LANSING, MI – In a day and age where so many things divide us, Michigan Baptist women are being invited to join the second annual MOVE Conference for Women April 28th and 29th, 2017 at Trinity Church in Lansing, Michigan.
The MOVE conference’s beginnings started with a simple question before the women of the Kingdom Life Church traveled to Dallas,Texas. Worship Director, Keturah Bouyer, remembers, “As we gathered in the front room of a fellow member’s house for our bi-weekly discipleship meeting, I asked how things were going concerning our plans to travel to a women’s conference. As the conversation flowed, one of the women asked a simple question: “Why do we have to raise money to travel to conferences? Why isn’t there a conference here, where women can simply go and be fed no matter what they look like?” Immediately, I became angry and frustrated…why couldn’t they just get with the program?” Kingdom Life Church in Lansing is close to 50% white and 50% black with a small percentage of Hispanics. Bouyer adds, “That’s why we go to different conferences and retreats.”
Bouyer says as she left that discipleship meeting, she was filled with conflicting emotions and one of them was anger. She says, “I thought ‘I don’t have time to search for this Lord!’ and I held onto that frustration for two days until I gave myself a mental shake and said to the Lord, ‘Okay, starting tomorrow I will look for ‘this conference.’ As I woke the next morning, I said a small prayer: ‘Help me, Lord as I look.’ My mind was unlocked as I began to recall conversations I had with other pastors’ wives in the area concerning partnering to put on a women’s conference. I began to recall names of churches with whom we had built relationships.”
Bouyer says the name of the conference became clear: “The MOVE Conference for Women.” And the purpose became clear: “To bring women together from different churches, different walks of life, different seasons of life, and different cultural upbringings, from different parts of the city, in order to worship and experience God together. She recalls, “As I thought of this, fear immediately gripped me. ‘Who would come to this conference? I am just a church planter’s wife. No one knows me.’ I had these doubts and questions from the first meeting to the last...but God used my 12-year old daughter as she simply said to me one morning, ‘Mom, even if 50 women come, that’s amazing!’
So last April, they opened the doors to the first MOVE Conference for Women. More than 300 women from at least eight different churches came together to worship God and to lift high the name of Jesus Christ. At the conference a wide variety of emotions and beauty were displayed as diverse women from various churches sang songs, held each other, cried and worshipped God together. Bouyer says, “At this conference, I believe we caught a glimpse of what Heaven will truly be like.”
For more information about the MOVE Conference, contact Keturah Bouyer by phone at 517/882-4660.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Keturah Bouyer currently serves as the Community Liaison for Kingdom Life Church. Keturah is passionate about reaching, teaching, and leading women. She is married to her best friend and love, Rev. Coye Bouyer, where they are church planting in their hometown of Lansing, Michigan. They have four beautiful children: Sierra, 12; Seth, 10; Cayla, 7; and Coye II, 5.