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“I felt nervous and laughed as my husband led our family devotions. And he never led them again.” Susan Shepherd at the PCA Women’s Leadership Conference
I know that many of you are not on Twitter and it may feel daunting to click on the “replay” mode of the LiveBlogs, so here are some of my favorite lines from the first plenary session of today’s PCA Women’s Leadership Conference. (These are the lines I tweeted @tarabarthel @pcacep #pcalt.) BTW–The last two quotes (and the title of this post) are like a punch in my gut. I gasp at the honesty and rawness of what Susan Shepherd shared. She could only do so if she were assured of her forgivenss and her standing in Christ. And she is! I truly believe that the ripples of her testimony will…
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LiveBlog of PCA Women’s Leadership Conference General Session #1: Teri Anderson – Leading with Compassion: Serving … an Overflow of Gratitude
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(Non) LiveBlog of the PCA Women’s Leadership Conference General Session #4: Tara Barthel – “Why would you ever do that?” The Real Source and Strength of Lasting Compassion
Since I cannot both speak and LiveBlog at the same time, I thought I’d at least give you a copy of the handouts for my general session: “Why would you ever do that?” – The Real Source and Strength of Lasting Compassion And also point you in the direction of the PCA’s CE&P bookstore which has flashdrives of the entire conference (including all workshops) available for purchase here. Hope those are a blessing to you! Warmly, Tara B.
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An Existentially Funny LiveBlog Thing …
As I was working today to gather links, etc. for this weekend’s LiveBlogs, I found that, in some sort of funny, turned in on itself, Escher-esque existential way, I was the #1 Google hit for some of the speakers. In fact, not just me–but my reminders about the very LiveBlogs I was doing content prep for. I must be very tired because this makes me chuckle every time I think about it. But I’m not chuckling at these training sessions! Wow! The content looks so good. I am truly praying that God would help me to listen well, learn well, and be better equipped to serve with true compassion. Hope to…
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Reminders for This Week’s LiveBlogs of PCA Women’s Leadership Conference
Whenever I am not speaking myself (haven’t quite figured out how to type and teach at the same time), I’ll be LiveBlogging the general sessions for this week’s PCA Women’s Leadership Training Conference–Leading with Compassion–Called to Serve, Equipped to Lead. The actual LiveBlogs will be posted later this week, but if you’d like an email reminder, you can sign up here: Thursday, February 21 at 1:00PM (EST) – General Session #1 Teri Anderson: Leading with Compassion – Serving … an Overflow of Gratitude Thursday, February 21 at 6:30PM – General Session #2 Ellen Dykas: The Gospel for Our Real Lives – Courageous Compassion for Relationally and Sexually Broken Women Friday, February…
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Didn’t think I’d be asking for prayer about this … but I am.
The next thirteen days of our family’s life are going to be very hard. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to serve at the PCA Women’s Leadership Conference this week, but it requires two days of flying (Wednesday & Saturday) and a very long day of teaching workshops and a keynote back-to-back-to-back on Friday. On top of that, I will be home for just under twelve hours from Saturday midnight to noon Sunday (just enough time to hopefully do one load of laundry and refill my toiletries) and then I’ll be flying all afternoon/evening Sunday to participate in a training event in Texas related to helping people to appropriate…
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One Reason Why Your Church is Losing Its Youth: Look at How (Gracelessly!) You Treat One Another
One Reason Why Your Church is Losing Its Youth: Look at How (Gracelessly!) You Treat One Another “Beginning around the age of eleven, Matt writes, “I would read about Jesus, and how he treated people, then I’d look at Christians, and the two just didn’t match up.” Matt goes on to say: “Sometimes we’d go by the church to surprise my dad in the middle of a work day, and there’d be someone in his office yelling at him for changing the carpet, or not using the choir robes. We would receive threatening anonymous letters at our house . . . certain church members would interrupt the service to call meetings. They…
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Happy (But Busy) Valentine’s Week …
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Boldness to Declare the Gospel in the Midst of Much Conflict
Last night, Fred shared this wonderful translation of 1 Thessalonians 2:2 with me: “But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict.” (ESV) Sounds like a perfect peacemaking verse! Definitely going in the pack o’ memory verses for regular review …
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Top Ten Reasons Our Kids Leave The Church
This is an excellent article for every Christian in the church. I bet even Cap’n Dave would approve! And it gives me serious pause as to how much my parenting and care for my friends in the church is intentionally pushing back against this tide: Top Ten Reasons Our Kids Leave the Church (HT: Z)
