Links to previous advances: 2008,  2009, 2010, 2011

When most people first hear of our advance they wonder,”What is an advance?” Good question! Many times church groups (including ours) hold short, focused weekend gatherings at a location away from the church building. These events are called retreats and are typically oriented for either men, women, or youth. Well, our elders decided that they wanted to provide an opportunity for our entire families to have a weekend away for fellowship and teaching once a year. They decided that instead of retreating, we should use this time to advance us in our faith and fellowship. Thus our Family Advance was born!

Over the years, we have met at hotels and condominiums on Okaloosa Island, a hotel in Ft. Walton Beach, and various resorts in the Destin area. At one notable early advance, Steve Wilkins was our speaker and we all were able to fit in a single condominium room for the sessions. He was sick that weekend with a virus and lectured on the run! At another early advance, our meeting room opened up onto the roof of the hotel and some young boys (who are now young men and will remain nameless, but their parents know who they are) ran precariously close to the edge of the roof to the dismay of all the mothers! Speakers have included our own Pastor Schneider, Dewey Roberts, Steve Wilkins, Gary DeMar, Jim Jordan, Kerry Ptacek, Jay Adams, Joey Pipa, Randy Booth, RC Sproul Jr., Mike Mosley, Archie Jones, Doug Wilson, George Grant, Ian Hamilton, and Rob Rayburn. As our congregation has grown and the popularity of our conference has expanded well beyond our church, we have progressively moved to larger facilities at Seascape and Topsail resorts, until we finally settled in our present location at Sandestin. In recent years we’ve had approximately 500 attendees from all over the southeastern United States and beyond.

If you have any questions, let us know. We’re looking forward to seeing you at the next Family Advance!