This Saturday, the Kerr Pegula complex will host the Women of Worship: Refresh Your Spirit conference. The event lasts all day and features several keynote speakers and an award winning musician. While the morning workshops are reserved for women, men are welcomed to enjoy the evening concert.
Whitney Capps of Proverbs 31 Ministries will provide the opening and closing keynotes for the morning workshop sessions, which start at 10:00 a.m., according to the event’s page on the Houghton website. Capps’ personal page for Proverbs 31 explained Capps practices speaking simply and with honesty. This is an attempt to cut past what she terms the “church talk” people so often tire of hearing. In doing so, Capps expressed the hope that listeners would consider familiar texts once more and find new meaning in them.
Publisher of Gwinnett Magazine, Kelly Greer, remarked, “Whitney has a freshness and youthfulness that makes you think she’s your peer. The truth is spiritually she is wise beyond her years and works faithfully to make a positive difference for the Kingdom.”
The conference will also feature Mindy Sauer ‘03, a Houghton alumna, and mother of Ben Sauer, who inspired the “Blue for Ben” campaign in 2014. Throughout the tragedy of losing her son to cancer, Sauer was quoted numerous times on how her family has found strength in their faith. Sauer will be speaking in the first session of the morning workshops. The second session has yet to have a speaker assigned.
Lisa Allen, Executive Director of Proverbs 31 Ministries, will be the keynote speaking for the evening session of the conference. With a background as a Women’s Ministry Director, Allen expresses in her biography “a passion for seeing women reach their fullest potential and live their best lives.” She emphasized recognizing how God made individuals, and how their individuality feeds into God’s calling for them. Other topics address finding ways to realize where God is working in one’s life to more fully and willingly participate without suffering from a spiritual burnout. Her biography described her as being having a “playful yet practical style gives audiences fun and profound insights that build their confidence.”
Singer-songwriter, Laura Story, will provide the music for the conference’s evening concert. She has received multiple honors as an artist, including a Grammy. Story is an experienced songwriter for other singers, including Chris Tomlin, as well as producing her own award winning works.
In her most recent album, Open Hands, she focuses on the need to surrender to God’s will instead of insisting upon our own. She remarked in her biography, “The irony is the less control we have, the more peace we have and the more, I would even say, success and joy we find. It’s a contrary picture to what the world tells us, but it’s gaining through letting go.”
Also pivotal has been her role as a mother and her personal experiences of God’s grace taking shape in unexpected circumstances.
Story emphasized the gravity with which she takes her work as a songwriter, recalling how God has been able to use songwriters in the Bible and more recent history for His glory.
Tickets for the conference are still on sale starting at $22.