hills Community Church, which he and his wife, Lisa, planted twenty years ago. The church has grown from 15 people meeting for a Bible study in an apartment clubhouse on Thursday nights to several thousand people and five campuses in Franklin, Nashville, Nolensville, Columbia, and Haywood Hills. Jeff is a follower of Jesus, husband, and father of three wonderful children. He serves alongside an amazing staff team at Rolling Hills and is the President of Justice and Mercy International doing mission work in the countries of Moldova and the Amazon jungle. Jeff is an author and speaker while overseeing the ministry work with over 80 full-time church staff, 55 international staff, 70 learning center teachers, and multi-million-dollar budgets. Jeff is passionate about God's work and longs to make a difference for the glory of God in His day and generation.

Steve Vandegriff

STEVE VANDEGRIFF (Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary) is a professor of youth ministries at Liberty University in Virginia. A former youth pastor, Steve enjoys ministering and speaking to young people and their parents. He previously spent thirteen years as the executive director of Youth for Christ in Alberta, Canada. He is co-author of Timeless Youth Ministry, Disturbing Behavior, and Protecting Your Teen from Disturbing Behaviors. The parents of three children, Steve and his wife, Pamela Jo, reside in Lynchburg, Virginia.

St Augustine

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO (354-430) was one of the foremost philosopher-theologians of early Christianity and the leading figure in the church of North Africa. He became bishop of Hippo in 396 and held that position until his death. Before becoming a Christian, Augustine lived a very secular life. His mother Monica prayed for him diligently and at age 32, during a trip to Milan, Augustine heard the preaching of St. Ambrose, was convicted by the Holy Spirit, and became a Christian. His numerous written works, the most important of which are his Confessions and City of God, shaped the practice of biblical exegesis and helped lay the foundation for much of medieval and modern Christian thought.

James T. Meeks

REVEREND JAMES T. MEEKS (B.A., Bishop College) is the founder and senior pastor of Salem Baptist Church in Chicago’s Roseland community. With over 20,000 members, Salem is the largest African American church in Illinois and one of the fastest growing in the nation. He also serves as the joint chairman for the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus and as an Illinois State Senator for the 15th Legislative District. Rev. Meeks is the author of How to get Out of Debt and Into Praise and Life-Changing Relationships. He and his wife, Jamell, reside in Chicago and are the proud parents of four children.

G. K. Chesterton

GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON (1874-1936) is the author of 100 books, including Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man, which led young atheist C.S. Lewis to become a Christian. He is probably best known for his series about the priest-detective Father Brown and was also known as a poet and a playwright. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he primarily considered himself a journalist, writing over 4,000 newspaper essays for papers such as Illustrated London News and Daily News, as well as his own G. K.’s Weekly.

Jim Killam

JIM KILLAM has been a journalist for more than 30 years -- including stints as a newspaper reporter and editor, a college media adviser, and a missionary journalist. Currently he is Story Director for the Seed Company, a Wycliffe affiliate. Jim and his wife, Lauren, live in Texas, though their Midwestern accents give them away quickly. They have three grown children and two grandchildren. Go Tell It is Jim's third book, and has led to training opportunities on three continents.