2025 Faculty & Speakers
Our 2025 Faculty is full of world-class Christian leaders that give our conference a unique blend of talent, experience, and knowledge.
Meet Them Below
Ray Cortese
Keynote Speaker
Ray is a native of Miami, Florida. He graduated from Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi and earned his Master of Divinity from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He is the founding pastor of Seven Rivers Presbyterian Church in Lecanto, Florida and serves as a part of the pastoral team there. Ray’s passion for Christian Education led to the beginning of Seven Rivers Christian School in 1988. Ray and his wife, Diane have four children and 10 grandchildren.
David Cassidy
David is the Senior Pastor at Spanish River Church in Boca Raton, FL. Born in Illinois and raised in Indiana, David Cassidy grew up in the Lutheran Church under his Christian parents Patrick and Dolores Cassidy. He has been married to his wife Toni since 1980 and they have three children, Sean, Claire, and Anna. Sean and his wife, Jacquelyn, have two children and live in the Nashville area along with Claire and her husband Dean. Anna is twenty-one and attends Florida Atlantic University.
David met Toni in Oxford, England where he was engaged in studies in History and Literature, as well as student mission, beginning in 1979. David served as a church planter in London from 1981 to 1987. David has served churches in Britain, Kentucky, Texas, and Tennessee, sharing the Gospel of Grace with joyful clarity, and prophetic passion, all with a view to reaching non-believers, strengthening the faith of Christians, encouraging the renewal of the Church, and training future leaders for global mission. He has also authored the book Indispensable: The Basics of Christian Belief. He is a graduate of Covenant Theological Seminary and is working on a DMin in the Theological Foundations for Preaching at Knox Seminary.
Mez McConnell
Mez McConnell is the Pastor of Grace Church Stromness on the Orkney Islands of Scotland and the Director of 20schemes, a ministry that seeks to plant gospel-centered churches in the Schemes of Scotland. Mez is the author of numerous books, including The Least, The Last, and The Lost: Poverty In America & The Local Church (10ofThose), The Creaking on the Stairs: Finding Faith in God Through Childhood Abuse (Christian Focus), and Is There Anybody Out There?: A Journey from Despair to Hope (Christian Focus). He’s married to Miriam and has two daughters and a son.
Al Barth
On January 1, 2022, Al joined the staff of Spanish River Church as the Director of Church Planting. Prior to January 1, he served as the Global Church Planting Catalyst in the cities of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and North America for Redeemer City to City, a not-for-profit organization connected to Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York. Since 2001, in those four continental regions, he has been working with national leaders to start urban-center churches and trans-denominational church planting networks in leading cities, sub-continental networks, and continent-wide networks. His primary work involves recruiting, consulting, coaching, training, and resourcing church planters and city and regional network leaders. Al is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America, but also serves as a consultant to many denominations and church networks helping them to devise strategies for the planting of new churches or the replanting of old churches in global cities.
Prior to his work the past twenty years with City to City, Al had planted four PCA churches, one in Sevierville, TN while serving on the staff of Cedar Springs PCA in Knoxville, two on the west coast of Florida in New Port Richey and Spring Hill and one just outside of NYC in Oyster Bay, NY.
Neil MacMillan
Neil MacMillan has been married to Louise since 1990 and they have 4 children. This year he took on the leadership of City to City Europe which works with local leaders to plant gospel centered churches in the cities of Europe. City to City was founded by the late Tim Keller in New York. Currently CTCE is working in around 45 cities but has a vision to grow this number to 120 cities over the next 5 years. Neil and Louise live in Edinburgh, Scotland. Over the last 32 years Neil has planted 3 churches with the Free Church of Scotland, the most recent of which is Cornerstone Edinburgh. In Scotland he started and grew a network that has seen over 30 new churches started. He loves to spend time with family, eat good food, run it off and then read a book!
