Women of Peace – BRF/Woman Alive day, Woking

The Bible Reading Fellowship and Woman Alive magazine invite you to a special women’s conference, where we will be exploring “the peace that passes all understanding.”

Keynote

The peace that passes all understanding

Lyndall Bywater

Morning – Sewing peace through our souls

We tend to think of peace as something that happens to us. If circumstances permit it, we will feel peaceful; if they don’t, we won’t. But what if peace is something you can install, like an app on your phone … or something you can build, like a particularly fine flatpack wardrobe in your bedroom … or something like a fabric lining you can sew into your soul? Jesus said that he would give us his peace, a peace that would be nothing like the kind that circumstances give us (John 14:1). If it’s a gift from him, then we should be able to pick it up and use it any time we need to. So how does that work exactly? …

Afternoon – Digging peace from our disappointments

Surely peace isn’t possible when you’re grieving loss, picking your way through brokenness or trying to keep up the long slog of unanswered prayer. The peace that comes from circumstances just can’t hold out when the good circumstances get outnumbered by the bad ones, but the peace of Christ, the peace which can guard our hearts and minds, is always up to the task (Philippians 4:7). It just needs digging out from under the mud of pain and disappointment.

Sessions

Each session will run in both the morning and afternoon so you will have the opportunity to attend two of them.

Let it go: Exploring different things that rob us of our peace and bring them to God

Jennifer Rees Larcombe and Carol Bostock

In our workshop we hope to be looking at some of the ways we can handle, with God’s help, the troublesome emotions which rob us of our peace. So often we blame ourselves for worry, doubts, anger or shame. Yet so many of these can be caused by pain in the past for which we need to find God’s healing before we can enjoy the peace Jesus promises us. We hope to share practical ways of getting rid of thoughts and feeling that attack us all so often. We hope it will be a light hearted time with plenty of laughter as well as going deeper into God’s amazing power to heal and restore the peace we can lose so easily.

Developing the fruit of peace in our lives

Pen Wilcock

I love the idea of being Women of Peace, and immensely admire women who work in war zones or refugee camps around the world. But how we can help if we have little money to donate? If our days are full with family or work commitments? If our age or state of health make it very difficult to attempt such heroic work?

This workshop explores the vision of our homes and ordinary, everyday lives as the seedbed for peace or for war.

We shall be thinking about how ordinary women can sow seeds of peace at home, at work, out shopping, at church, in our neighbourhoods and in our personal relationships.

Working together, we can change the world one household at a time. Peace in my home is peace in the world.

How to be a peacemaker – in our communities and families

Amy Boucher Pye

How can we bring peace – shalom, wholeness – to those whom we live in close proximity? How can we transform hard relationships when we feel disheartened or want to give up? Join Amy in this seminar that explores peace at the family and community level. This is where we live out our beliefs – where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. It’s only with the help of the triune God who dwells within us that we can be the salt and light in our homes and villages and towns. With His help we can usher in hope and bring Him glory. We’ll explore encouraging stories of peacemakers and share strategies of how to live out our faith with integrity.

Being a peacemaker – interceding for our nation

Jane Holloway

In this workshop we will learn from the model of Jesus as to how prayer is first and foremost an invitation to a close relationship with our loving heavenly Father. From that base we learn how He wants us to work with Him as we pick up His heartbeat for the issues, areas and people he wants us to pray about. In all of this we learn how to respond to His call to work with Him in partnership to see His kingdom come and His will be done in the different areas of the life of our nation.

Timetable

Please note: Tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided in the breaks, however you will need to make your own arrangements for lunch.