Across Illinois | “You bring the flame, God; we brought the sacrifice,” Carmen Halsey-Menghini prayed in the opening session of Priority 2026, IBSA’s annual women’s conference. She challenged women in churches across Illinois to step into people’s pain, see them as individuals, and use lived experience to bring hope where it is most needed.
Speaking to the more than 700 women gathered at multiple sites across the state, the IBSA Leadership Development Director and leader of women’s ministry framed the April 24-25 event around the theme “Beautiful Scars: From Pain to Purpose.” Based on 2 Corinthians 1:4, she said suffering is both a shared human experience and a pathway for ministry.
“Our job is to close the gap between us, the church, and whoever God has put in our pathway,” she said. “People are desperate for a friend who is willing to step in and say, ‘I’m here, and I’ll walk this with you.’”
The conference shifted to a multisite model after last year’s statewide gathering was moved on short notice when the downtown Springfield location was damaged. Halsey-Menghini said the decision to scatter was intentional for cultivating new leaders and deeper local connections. “We can’t set the table big enough for everyone God is bringing if we all stay together and don’t scatter,” she said. “We’re a sending church, whether we like it or not.”
Drawing on leadership lessons from pastor and author John Maxwell, Halsey-Menghini emphasized the importance of relational connection over position or authority. “When I take the stage, my job is to close the gap between me and the audience,” she said, paraphrasing Maxwell. “I show up as a friend sharing what’s helped me in hopes it might help you, too.”
Carmen Halsey-Menghini speaks at Priority 2026.
The gap is when someone is overwhelmed by circumstances—illness, loss, addiction, or disappointment—and no longer knows how to move forward. “That’s where hope tends to fade,” she said. “And that’s exactly where God has placed the church.”
Host churches for the three conference sites were Tabernacle Baptist Church in Decatur (Central Illinois), the main conference site, Grace Missionary Baptist Church in Markham (Chicago area), and Bethel Baptist Church in Troy (Metro East). The April 24-25 conference was also simulcasted to 13 local churches.
Throughout her remarks, Halsey-Menghini returned to the idea that scars—emotional, spiritual, or physical—are not liabilities but tools for empathy and service. “The scar you’re wearing gives you eyes to see pain someone else might miss,” she said. “But we have to be healed before we try to leverage that scar, or we can make a bigger mess.”
She shared a recent story of recognizing a man panhandling near her office as someone connected to her church’s past. Familiarity can dull compassion unless effort is made to truly see people. “In that moment, a name was put with a face,” she said. “He didn’t just need help. He needed someone to remind him of who he is.”
Halsey-Menghini also pointed to immigrants, refugees, and others who have lost status, stability, or identity through forces beyond their control. “They’re saying, ‘I don’t care what you give me—will you just see me?’ That’s something the church can do that nobody else can.”
The message concluded with a call to engage our communities intentionally.
“Don’t go home the same,” she said. “Ask yourself, ‘Am I leveraging my scars? Am I willing to step into someone else’s pain?’ Because nobody should be closing that gap second to the church.”