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Amy-Lynne, one of our resident photogs here at Grace, sent me this great pic of 8 of our expectant mothers at the Women's Conference this last weekend.
From left in order of soonest expected birth date. . . Jessica Wornardt, Jeannett Gibson, Kristen Jones, Lindsey Cheney, Cynde Kasperovich, Jen Collins, Grace Van Doren, & Serena Abdelaziz.
I love it. That's one sign of a healthy growing church. That's what I call "Building on the Legacy."
BTW, how was the Women's Conference? I haven't heard much?
6 comments:
In order of birth date, and Jeannett is 2nd of 8? I'm in trouble.
the women's conference: i'm generally quite a skeptic when it comes to female conference speakers, because they tend to be more emotional, less biblical, and generally "cheesy". but i was impressed by pamela christian. she was very biblical, although a little cheesy at times. but then i realized that thats what a lot of women want to hear. they want to laugh and relate (have their heart-strings pulled)and i guess, be entertained. my personal preference would be to have a male speaker (generally less emotional?), but i don't think that'll ever happen. if i'm going to set aside a weekend for this sort of thing, i want to walk away having really been taught something about God, not just about myself. Tim, you up for speaking about the biblical roles of women, wives and mothers at the next conference? that would be more than worth my time! (btw: very excited about your new series!)
Since Lindsey already weighed in, I will too, even though I wasn't going to take Tim's bait this year :).
Honestly, the speaker/theme didn't resonate with me. She was really difficult for me to relate to/identify with. I however totally agree that many women love this type of speaker so I'm probably in the minority here, and that's okay.
I think a male speaker would be fine. Or a woman missionary would be really neat! I guess I'd love to be challenged to really live out my faith, within my family AND in the world at large.
I'm not sure how speakers are chosen, but maybe some of us could throw out some suggestions when the time comes? We also have so many wonderful women within our own church, I'd love to even just hear different testimonies.
Anyway, just my two cents, because Tim asked. :)
Ugh...I tried to resist, but I'll weigh in. The speaker was funny and engaging, and her testimony was pretty awesome. I guess I'm just finding that at many of these women's conferences that many of the topics tend to be really inward focused. "A new beginning", how to be a better wife, mother, etc. Well, I probably think about myself way too much to begin with and don't need a whole lot of help with self evaluation...I'm pretty self absorbed without a weekend of specifically setting aside time for it. I would personally prefer some thing that reminded me to think of OTHERS and how God would want me to be in terms of my relationship with people besides myself. And I think that the speaker last weekend tried to tackle too many different topics and didn't have time to really truly delve deeply into any one of them, so it was a little cut up and skimmed the surface of topics that could have easily taken up the full weekend on their own. That said, it was nice to hang out with the girls.
By the way, I find the 13 Grace pregnancies and Building on the Legacy campaign to be quite well timed. Coincidence? I think not...Tim...what are you putting in the water???
I really enjoyed the women's conference. The best part was meeting new women and having a chance to get to know them. I wasn't sure at first, but I ended up getting a lot out of the speaker's presentation. Some women don’t like “emotional” presentations. I know someone who didn’t like the “The Heavenly Man”, because they thought it was too emotional. I think the whole question of “emotional or cheesy/relatable” is a factor of how many trials one is going through at the time. There are times in everyone’s life where they are cruising along with few troubles and times when they feel like they are being just tortured. It is hard to listen to someone who appears to have no real problems when you are really hurting bad. Relating becomes very important then. Can God really help me in my gigantic mess or is it only for people who were raised in godly homes and are gifted and successful?
I have read different books about being a godly woman. With a few of them, though very Biblical, they left too much to the imagination, I was able to think "I'm doing that". One gave very specific examples that showed me many, many ways that I am not even close and have a long way to go. It was very painful to hear. So far at church I have not heard anything that is hard hitting and really fleshed out what being a godly woman looks like in the painful nitty gritty of life. It's like the difference between saying "God calls us to preach the gospel no matter what the cost,” and hearing about the high cost real people pay by reading "Foxes Book of Martyrs" or something like "The Heavenly Man". So Tim, my expectations are high, and I am looking forward to hearing what you have to say on the topic.
Those that are fortunate enough to go to POW on Thursday mornings get to hear from many of the talented women speakers at our church. Most weeks there is a great testimony too (and some great hymn singing if you get there on time). Ladies salad supper's have a variety of speakers and testimonies. I think that we really get to hear from the women at Grace regularly (which I love). I think having an outside speaker once a year is a nice change. I tend to think that a woman can be harder on other women than a man can be and get away with it. More and more I am wanting the painful truth with no candy coating. I don't know any speakers that are willing to be that direct. But next year POW is doing a Beth Moore study on the book of Daniel (which it was hinted is on this very topic). Not being from a Christian family I don’t mind the repeat of subject matter, as I can use all the help I can get.
Well unlike Briana I have way more than 2 cents to share but I think I'll just give the short version and keep the change!
I agree that I want something harder hitting and more biblical, that said the feedback from the conference was in the 8,9 and10 range (there was only one 7). I think a lot of women were ministered to, and I guess I am very spoiled by the quality of the lecturers (sp?) that speak on Thursday.
I have heard a years worth of speakers from POW that I think do as good as if not a better job than Pamela Christian. But just because she didn't speak to my heart doesn't mean that this weekend was a waste of time. I know many women that were blessed and I have been convicted of my selfishness in thinking that if I don't hear what I want to hear the conference wasn't good enough.
I think the conference organizers do their best to reach a broad range of woman and they will take these comments into consideration when selecting next year's speaker. (You can contact Debbi if you would like to be a part of that process Briana).
Great comments everyone, I'm glad I'm not the only one that had mixed feelings about the conference.
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