speaking

standard events

fees and costs

referrals from past events

speaking request form

video clips

From ballrooms filled with hundreds of women, to rugged retreat camps with less than twenty, it is always a privilege to be invited to share fellowship and ministry with God's people.

Fred and I take all invitations seriously and we are humbled to receive them. We commit all speaking invitations to prayer and also submit them our pastors/elders for their counsel and approval.

If you have any questions about my speaking events after reviewing the following information, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Standard Events

I am always open to considering a custom topic for any event—so please be sure to let me know if there is something happening in the life of your church, women’s ministry, mother’s group, or other organization that you would like me to address. However, please note that I accept only a limited number of custom events each year because of the time required for study and preparation.

My schedule more readily accommodates the following standard events—so if you’d like to have me serve at your event in the coming year or two, you may want to stick to one of these:

1. Women and Peacemaking—A Journey of Grace (my foundational, introductory women’s retreat): Flexible enough to accommodate most one, two, or three-day retreats, my preference is to teach this material in four ninety-minute sessions (but I can do it in as little as three sessions and expand to fill five sessions). The topics covered include: The Gospel—Our Foundation for Peace; Biblical Peacemaking (two sessions); and Lasting Peace Through Heart Change (with an optional “Relationships that Show the World Jesus” session available). If you would like to preview this retreat, I have a 5-CD audio recording available for purchase, or I would be happy to loan out the recording to your event team for their review.
2. Living the Gospel in Relationships—Live Dialogue with Tara Barthel: If you have read Judy’s and my book (Peacemaking Women , gone through my DVD video series (Living the Gospel in Relationships) or already had me out for my standard women’s retreat (Women and Peacemaking—A Journey of Grace), you may enjoy scheduling this more interactive and intimate event to really dig deep into the biblical principles in my resources. I’ll work with you on exactly what your event’s goals are and we will frame a schedule that touches on the topics of greatest interest to you and your women. We can also add on an “overview” session of the foundational material if you’d like to provide a reminder and/or introduction for your attendees.
3. Living the Gospel in our Marriages—A Weekend Retreat for Married Couples: Co-taught with my pastor, Jason Barrie, this weekend-long retreat gets to the heart of marital conflicts and brings the gospel directly to bear for lasting change (and encouragement!). If your church members wonder why they keep having the same conflicts over and over again; if they have tried every marriage conference, read every book on marriage, and even pursued counseling—but then find themselves stuck in old patterns, then this is the event for you! The schedule for this retreat runs Friday evening through Saturday evening, with an optional session Friday afternoon for church leaders to learn how to encourage grace-based marriages among their members, and an optional session Sunday morning for your Sunday school hour. (Please note: Due to my pastor’s extremely busy schedule, we only accept a very limited number of marriage retreats each year.)

Speaking Fees and Costs

I am blessed to report that Fred and I currently do not require any set fee for an event. Instead, we prayerfully consider each invitation I receive, and to date we have not yet turned down one for financial reasons.

Usually, the event host pays for my travel/meals/lodging costs (I require hotel--not private home--lodging unless the event has a unique need), any costs associated with the training (handouts, Peacemaker brochures, costs of shipping resources if they want a resource table, my childcare costs of approximately $40/day for the weekdays I am away from Sophia for the event, etc.), and provides me with a most welcome honorarium. If it helps you for planning purposes, I am happy to share that unless I am serving in a missionary or inner-city (i.e., financially challenged) context, I am usually paid no less than $1,000 for any event, and multi-day events usually pay more.

Referrals from Previous Events

If you would like to speak with previous event hosts to learn more about how I serve at conferences and retreats, the following women are just a few of my past event hosts who have offered to answer your questions*:

• Beth Meadows, Birmingham, AL: eme13 at mac.com, 205-981-4310
• Jo McGuire, Colorado Springs, CO: jojomcg32 at adelphia.net, 719-550-3200
• Nancy Lee, Lake Worth, FL: lee1829 at bellsouth.net, 561-588-7102
• Connie Norton, Birmingham, AL: cnorton at ompc.org, 205-981-4313
• Lori Johnson, Greenville, SC: ljohnson at southsidefellowship.org, 864-234-7033, ext 1551
• Anne Malone, Kailua, HI: PalmTreePundit at hawaii.rr.com

* to send these ladies an email, just replace the ' at ' in their addresses with an '@' (no spaces). I've listed their addresses here in this manner to try to protect them from undue SPAM.

For quotes from others who have attended my past events, please click here.

Speaking Request Form

If you would like to request that I consider speaking at your event, please complete this online form.

Video Clips of Tara Teaching

The following sample video clips are taken from Tara's series, "Living the Gospel in Relationships."

Another video clip of Tara from an interview on Peacemaking Women is also available.

• "How is the gospel our foundation for peace?" (Windows Media | Quicktime)