annual CHRISTIAN GROWTH SEMINAR
Our Christian Growth Seminars give an opportunity to hear from engaging speakers teaching biblical truth. The weekend features multiple sessions around a common theme aimed to equip Christians to practically live out their faith.
2026 SEMINAR
Saturday, september 12th
A one-day seminar to encourage and equip believers as they seek to grow in spiritual maturity.
REGISTRATION COMING SOON!
Idols of the heart: Seeing the sin beneath the sin
Is it harder for you to change and grow as a Christian than it should be? Do you wonder what is holding you back? Have you ever considered that it might be idolatry?
Using real-life stories and examples, Brad Bigney shows us how the idols we might not even recognize can still have devastating effects in our lives.
In this transparent, honest book, he helps us to identify our idols, understand how they lead us to commit treason against the gospel—and finally repent of them and root them out forever by turning to the only One who can fill our every need.
Watch a 5-minute overview of Brad Bigney's book, Gospel Treason
details
SCHEDULE
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12TH
9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. – Coffee & Doughnuts
9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. – Session 1: What Does God Know About My Heart?
10:30 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. – Break
10:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. – Session 2: Why Is the Heart Such a Big Deal?
11:45 a.m. – 1:15 p.m. – Lunch
1:15 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. – Session 3: How Do I Look for Idols in My Heart?
2:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m. – Break
2:15 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. – Session 4: How Do Idols Wreck My Relationships?
Sessions will run approximately one hour with short breaks in between. At 11:45am attendees will be dismissed for lunch off-site (a 90-minute break).
$10 per attendee
*Childcare available for registered attendees - $5 per child (birth through age 10)
Lunch will be provided at The Chapel for registered children.
REGISTRATION DEADLINE
Sunday, September 6th
REGISTRATION COMING SOON!
about the speaker
Brad Bigney serves as the Senior Pastor of Grace Fellowship Evangelical Free Church in Florence, Kentucky, where he has been dedicated to teaching God’s Word and shepherding the church community for over 30 years. He is ACBC certified and works as an instructor and counselor in biblical counseling at Grace Fellowship Church, helping equip others with a biblical understanding of counseling and discipleship. He holds a B.S. in Bible Teaching from Columbia Bible College and a Master of Divinity from Columbia International University. In addition to his pastoral ministry and counseling work, Brad Bigney is the author of Gospel Treason, a resource focused on understanding the heart and the ways misplaced desires can draw people away from their devotion to Christ.
Brad and his wife, Vicki, have been married 40 years, have five children, five grandchildren, and together host the ‘Thrive’ marriage podcast.
Past SEMINARS
Content from previous seminars is available below. Click on the year to browse previous years' speakers and content.
People, created in the image of God, are made for relationships. But because of sin, the way people relate to one another is often broken. The breakdown of relationships is apparent in the home, in the church, and in society all around. The good news is that the Bible has a lot to say about how to build God-honoring relationships with one another.
It all starts with God, and your love for him. In a passage recorded in Matthew 22, Jesus teaches about the first and greatest commandment:
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Scripture makes it clear we are to love God and love others.
Guest speaker Dr. Stuart Scott will guide us through Scripture’s “one another” passages to show how to develop and maintain good relationships. And because our relationship with God and our relationship with others is directly and intricately linked, as you learn how to better love other believers by obeying the “one another” commands, you will, in fact, also grow in your love for God.
*Recordings are not available for A One-Another Christian Sessions
Have you ever found it difficult to love like Jesus?
Is love something people just tend to fall in and out of over time?
How we love one another matters to the Lord.
While most Christians recognize the need for Christlike love, they will also admit how challenging it is to love like this. Dr. Nicolas Ellen presents biblical, practical ways to love including sessions on The Significance of Love,
Loving People in the Midst of Suffering, Love Believes All Things, and Loving Difficult People.
WATCH Growing in love SESSIONS
LISTEN TO Growing in Love SESSIONS
Dr. Ellen also preached two messages on Sunday, October 1st. You can view those messages on our sermons page (use the "Speaker" drop down to filter to messages by "Dr. Nicolas Ellen".
Behold the Lamb of God: A Seminar on the Passion Week of Jesus is a deliberate, detailed and devotional study of the last days of Jesus’ mortal life. The passion week, the pivot point on which all of human history turns, is at once the most awful and the most blessed week in all of human history.
The events of that week are carefully traced and theological considerations central to the narrative are discussed, with special attention to what the Scriptures have to say concerning the Person of Jesus Christ.
Watch Behold, The Lamb of God Video Sessions
Listen to Behold, The Lamb of God AUDIO Sessions
Most Christians fall into one of two main problems when it comes to work: Either they are idle at work, or they make an idol of work. Both of these mindsets – idleness in work and idolatry of work — are deadly misunderstandings of how God intends for us to think about our jobs. During The Gospel & Work Sebastian Traeger unpacks the powerful way in which the gospel can transform our work and bring meaning and purpose to it.
Listen to The Gospel & Work Sessions
For both our children and us, the heart, with its passions and desires, sets the course of life. Every drive for meaning and significance originates in the heart. You and your kids are heart driven. The things you give your heart to set the course of life for you. We must connect the hearts of God’s people to the power and grace of the gospel. The temptation when things have gone wrong is to correct behavior. We instinctively see behavior as the problem. That’s because we see behavior. We hear behavior. Behavior requires a response. Once we have made behavior the focus in correction and discipline, we open ourselves up to all the tricks and tools parents use to manage behavior. But when we head down the behavior management road, two things happen. We miss the heart and we miss the gospel. We forget that the heart is the wellspring of behavior. We miss the gospel because behaviorism by-passes the heart. Behaviorism focuses on behavior rather than the desires, fears, idols or passions of the heart. If we remember that behavior mirrors the heart, then the route to lasting change for both our children and ourselves is the grace and power of the gospel.
*Recordings are not available for Shepherding a Child's Heart Sessions
There is so much in our world today that threatens to worry, frighten, or demoralize us. In the midst of a global pandemic, political strife, and ongoing challenges at home it can seem impossible to maintain our sanity, much less our joy. But this is ultimately nothing new. Regardless of our challenging circumstances, the Gospel still holds the same power and hope as it did on the day of Jesus Christ's resurrection. Author and speaker Jared Wilson unpacks the glorious power of the Gospel and as we seek to find a renewed sense of hope by fixing our eyes on eternity.
Listen to Our Eternal Perspective Sessions
