Clear biblical foundations
Teaching is explained in language a person with no church background can understand, while remaining firmly grounded in Scripture.
About Growing Deep and Strong
We remember what it felt like to begin.
Growing Deep and Strong® was born from Carl and Karen Fechner’s own journey—from having no church background and no understanding of the Bible, to discovering a faith that transformed every part of their lives.
A shared journey • A tested pathway • A mandate to multiply
Why we exist
People do not only need to hear the truth. They need help to understand it, live it and allow it to transform the heart.
When someone becomes a new Christian, the questions are real and immediate. Where do I begin? How do I understand the Bible? How does faith connect with my past, my relationships, my work and the decisions I make every day?
Carl and Karen know those questions firsthand. They did not grow up with the language, culture or assumptions of church. When they encountered God, they needed more than information. They needed clear foundations, honest answers, personal healing and people willing to walk beside them.
That experience became the seed of Growing Deep and Strong®: a structured, relational journey designed to help a new Christian grow from first foundations into maturity, character, identity, purpose and the ability to help others grow.
Our story
God met us when everything else had fallen away.
Carl grew up on a sheep and beef property in rural Victoria. His was a non-church background, with no Christian discipleship and little understanding of how the Bible related to everyday life. By the age of twenty, he had decided that God and the church were irrelevant to his life.
In 1990, when Carl was 42, he and Karen experienced the collapse of their business and complete financial loss. During that difficult season, they were given This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti. Within days, Christianity and the reality of the spiritual world began to make sense—and God revealed Himself to them both in a profound and personal way.
Their response was not casual. Together, they made a wholehearted decision to follow Jesus. But becoming Christians did not instantly answer every question or heal every wound. Their past took them on a long search for sound biblical foundations, personal healing, freedom and effective discipleship.
“Growing Deep and Strong was not created from theory. It grew out of the journey we needed ourselves.”
Why Growing Deep and Strong
The gap was not a lack of good teaching. It was the lack of a complete pathway.
Carl and Karen encountered many valuable ministries, teachers and experiences. Yet they continued to see new Christians left to assemble their own growth journey. Growing Deep and Strong® was developed to bring the essential pieces together in an intentional sequence.
Truth personally discovered
Guided Personal Discovery helps people engage the Bible for themselves, ask honest questions and connect truth with everyday life.
Transformation, not head knowledge
The journey creates room for prayer, reflection, healing and freedom so biblical truth reaches the heart and shapes character.
Growth through relationship
A trained coach and a confidential small group provide encouragement, safety, accountability and a place to learn alongside others.
The mandate
“To be a catalyst and facilitator in developing people to become leaders and disciples of others—and to create an environment that creates leaders who transform nations.”
During Carl’s time at Bible College, God spoke this mandate clearly to him. It has become the thread connecting his ministry, business leadership, coaching, writing and the development of Growing Deep and Strong®. The purpose is not to gather people around one personality. It is to create a reproducible environment in which ordinary people can be formed, equipped and released to help others.
Experience behind the pathway
Decades of learning, leading and building.
Credibility should be demonstrated through faithful service, tested experience and fruit—not self-promotion. These experiences have each contributed something practical to the pathway.
Small-group leadership
Carl and Karen served in and led small groups through Marriage Ministries International and their local church, learning how growth happens through trust, honesty and consistent relationship.
Prayer and regional leadership
Carl co-led Intercessors for Melbourne, helping implement prayer groups across regional municipalities, and participated in reconciliation and forgiveness initiatives through the Australian Prayer Network.
National ministry coordination
Together, Carl and Karen helped introduce Cleansing Stream Ministries from the United States into Australia and New Zealand. Over two to three years, approximately 4,000–5,000 people participated in the ministry’s discipleship process.
Publishing and distribution
One of Carl and Karen’s companies published and distributed Cleansing Stream resources in Australia and New Zealand, providing practical experience in equipping churches and supporting ministry at scale.
Ministry training
Carl completed twelve months at Ministry Training College, specialising in church management and church planting. This helped join spiritual formation with the practical structures required to sustain ministry.
