March 4, 2008 | By Staff
NEW ORLEANS – In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus spoke of people who “having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it, and bear fruit with patience.”
More than 300 women were challenged to follow the example of Luke 8:15 at a recent Women’s Leadership Consultation at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The theme of the conference was “Beyond Hearing.” An additional 200 women from the New Orleans area joined in a women’s rally to kick-off the conference.
The conference goal was not only to lay out a model for effective women’s ministry, but to offer networking opportunities and to equip and encourage women in ministry. Participants were also able to use the teaching for practical application, through prayer walking on the seminary campus and the surrounding neighborhoods.
Keynote speaker and Bible teacher Priscilla Shirer provided perspective on the place of women in 1st Century society, beginning her talk from the back of the room. In Jesus’ day, women – like the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet with oil -- were on the margins of society. Shirer praised the woman’s “God consciousness” and encouraged her audience to have the same awareness, by allowing God to “change every detail of her life. Women were also challenged to be “the peculiar one” in the interest of enjoying the freedom offered in Christ.
Shirer spoke again on Friday morning, telling her audience that her teaching came, not through her own power or accomplishment, “but the divine nod of approval from God.” She urged women to prepare for ministry, and not to hesitate to obey God’s calling because of a lack of earthly credentials.
Also on Friday, speaker Paula Hemphill urged participants to follow the examples of Lois, Eunice and Lydia in missions.
Texas-based Christian songwriter and performer Diane Machen led worship at the conference. Along with her husband Chris – a 1980 graduate of NOBTS – she has written for and performed with some of the biggest names in Christian music, including Steven Curtis Chapman, Larnelle Harris and the Imperials.
A series of breakout sessions called WORDshops were conducted during the conference, led by women’s ministry leaders and NOBTS faculty. Topics included development and leadership of effective Bible studies, budgeting, missional and kingdom living, ministering to hurting women, biblical hospitality, using scripture in prayer and worship, mentoring, using small groups and reaching women across cultural barriers.
On Friday afternoon, 20 carloads of women spread out in the still-battered neighborhoods of New Orleans for a prayer walk. NOBTS student and Mission Lab worker Hannah Stirling coordinated the event. Women prayed, picked up trash, distributed water and left behind a simple sign of their visit: a doorknob hanger read: “We prayed for you today.”
The walkers were also encouraged by former missionary Madelyn Edens, who encouraged women to walk and pray, even though they might not see the results. Other women remained on campus to pray, while others gathered in an interactive prayer room available throughout the event.
One of the walkers had the opportunity to lead one New Orleans resident to Christ. She left the experience with a new conviction that the Katrina-battered Crescent City should be rebuilt, both brick by brick and soul by soul. A second prayer walk took place later in the conference.
Friday night’s keynote speaker was NOBTS alumna Dorothy Patterson, the wife of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson and the sister of NOBTS President Chuck Kelley. During an in-depth study of Titus 2, Patterson outlined the basics needed by women who want to seriously teach God’s word.
Patterson urged the gathering to diligently prepare and saturate themselves in verse-by-verse Bible study in order to become spiritually mature women, able to teach with all Godly wisdom.
Saturday’s speaker, author Jackie Kendall shared a powerful testimony of how she was transformed by Christ after enduring a life of abuse, pain and suffering. She called the word “but” the “conjunction of dysfunction,” and challenged women to “stop arguing and make a difference in the world,” by an obedient, vigorous response to what she called, “God’s holy nudges.”
Kendall said of her life, “To forget and forgive is wonderful, but to be ‘fruitful in the place of suffering’ is the greatest blessing.”
Conference Coordinator Dr. Rhonda Kelley, wife of NOBTS President Chuck Kelley, then closed with an altar call. Women responded in response to God’s call on their lives.
During one of the WLC’s “Lagniappe Café” sessions, NOBTS faculty member Trish Hawley and a panel of other women’s ministry leaders got to the heart of the “Beyond Hearing” weekend: A willingness to cross the street –or the world – in obedience to God is the key to living out God’s word.
“Here at this seminary, we have the privilege to live and learn within the gates; but also to go beyond and cross the street to apply what we’ve learned immediately.”
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With reporting by Christi Gibson and Paul F. South.