Lucas Pulley
Lucas Pulley is Executive Director of Underground Network, a city church made up of over 160 microchurches in Tampa Bay and serving hundreds of similar city wide simple church networks around the world. Lucas has 15 years of experience planting microchurches and leading decentralized networks of grassroots churches, and still leads a neighborhood house church in the projects of inner city Tampa to this day with his wife and three kids. He is driven to see cities transformed by the priesthood of all believers activated in the mission of God to make disciples and advance the kingdom.
Rev. Dr. Norberto (Pachy) Quesada
Pachy is the former Lead of the Catalítico Hub and the founder and General Director of the Christian Training and Leadership Center-Havana (CenCap) where pastors and leaders of different Cuban denominations are trained annually. He recently founded the Caribbean Development Agency, a non-profit organization holistically serving leaders for the development of churches in the Caribbean, especially Cuba and the Dominican Republic.
Pachy is married to Marilin and they have three adult children and four grandchildren; Grace Marie, Katelyn, Gianna Malia and Ethan Daniel.
Pachy says about his life and ministry, "I am a great sinner, but God found me and wanted to put me to work with other sinners, and together we rejoice in His Grace!"
Ralph Cunnington
Ralph is the planter and pastor of City Church Manchester, which launched in 2014. He is director of the Northern Gospel Project, an initiative to establish 30 healthy gospel churches in Greater Manchester by 2030. Ralph authored "Perfect Unity" (2024) and "Preaching with Spiritual Power" (2016). He lives in Manchester with his wife Anna and their three teenage children.
Justin Brierly
Sunday Morning Speaker
Justin is a freelance writer, speaker and broadcaster who has become known for creating dialogues between Christians and non-Christians. Justin is passionate about creating conversations around faith, science, theology and culture. Through creative use of podcast, radio, print, video and social media, he aims to showcase an intellectually compelling case for Christianity, while taking seriously the questions and objections of skeptics.
Justin has worked in radio, podcast and video for over two decades. Until April 2023 he was Theology & Apologetics Editor for Premier Christian Radio, and hosted the Unbelievable? radio show and podcast as well as the Ask NT Wright Anything podcast. Justin was also editor of Premier Christianity magazine from 2014-2018, for which he continues to contribute articles.
Justin's first book 'Unbelievable? Why, after ten years of talking with atheists, I'm still a Christian' (SPCK) was published in 2017. His new book 'The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God' (Tyndale) was published in Sep 2023.
Justin currently co-hosts the Re-Enchanting podcast for Seen & Unseen, and is a guest presenter for the Maybe God podcast. He has also recently launched The Surprising Rebirth Of Belief in God podcast documentary series.
Justin is married to Lucy, a church minister in Surrey, and they have 4 amazing children - Noah, Grace, Jeremy and Toby. When he isn't working in a professional capacity, you'll find Justin involved in youth work and worship leading at church.
GospelFirst Instructor
Bob Orner
Bob is the Lead Pastor at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Cherry Hill, NJ, and the Executive Director of GospelFirst Ministries. Raised in East Africa as the child of career missionaries, Bob has served churches in North America for over 40 years. In fact, though he planted a church, served as Senior Pastor, and was a Professor and Dean of Students at Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando, he still relishes the ten years he and his wife spent in youth ministry.
Alongside his church and seminary ministry, he served as the Director of Training for Global Church Advancement (GCA) where he oversaw church planter training, and the development of new church planting networks. He was a founding member of the North Georgia New Church Network and continues to serve as a church planting coach and consultant.
Bob earned a Master of Divinity and a Doctor of Ministry from Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida with a thesis titled “A Strategy to Enhance the Gospel Ministry of the PCA outside the Non-Hispanic White Majority”
Bob’s first book was released in 2014, Why Baptizing Your Child Matters: Understanding the Benefits of Covenant Baptism.
He and his wife Chris, a Licensed Professional Counselor (FL, NJ), have been married since 1986, have one son Taylor married to Nicole, and an Australian Shepherd named Asante.
