OBU Welcomes Three Speakers for Focus Week Feb. 8-12

OBU will welcome three speakers to campus for its annual Focus Week event Feb. 8-12. Focus Week is designed to strengthen relationships with God and one another.

This year’s event will feature three guest speakers. Chris Stull, pastor and church planter of Wellspring Church will speak Feb. 8; Vance Pitman, pastor and church planter of Hope Church, will speak Feb. 10; and Dr. Rob Blackaby, president of Canadian Southern Baptist Seminary, will speak Feb. 12. All three will speak at 10 a.m. in Raley Chapel’s Potter Auditorium on their respective dates. They will also participate in panels and classroom discussions throughout the week.

Stull served five years with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in Oklahoma and then an additional five years as the state director for Arizona's FCA from 1991-96. He was ordained as a minister in 1996 and served as executive pastor on two mega-church staff teams until 2013. He is currently the pastor of Wellspring Church in Goodyear, Arizona, which was planted in early 2014. Chris and his wife, Brenna, have been married for 25 years and have seven children: Dillon, Derek, Caleb, Micah, Karis, John and Mariama.

Pitman responded to God’s call to Hope Church in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2000, as a church plant from First Baptist Church in Woodstock, Georgia. As a seasoned church planter in the Western United States, and now as a national ambassador for NAMB, he speaks all over the nation to stimulate awareness that the Gospel is very needed in our own country as well as all over the world. His expositional preaching repeatedly raises the question, “How can I be more involved in the Kingdom of God?” He resides in Henderson, Nevada, with his wife Kristie. They have four children: Hannah, Caleb, Elijah and Faith.

Blackaby graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1989. He then earned both M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He served as the senior pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Calgary, Alberta, from 1995 to 2007. During that time he also led in the start of Southwinds Church in south Calgary. In April 2007, he became the third president of the Canadian Southern Baptist Seminary and College in Cochrane, Alberta. He has a passion to prepare leaders for ministry in challenging arenas both in North America and globally. He and his wife, Jo Susan, have three children: Rachel, John and David.