September 2004 - Conference News

Monday, August 30, was my first day working at CBE's headquarters in Minneapolis, MN. I filled out some paperwork and received a thick binder labeled, "UK Symposium: Men, Women and the Church." On Tuesday, I was on a plane to Durham, England.

Needless to say, I was a bit nervous about helping with an international symposium my second day on the job. On the plane I reviewed the binder I received the day before and discovered detailed plans, schedules and instructions that the CBE staff had worked for months preparing with our UK partners Men, Women and God (MWG), and Women and the Church (WATCH). The groundwork had been laid so well that it made it easy for someone new like me to step in.

I flagged one note in particular: A list of volunteers to contact if I needed help with anything. I was sure I would need to refer to this list often. But once I arrived in Durham, so many people approached me and asked what they could do to help that I never needed to recruit volunteers. Pastors, missionaries, teachers, authors, and ministry leaders of all sorts were eager to help even with the more mundane aspects of the conference.

For example, posting signs on the rooms where workshops are scheduled to be held might sound like a simple task. But it was soon complicated by a number of factors: hurricanes and serious illness meant workshop leaders who were prevented from attending at the last minute would need to be replaced; some workshops were relocated to better facilitate recordings and accommodate the number of people who planned to attend; and other workshops were rescheduled because the BBC requested an interview with one of the leaders. This seemingly simple task involved some scrambling, but the volunteers who posted the signs handled it all with grace. One of the volunteer's names sounded familiar to me. After we sorted out a particularly complicated workshop session, I realized that she was a member of CBE's board of directors.

One experience in particular gave me great insight into how ideas for CBE conferences come about. The day before the symposium began, a group of participants who arrived early gathered with Mimi (CBE President) and me to stuff registration folders. As we colated and filed, Charles Read described challenges facing women who are called to minister in the Anglican Church. Fran Findley agreed and shared some of the recent developments in Sydney, Australia, and the need for biblical equality in her own church in rural Tazmania. But all our hearts went out to Syamson Roberts as he described the tremendous struggles Christian women face in India. We were all eager to learn more about what we could do to help.

As Traude Deitigsmann treated us to dinner, Mimi strategized with us about the possibility of partnering with Christians in India to help resource the women and men who have suffered so much together for the sake of the gospel. These discussions continued throughout the conference and have now grown into a plan to partner with Christians in India who will host our 2006 Symposium at the South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies (SAIACS) in Bangalore, India. We are very excited about this new opportunity to support women in ministry in a context where their gifts are so desperately needed.

Syamson's presence at our conference and his willingness to speak out for the Christian women in India helped us plan our 2006 International Symposium in India. But this is just one example of many important connections that were made at the symposium in Durham. Ministry leaders from around the world met during tea breaks, as they browsed book tables, or as they helped the new CBE staff member, and discussed ways they could work together to help people use the gifts God has given them.

My experience at the symposium in Durham taught me a lot-not only about the important work CBE does around the world, but also about what it means to be truly devoted to serving the Lord in spite of whatever opposition we might encounter in our contexts. I learned these things from the general sessions and workshops, but especially from the amazing women and men I met who were committed to using their gifts in ministry.

Photo of Durham Cathedral by kind permission of the Chapter of Durham and Jarrold Publishing.

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