Top Pastors' Wives to Speak at Free to Soar Conference
More than 2,000 women, from all 50 states and more than 20 nations, will gather for the Free to Soar pastors' wives conference in West Palm Beach, Fla. next week
More than 2,000 women, from all 50 states and more than 20 nations, will gather for a ministry conference in West Palm Beach, Fla. next week while thousands more are expected to watch parts of the meeting at 80 satellite locations across the nation.
The Free to Soar pastors' wives conference, set to begin next Tuesday, is billed by its organizers as “the first-ever global event to help pastors' wives deal with a full-time job—typically unofficial and unpaid—that is often fraught with unrealistic expectations, constant demands and even loneliness,” according to the Associated Press.
"Most pastors' wives just don't feel qualified. That's really a sad situation," said Lois Evans, one of the organizers of conference. "And the guilt that they feel can be immense, simply because they are expected to have it all together."
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Evans, who is also president of the Global Pastors' Wives Network, is organizing the conference along with network founder Vonette Bright, who started the international ministry Campus Crusade for Christ with her late husband, Bill Bright. Bright also founded the Global Pastors Network and the wives' network is an affiliate of that group.
In addition to Evans and Bright, the Florida conference will feature messages from leading pastors' wives on topics such as marriage, leadership, church life, home life, specific skills and health. The conference marks the first broad-based effort crossing racial, cultural and denominational lines to reach out to pastors' wives, according to Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), which represents more than 50 denominations with 43,000 congregations.
"There's no one personality that everybody's gathering to hear," Haggard told AP. "There are Baptists and Pentecostals, Americans and people from other nations. I think it's going to be incredibly powerful."
Among those speaking at the conference will be Victoria Osteen, Serita Jakes and Beverly LaHaye—the wives of megachurch pastor Joel Osteen, televangelist and filmmaker Bishop T.D. Jakes, and best-selling author Tim LaHaye of "Left Behind" fame.
In total, 49 pastor wives will speak at the highly anticipated conference. According to the Free to Soar website, each of the speakers will be introduced by their husbands, unless the husband and wife are speaking together, with the exception of Vonette Bright.
A two-day Pastors coaching summit will also coincide with the three-day conference.
For more information regarding the conference, go to http://www.freetosoar.org/. For a list of speakers, go to http://www.freetosoar.org/speakers.html.
