Almost 1,100 people registered for IBSA’s annual Priority Women’s Conference April 24-25. Registration for the meeting, which became a virtual event due to the Coronavirus pandemic, topped last year’s attendance by more than 300. Registrants represented at least 185 churches, 22 states, and seven countries.
The Priority conference, renamed Priority Now for 2020, focused on the unique calling women have to bring necessary support and strength. “Could it be any more relevant to what’s going on in our world today?” asked IBSA’s Carmen Halsey.
Throughout the meeting, attenders connected on the Illinois Baptist Women Facebook page, encouraging the Priority leadership team and applauding the effort to take the meeting online.
“This was my first time of attending Priority,” posted Sarah McVaigh of North Side Baptist Church in Fairfield. “I was so blessed to take part online. Thank you for everything that was done to make this possible. May God keep moving among us!”
Over the last year, Halsey and her team had developed a Priority meeting focused largely on a Hebrew term found only twice in Scripture. Ezer kenegdo refers to someone who brings strong and necessary support, explained featured speaker Chrystie Cole, a women’s discipleship leader from South Carolina and author of “Biblical Femininity.”
In the creation account in Genesis, Adam needed that kind of aid, Cole said, someone to help him accomplish the mission God gave him. And like Eve, women today share that unique calling from God.
“This is why God created us, to bring strength in the context of relationship, so that others are bolstered. So that they can accomplish things that they would not have been able to accomplish apart from their aid.”
It’s a vision for an outwardly focused life, one that is especially relevant now, Halsey said during her closing remarks.
“How can we be the ezers?” she asked. “We have all kinds of opportunities to undergird and bring the strength to our communities.
“And we don’t have to be anybody special. We just have to be us, who God created us to be.”
Photo at top: Ashton and Linda Williams of Fillmore attend Priority Now from home.