Your Presence is Requested
WRITTEN BY: CATHIE OSTAPCHUK
I love receiving invitations to a celebration. Anytime, anywhere, I am there. Group invites are good. But I really get excited when it is My Name on the invitation and I know a gathering is being specially created with me in mind.
At Gather Women, in 2016 we are committed to be intentional about Presence. Presence with God. Presence with ourselves. Presence with each other. 2016 is about Presence in Canada. We want to be present with all of you Canadian Christian women, coast to coast. We want to know who you are, where you are, what your stories are, and how we can create a robust network online and on the ground as a conduit to serve each other, and serve our God in transformational ways.
We are committed to be Present online – where we can find each other, communicate with each other, share our stories with each other and become visible to each other. More importantly, we want to be Present on the ground. With you. We want to create spaces where you are welcome to come and meet the women who have their feet firmly planted on this soil and know that their presence can change the trajectory of a nation.
Presence defined actually means to appear, to arrive, to display, emerge, make an entrance, introduce oneself, show up, turn up, rise up and unveil oneself.
For so long we have been invisible to each other in this country. Perhaps we have allowed a poverty mindset to lodge itself in our worldview by thinking that what we need only is available outside our borders. It may have created a pattern of importing resources rather than developing our own.
We value a mindset of Abundance. Through Christ, we have been given all we need, and more than we need. In our nation, our soil is fertile with untapped potential and girlfriends who just have not met each other yet. Gather Women wants to create a link across our land to mine the rich resources of our women and connect us to each other.
Can we invite you to join us in cultivating the resources on our soil, for this time in history? Who are the women who are visible that we can champion? Who are the women who are invisible that by going out and becoming present in far-reaching nooks and crannies of our vast geography, we can invite to be guests of honour at the table with us?
We are excited to be Present with you this year! On April 2, we are coming to you, British Columbia! And on May 14, we are coming to you, beautiful Edmonton, Alberta! A Montreal, Quebec on the ground Gather presence date will be revealed soon, and Toronto, we will be present in your gorgeous and bustling city on October 15.
Find us online @gatherwomen. We want to connect with you. You can register for our upcoming Gather Regional at www.gatherwomen.com.
Let’s make an entrance together, shall we? This is our year, girls. And we are promised that where two or three are gathered, Jesus joins us where we are. Right in our Circles. We have no idea what might be possible as we commit to gather: the one, the few and the many in 2016.
The Honour of Your Presence is Requested. A space of belonging and celebration is being created just for you. Will you join us?
Cathie Ostapchuk is the Co-Visionary of Gather Women.
