Featured Speaker

Gary Stump

Onward Church, Fishers, IN

Pastor Gary Stump and Onward Church are the rarest of birds in that they have discovered, by God’s grace and power, a very successful disciple making process right here in the heart of the USA! They believe that God has called the church to focus on training Christians to obey Jesus—especially as it relates to disciple-making. They do this through teaching the Word, assembling as a community for worship, and keeping it simple in all aspects of the church.

Gary likes to say that he is way too old to play church. Gary describes Onward not as an “attractional” church, but a church committed to growth of both the church and individuals through disciple-making. Gary has been a pastor since 1989 and planted Onward Church in 2011.

Gary says, “As a native Hoosier I was in the business world for almost 20 years, but became a pastor after my wife was killed when our car was hit by a drunk driver. It left me with four children to rear. Through this experience God taught me the value of my faith and my family in a profound way.”

The TCN Discipleship Journey is a path of study that contains the essentials of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Each session in the TCN Discipleship Journey builds upon the other. At the end, you’ll have a strong foundation for your walk with Jesus — you’ll understand what it means to be a disciple and how you can disciple others.

Through the Bible is the second step in a discipleship journey where we explore the entire Bible, book by book. Get a “crash course” on the Bible, the characters, the storyline, and the Message of Christ. By journeying Thru the Bible, new disciples form Life Groups that are the real hub of the church.

Featured Speaker

Robert Newton

Frankfort, Michigan

Rev. Dr. Robert Newton is a prophetic and apostolic voice in the wilderness of American evangelical churchianity. As a former President of the California-Nevada-Hawaii District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, professor at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Senior Pastor at First Lutheran Church in San Jose, California, and evangelistic missionary to the Kankanaey people in the Philippines, Newton knows from first-hand experience what it’s like to be a “church-insider.” He also knows from that experience that it is very difficult for church insiders to reach and connect to Jesus those people who are “church-outsiders,” which is a large and growing population in America today.

As one of the pre-eminent theologians and Bible scholars in the LCMS today, Bob has the wonderful ability to apply ancient biblical principles to the challenges and issues facing today’s world and church. He is especially passionate about “Discipleship” and its ramifications on the mission of the Gospel.