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). Click here to learn more about this standard women's retreat. And 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. Fear Not: Finding God's Comfort for My Fearful Soul - Peace and rest are great concepts in the abstract—biblical, Christ-centered, even pleasant and healthy. But if we are honest, most Christian women do not experience much peace in their day-to-day lives. We often are rushed, stressed, and anxious. God’s Word says He loves us and will provide for us, but we live as though we have to take care of everything ourselves. Our bodies are tense, our hearts are restless, and deep down we are exhausted by our worries. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Jesus understands that we are weary and burdened and He calls us to find rest for our souls in Him (Matthew 11:28-30). Join us and see how common your fears are—you are not alone! Be encouraged by biblical and practical ways to experience God’s rest even in the busyness of your life. Jesus really does give you Hispeace (John 14:27). God truly invites you to cast all your anxieties on Him (1 Peter 5:7) and to find comfort for your soul (Psalm 94:19).
3. Titus 2 in a 21st Century World: According to Susan Hunt’s (wonderful!) book, True Woman, when the virtues of piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness are lived out, “Titus 2 Women” are “cultivators of community.” This sounds so good in theory, but many of us struggle daily with loneliness, broken relationships, and deep feelings of isolation. We long for intimate relationships and we fear intimate relationships—often because we believe the lie that we are the “only ones” with doubts, habitual sins, conflicted relationships, and areas of unbelief. Our lives proclaim our theology in vivid color! In this four session retreat, we will consider carefully what we believe and how we live concerning God, ourselves, and the world around us—especially how are we to live as women. It’s time to get real and get honest about these important topics. (Appropriate for all ages, teenage and young women may be particularly helped and challenged by this retreat—especially if they come with the “Titus 2 Women” in their lives. If your schedule so allows, Tara can do a special “young women” session just for that strategic age group.)
4. Redeeming Church Conflicts: Based on the book that Tara coauthored with Dave Edling (“Redeeming Church Conflicts”), this four session retreat walks your women through the four stages of redeeming a church conflict: Perspective, Discernment, Leadership/Followership, and a Biblical Response. This model is taken directly from the biblical precedent of Acts 15—a recounting of how the church of the first century redeemed a serious church conflict. Through biblical teaching and highly interactive exercises, your women will be equipped to intentionally depend on the humbling and heart-changing grace of Christ’s Holy Spirit, even through the painful and refining fire of church conflict. They will also learn practical steps to take every thought and deed captive to Him as they learn how to turn relational crisis in the church into compassionate care.
5. Grace-Based Marriage—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 $50/day for the days Fred cannot care for Sophia and Ella and we have to pay for childcare, 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*:

• Keri Seavey, Vancouver, WA: kcv at livingwatercc.org, 360-487-9200
• 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)