{"id":1387,"date":"2014-10-27T15:44:54","date_gmt":"2014-10-27T15:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/?p=1387"},"modified":"2014-11-10T22:52:24","modified_gmt":"2014-11-10T22:52:24","slug":"weekend-with-womens-leaders-in-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/?p=1387","title":{"rendered":"Weekend with Women&#8217;s Leaders in Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"blogImages\"><div id=\"attachment_1388\" style=\"width: 210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/DSCF7764.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1388\" src=\"http:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/DSCF7764.jpg\" alt=\"With Meagan Gillan, head of Women Ministries for the Evangelical Covenant Denomination\" width=\"200\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1388\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/DSCF7764.jpg 800w, https:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/DSCF7764-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/DSCF7764-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1388\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">With Meagan Gillan, head of Women Ministries for the Evangelical Covenant Denomination<\/p><\/div> <div id=\"attachment_1389\" style=\"width: 210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/DSCF7763.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1389\" src=\"http:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/DSCF7763.jpg\" alt=\"With all the presidents of regions for women&#039;s ministry\" width=\"200\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1389\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/DSCF7763.jpg 800w, https:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/DSCF7763-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/DSCF7763-768x548.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1389\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">With all the presidents of regions for women&#8217;s ministry<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>Isn&#8217;t it great when you think you&#8217;re going to serve others and give, and then you realize that while that may have happened too, God had something just for you?  Last Friday, Donna and I left bright and early and drove to Chicago.  I was invited to do some worship and just meet with the women&#8217;s leadership for the Evangelical Covenant denomination at their annual meeting.  We got there Friday night and met them at The Compassion Experience, a traveling experience that takes you into the real story of a couple of kids who have been sponsored by Compassion and tells you their story and where they ended up \u2013 it was fascinating and moving and I immediately looked up where it will be this year when I got home.  I want to take my kids!  If it&#8217;s anywhere near you, don&#8217;t miss it \u2013 it&#8217;s free too, which is always a plus.  \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>We had dinner together and frankly, I was a little intimidated by this group as they run women&#8217;s ministry for all of the US and Canada for a whole denomination, but I had no reason to be \u2013 what incredible, Godly, sweet, humble, funny women.  We had a blast getting to know them!  <\/p>\n<p>Saturday morning I did some worship and music for them, and then they were going to do a discernment exercise, basically guided prayer where you are seeking God&#8217;s will and direction for future ministry by praying together.  They invited me to stay, and I did it with Donna about my ministry.  What a wonderful God we serve!  He made several things so clear to me that I have been praying about and wrestling over for some time.  It was so sweet of Him, and it really touched my heart.  I felt like I had come to do this ministry for these women, but God had me there just to speak to me about our direction!  <\/p>\n<p>We ended the weekend talking to a pastor&#8217;s wife about a ministry event who also happened to be one of Donna&#8217;s oldest friends.  Can&#8217;t really have a better meeting than that \u2013 she was so much fun!  We even got to stop by Donna&#8217;s alma mater, Wheaton, to see how everything had changed.  Add to that the spectacular color on the trees the entire way home, and that was a pretty amazing weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Isn&#8217;t it great when you think you&#8217;re going to serve others and give, and then you realize that while that may have happened too, God had something just for you? Last Friday, Donna and I left bright and early and drove to Chicago. I was invited to do some worship and just meet with the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1390,"href":"https:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions\/1390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifershaw.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}