Authoring the journey
From 2001 to 2006, Carl authored the original Growing Deep and Strong® series. It has continued to be reviewed, refined and expanded through more than two decades of practical use and learning.
Business and team leadership
Across decades in business, Carl built start-ups, managed sales teams, trained leaders and created systems others could follow. That background shaped the program’s clear steps, practical tools and capacity to multiply.
Purpose and people development
Through Growing Deep and Strong® and Find Your Destiny™, Carl’s focus has remained consistent: helping people understand how they have been shaped, discover their God-given assignment and lead with character.
1990A shared encounter with God
4–5KMinistry participants in AU & NZ
20+Years developing the pathway
40Weeks from foundations to purpose
Carl and Karen
This has always been our journey.
Karen is not a footnote in the story of Growing Deep and Strong®. She was there in the business failure, in the encounter with God, in the search for healing and truth, and in the years of service that followed.
Together, Carl and Karen welcomed people, facilitated ministry, carried responsibility and learned what it means to keep following God through both breakthrough and challenge.
Different gifts, one commitment
Carl’s pioneering, strategic and framework-building strengths are complemented by Karen’s warmth, relational insight and care for people. Their shared story keeps the work grounded: people are not projects, transformation cannot be rushed, and discipleship is most powerful when truth is carried in relationship.
Growing Deep and Strong® reflects both sides of that partnership—the clarity of a structured pathway and the humanity of someone walking beside you.
A work carried by many gifts
It was never meant to depend on one person.
The original series was enriched by contributors with different gifts and life experience. Today, Carl and Karen continue to surround the work with people who bring wisdom, accountability and practical expertise.
Christian leaders
Mature voices help guard biblical integrity, spiritual health and faithfulness to the mandate.
Coaches and facilitators
Trained people carry the journey relationally, making room for questions, discovery and personal growth.
Prayer and ministry teams
Trusted teams support Freedom Events with confidentiality, compassion, prayer and appropriate care.
Strategic and operational support
People with leadership, systems, technology and communication experience help make the pathway accessible and reproducible.
Good stewardship means welcoming wise counsel, remaining teachable and building something that can continue beyond its founder.
What guides us
Five convictions beneath everything we do.
The Bible is not merely information.Its truth is intended to shape our worldview, our character and the decisions we make.
Discipleship is intentional.People grow more securely when foundations are laid in a clear sequence and reinforced through practice.
Transformation reaches the heart.Knowledge matters, but knowledge alone cannot replace healing, freedom, obedience and changed patterns.
Every person carries God-given purpose.Identity and destiny are not reserved for a special few; people can learn to serve faithfully where God has placed them.
Mature Christians help others grow.The journey is designed to multiply—forming people who can encourage, lead and disciple others.
The vision
From a new Christian to a biblically grounded societal reformer.
Growing Deep and Strong® is designed as an intentional twelve-month path—from no church background to a mature Christian life in which the Bible becomes the framework for decisions in family, work, church and community.
FoundationsKnow what you believe
Freedom & CharacterLet truth reach the heart
Identity & PurposeUnderstand how God shaped you
Helping Others GrowServe and multiply faithfully
Endorsements
Ground-Up Discipleship That Builds Leaders
Growing Deep and Strong is the most comprehensive, genuinely interactive discipleship pathway I’ve found in over twenty years as a Christian. Rather than being talked at for a few weeks, you’re sent back into Scripture each week to study, dig, and apply what you’ve learned — building real, disciplined habits rather than head knowledge. I went through Laying the Foundation and the Power of Godly Character myself before recommending it to anyone I coach, and the two Encounter Weekends took it further than I expected: they created space to bring long-buried issues — old baggage, unforgiveness, patterns I hadn’t even recognised — to the cross and actually deal with them. In my work training and coaching leaders, I’ve seen how essential this kind of ground-up discipleship is, especially for anyone in leadership. I recommend it without reservation.
Wherever you are beginning
You do not have to work it all out alone.
This is not about building a platform around Carl and Karen. It is about making a tested discipleship pathway available to new Christians—and equipping trustworthy people to walk that pathway with them.