The CBE Houston Conference is April 27-28, 2012, and all of us have been working double time getting ready for this. This is our heart’s desire and we thank God for the privilege of working together as a team to promote women’s equality.
As Mabel tells the story:
A bunch of us have worked extremely hard in putting together a conference in Houston: http://www.cbehouston.org.
Dr Mimi, president of Christians for Biblical Equality approached Shirley Taylor https://bwebaptistwomenforequality.wordpress.com/ and myself to ask if we would do a one day conference.
I have never met Shirley at that point. I just followed her blog.
I declined, then I found Ann Bayliss on Facebook. We phoned each other. She introduced me to Dr. Lynn Mitchell, Dept head of University of Houston Religious Studies, a staunch egalitarian. I met Quiquey Autrey, student and part time admission counselor of Fuller Texas. I had lunch with Quique, he was enthusiastic about co-hosting a CBE conference. I met Ann and Dr. Mitchell for lunch also. Both wanted to do it. Ann brought her good friend Kathleen into the fold. They all belong to Church of Christ. I also met via the internet another Church of Christ member Wiley, who somehow managed to join us for our effort despite the fact that he lives 250 miles away from Houston. He actually drove 250 miles to attend our planning meetings. The internet is a powerful place. Our newest addition to the planning committee is also someone we met through emails. She is our youngest at 25.
Here we are, a bunch of us who had never met each other getting together to put on a one day conference in Houston, TX, a truly conservative place.
Please pray for us. We truly have done everything we could do to try to draw people to come.
I join with Mabel and ask for your prayers. We have an exciting conference coming up and I would love to see you there.
Because of the stress, excitement, joys and disappointments, I have been extremely busy and have much more work to do. Right now I am having a hard time working up a lather and expressing myself in a blog. So for the next 3 weeks, new blog posts will be sporadic. Please continue to read. I have posted 297 posts and some are very good. We will have great things to report after the conference.
bWe Baptist Women for Equality's Blog 
Let me tell all of you readers that Shirley has done a tremendous and super-human job for this conference. We give God the glory, but we also need to recognize those who have given so sacrificially with their time and money, and above all, their heart and soul, to furthering the Kingdom of God. This is the focus of it all: May Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Ask God to move people’s hearts. We are not doing this because we have nothing else to do, and we want to put on a show to entertain. Pray that the Holy Spirit will use the conference as a means to change hearts and subsequently many church policies. Pray for travel mercy for the speakers and the attendees. Pray that the event will go smoothly. We are very inexperienced, and it is by the grace of God that we have gone down this very ambitious road. We covet all your prayers.
LikeLike
I’ll be praying for y’all. While I was growing up, we moved around the country several times. Two of those moves were to Houston. I became a Christian in Houston during my teen years after listening to a Baptist youth pastor speak at a Christian organization at my high school. I’m extremely thankful for the salvation message preached by a Baptist; however, their gender hierarchy teachings became very detrimental to my spiritual growth over time. Looking back, I see that the gospel message, which had taken root into good soil in my heart, was becoming choked out by the weeds developing from the gender hierarchy teachings I embraced from the Baptists and other evangelicals. These weeds were blocking out the Son’s light of God’s full redemption to my soul. These weeds were also drawing away some of the refreshment of God’s living water, which hindered my growth as a new creation. It wasn’t until I finally heard the egalitarian message that these harmful weeds began to weaken and my spirit began to thrive. I’m excited that you are hosting this conference to share a messsage that will change hearts and lives!
LikeLike
That is an excellent story. Why don’t you go through the contact us at http://www.cbehouston.org and send this to us officially. We are making ledger size paper with people’s stories to be put on our wall so others can see why we have the need for this conference. First names only will be used, so please give us your first name.
LikeLike
Sonnet, I agree with Shirley. Please give us your story. All these stories will help others.
LikeLike
Thanks you two. I edited it slightly and submitted it to the other site.
LikeLike
Got it! Thanks so much.
LikeLike
thanks, Sonnet.
LikeLike