Renaissance Women 2012

Renaissance Ministries is gearing up to kick off registration for our 2012 Spring Women’s Conference Renaissance 2012: Rebuilding Your Foundations. (Registration begins on January 1, 2012) so I wanted to tell you about Renaissance, the 2012 conference and why we do what we do. You’ve gotten to know me and my family, now I want you to know about me and the ministry God has called me to.

The motto for Renaissance Ministries is Revive! Renew! Rejoice!  A motto is defined as a rule to live by.  We use the exclamation point at the end of each word because we take it as a joyful command to do so. All three of these words can be found in the definition of the word Renaissance. Let’s look at the meanings of these three words to get the full understanding of Revive! Renew! Rejoice!

• Revive means to breathe life into 

• Renew means to make good again, to rekindle and to restore

• Rejoice means to express joy, to celebrate, to delight in

 In other words, the motto of Renaissance Ministries can be expressed as follows:

To breathe life into the women of our community, to restore that which has been destroyed in their lives and to help them to celebrate themselves, to express joy in their everyday lives and to delight in being the woman God has called them to be.

My personal life purpose and the purpose of the ministry are one and the same: to revive, renew and rejoice and to help others to do the same.

Rebuilding Your Foundations - Renaissance Women 2012

Renaissance Conferences for Women are one way we walk out the call to Revive! Renew! Rejoice!  This year the theme Rebuilding Your Foundations is taken from Isaiah 58:12 which reads in the familiar King James Version (KJV)*:

And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places:

thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations;

and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach,

The restorer of paths to dwell in.

The widely used New International Version (NIV)* reads:

Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
   and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
   Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

And my favorite rendering used for this conference from The Message* translation which reads:

You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, 
   rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You'll be known as those who can fix anything, 
   restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, 
   make the community livable again.

If ever there was a verse in scripture that spoke the desires of my heart in ministry, it’s this one. To help women use the rubble of their past to build anew, to help rebuild the foundations of their lives, and to restore the dignity of their souls where it has been torn down. This is my heart, the heart of Renaissance Ministries, and the basis for Renaissance 2010. We’re going to dig through the rubble of our past, use it to rebuild the places where we as women have been broken down and we even going to have fun – yes fun – doing it.

In my next couple of posts, we’ll talk more about the conference how it is set up and what we do.  I’ll also be introducing introduce you to my friends, fellow teachers, and partners in ministry who will be teaching at Renaissance 2012. You are gonna love these women. 

*Three translations and word definitions. Can you tell that my ministry gifting is teaching? :)