I am attending my first Women of Faith event - it's called Over The Top and I have pretty high expectations! I will be blogging about the event daily and sending out the occasional Twitter during the event, so stay tuned, this promises to be a great experience!! Check out this video for a preview of what this weekend might hold...
Burundi is beautiful, mysterious, virtually unknown to most of the world, and has a heart-breaking history of civil war similar to its neighboring country of Rwanda. Burundi is listed among the 25 most corrupt countries in the world. Only 1 in 2 children attend school. According to a scientific study done among 178 countries, Burundians have the lowest life satisfaction in the world. Articles I've read in The Economist among other periodicals generally have a bleak forecast for Burundi's present and future. And, it's true. Burundi, just like every other nation in the world, has no hope apart from God.
We have seen a glimmer of that hope in many areas we have visited in the past 4 years in Burundi. We have seen that hope in the pastors of rural churches who are working tirelessly, most of the time without pay, under-resourced, under-trained, yet fervently reaching out to people in villages who are desperate for faith in something other than themselves, traditions, and empty religion. These pastors and church leaders have a spark, a fire that won't be extinguished by abject poverty, poor health care, lack of food, or civil war. In fact, this hope seems intensified because of not inspite of the odds that appear to be stacked against them.
I am always inspired by this hope that they have within them. This is a supernatural hope. It makes no earthly sense. The world disregards them. They are hungry. They are thirsty. They are perpetually exhausted. But this hope burns brightly in spite of their circumstances.
When we arrive in Burundi and are welcomed by these people, we are immediately humbled by the hope in their handshake, their hug, their expectant conversation, and we soon realize that our all-American hope is so easily misplaced. We trust in our stuff. We hope in our good fortune or a stroke of luck. We rely on our intelligence, talents, connections. We "pray" for a chance favor from the world.
In Burundi, our hope is redirected, not gently but rather violently and out of necessity back to our Living Hope. Burundi requires us to utterly depend on God, keeping our eyes on Him, keeping our hearts enslaved to His, keeping our purposes totally aligned with His.
We pray that many more will experience the blessing of hope with us in Burundi.
This is my third and final post about my Women of Faith experience last weekend. I had mixed impressions of individual parts of the event, however, ultimately there are a few lasting impressions which will change the way I relate to various areas of life. Lisa Whelchel - thank you for teaching me the difference between transparent and vulnerable. Brenda Warner - you are my hero. Andy Andrews - I will never forget the Butterfly Effect. Patsy Clairmont - thank you for making your bed! To all the "porch" members: I am inspired by your love for each other, by your friendships which transcend generations, by your joy in serving and worshipping and living your life in front of others for God's glory. Made me realize that I am already blessed with a porch full of incredible women -- love this metaphor and look forward to sharing it with my friends!
While there were take-aways from nearly every session, I was expecting more of a "ladies, grab your Bible and let's dig in to some Biblical truths" sort of teaching. Maybe not for every session. But I did expect to need my Bible at some point during the weekend. I love being able to scribble a million notes in the margins of my Bible. The speakers did a great job of creating a "need" for their books/resources by whetting our appetites with their compelling stories and I will be ordering several of their books in the next few weeks. But books won't ultimately satisfy my spiritual hunger & thirst. They will feed my need and love for knowledge. They will challenge me and inspire me. However, I found myself wishing that the speakers had emphasized the Bible as the ultimate source for life and godliness a lot more than they did.
Women of Faith was definitely "over the top" - to the point that I was "over the top" at the end of each session -- (I tend to hit sensory overload quicker than most). I am a slow processor. I like to process things by journaling or talking them out. I wish I would have trusted more in the rhythm and build of the overall program so that my "processing" would have happened in real-time rather than after-the-fact time.
In my quest to de-brief and process this event, I've begun to take advantage of the abundant resources available on the Women of Faith website. I encourage you to join the WOF online community, participate in a Book Club, get some sweet discounts. I'm looking forward to diving in and making the most of what the WOF team have put together as practical tools for everyday life.
[Confession: due to a scheduling error I found myself not able to attend the afternoon session on Saturday -- I was instead driving my 17-yr-old son to the mall to shop for Homecoming attire]
[I was given 2 free admissions to the event, courtesy of BookSneeze, in exchange for a blog review.]
My friend Kari and I joined a group of her friends for dinner and hang-time til WOF began again at 7pm. Lots of cool stuff going on in downtown Phoenix - Cityscape holds a lot of promise with shops and restaurants and entertainment. Somehow, we found ourselves at the corner of 2nd Street and Washington at Majerle's. So we settled in for some burgers, wings, salads and girl talk. After a quick stop at Charming Charlie's for some inexpensive bling, we headed back to US Airways for an evening of worship and inspiration like none other!
The worship team really did a great job of leading us not just in songs but in worship. They added Mandisa to the line-up which brought an extra shot of energy and enthusiasm and soul. That girl can sing! Now, I don't want to misuse the phrase "variety show" because I don't mean it in a derogatory way, but the rest of the evening was back to back entertainment, music, videos, speakers...thus, variety show is the best way I can describe it. I especially liked all the video clips -- the "porch" line-up, all dressed up and jamming on instruments was super-fun and engaging -- and I loved the video interviews with the speakers. Well done media team!
My least favorite part of the evening was the comedian. I was disappointed in his antics, his choice of topics, his choice of words, his negativity toward his wife, kids, prayer, etc. I know he was going for "over-the-top", tongue-in-cheek, irreverent humor, but it struck me as out of place for this event, although the audience seemed to think he was hilarious. It just wasn't my style and everything about him made me cringe. So, although not a highlight for me personally, his performance was a great foil for the rest of the program which was top-notch.
I really loved Brenda Warner's time on stage. Her story, her "imperfectness", her brutal honesty were refreshing, challenging, heartbreaking, and inspiring. I kept discovering "water in my eyes" and "water running down my cheeks & dripping off my chin" while she spoke. The other speaker who took me by surprise was Lisa Whelchel...what a neat woman of faith she's turned out to be! I was totally a fan of "Facts of Life" and it was so good to see her in real life (looking EXACTLY as she did in the 80's in my mind's eye) and hear just a part of her story. Patsy Clairmont spoke - so wise, so full of life and so talented at making us laugh with one breath and tear up with the next. Andy Andrews spoke -- he brought the house down and was amazing. The evening and my heart were full. I was becoming undone in a good kind of way, needing to nail down some of the main points from the speakers and so I could put them into practice in my own life and share them with others.
Saturday morning came a little too soon and I was on the road again to "Over the Top" and wondering how they'd top the previous evening or if they'd even try. I can totally see the value of using this event as an women's ministry outreach for a local church, with the ministry leader gathering all their women into small groups and having group leaders help de-brief and challenge and pray for the women. I didn't do much de-briefing at home with my husband and sons...and I could have used time to process the things I'd seen and heard and experienced before jumping right back in to it...
[I was given 2 free tickets to this event in exchange for this blog review...thanks BookSneeze!]
Women of Faith. For Christian women it's a household name, right? I'd heard about it. Read about it. Assumed it was like a girly-girl, hormonally imbalanced, over-sized support group accented with "contemporary" music, light humor and perhaps some female-themed sermons. "Over The Top" but not exactly in the best way. I was more than a little worried about spending 2 days with 1000's of women who were mostly strangers to me, crammed into plastic fold-down seats with emotional turbulence abounding.
I carpooled with a carefully chosen friend, one with a scientific, practical mind and not given to dramatic outbursts. We entered the arena along with a throng of women who were eagerly greeting each another, chattering, hugging, shrieking, laughing, taking photos, group hugging. You can imagine. I found myself smiling and calmly engaged on the outside, overwhelmed and scribbling details furiously on the inside. Hair. Jewelry. Perfume. Matching shirts. Embellished chef's hats. Pink tiaras. Women. Lots of women. 5 minute countdown.
House lights down. Stage lights up. Worship team bringing life and energy to the simply decorated stage. Creatively arranged music (produced for women's voices - thanks for lower keys!) was interspersed with speakers Patsy Clairmont and Andy Andrews. I first heard Patsy speak at Recreate 11 in Franklin, TN. This woman is a gifted and colorful communicator, a true lover of words, with a solid Biblical basis undergirding her hilarious, masterfully woven stories of her well-lived life. Andy Andrews probably deserves an entire blog post of his own. He was constantly in motion. Not like poetry. Like a whirlwind. I had read "The Noticer" when it first was published. Always imagined what the author must be like: southern; well-spoken; southern; funny; from the south; clever; southernly; intelligent. I was glad that his real-life voice matched his writing voice. His constant motion was somewhat distracting to me and at times I lost his main point because he tended to suddenly take a rabbit trail to the left or right, but his wisdom, his love and respect for life and family, and his gift of storytelling made me a fan.
After lunch, there was a Q&A session with Patsy and Andy answering questions from the attendees. This was probably my least favorite part of the weekend. I found myself somewhat frustrated with the advice they gave. Or maybe I was frustrated with the advice they didn't give...oh please don't tell me I've become an "armchair counselor!"
As quickly as the morning session had begun, the afternoon session was over. We filed out of the arena, suddenly ravenously hungry for dinner and de-brief time. My heart was full, my mind was spinning, I wasn't sure what the evening session would be like, but I suddenly knew that I had been inexplicably drawn in to this over-the-top entity called Women of Faith and I had to see what would happen next...
[I was given 2 free tickets to this event in exchange for this blog review...thanks BookSneeze!]
