WMU board cancels Texas Leadership Conference

Posted: 11/18/05

WMU board cancels Texas Leadership Conference

By Teresa Young

AUSTIN–After more than a half-century, Woman's Missionary Union of Texas has held its last annual statewide Texas Leadership Conference in Waco.

The Texas WMU board of directors voted Nov. 12 to cancel the conference–originally known as the WMU House Party at Baylor University–along with the WMU Associational Summit for 2006 and 2007 in favor of conducting regional training events around the state.

WMU staff members recommended the change to the board. WMU Executive Director-Treasurer Carolyn Porterfield reported the annual events meant to reach mission leaders across the state simply had ceased being effective.

“In 2004, 188 churches attended TLC, which was 7.8 percent of the churches reporting WMU,” Porterfield said. “In 2005, 202 churches attended, which is 8.4 percent.”

Porterfield said missions leaders cited distance and cost as two deterrents to attendance. Texas WMU staff feel shifting leadership efforts to the regional level would alleviate both factors significantly.

The board also cancelled IMPACT, an Acteens training event, moving that effort to the regional level as well. Traditionally held during spring break each year, Porterfield said attendance at the event has been waning due to other activities at that time.

She emphasized state staff will provide resources for the planning teams, including personnel help, planning checklists and promotional templates. Porterfield distributed a sheet showing a logo created for the new leadership training events, called “Awakening.”

The decisions were made as WMU leaders focused heavily on the future of the organization on the state and national levels. Kaye Miller, national WMU president, shared five basic goals the national vision team has set, with each state vision team charged with applying those to their own needs.

WMU should pursue relationships and partnerships with other Christians to create diverse communities; provide missions experiences for churches that are intergenerational and relevant; communicate through cutting edge methods and technology; produce premiere resources to reach varied audiences; and be financially sound at all levels, Miller said.

“We want people, when they think missions, to think WMU,” Miller said. “It's so exciting to think about implementing these things. God is going to work through WMU like we haven't seen in a long time.”

Texas WMU President Nelda Taylor-Thiede also spoke of the future of the organization, expressing her excitement at what the state vision team will do when it begins to meet.

“God has brought the mission field to our doorstep. We are accepting the call to do missions in new ways,” Taylor-Thiede said.

“WMU of Texas is about educating, equipping and empowering. The next mile ahead is filled with challenges and the unknown, but I anticipate joy in seeing what God has for us.”

In other business, the board approved two new members filling the unexpired terms of others–Barbara Helms of Clarendon and Anna Zimmer of Kingwood­ and pay increases for the state staff.

Porterfield reported several opportunities the state WMU staff had to make a difference in the lives of others, most notably in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The organization helped connect evacuees with vacant missionary houses in the state and made a monetary donation to the Louisiana WMU.

She also shared about a missions opportunity to impoverished Moldova. Money from Texas WMU assisted a team from the Baylor University social work program to visit the eastern European nation and study the possibility of a partnership there.

The state office also discovered an agency that provided $10,000 to build transitional housing hoping to prevent young women in Moldova from entering the sex trade. Plans already are underway to send a team of WMU leaders there in November 2006.

“What we do really makes a difference,” Porterfield said. “But our first loyalty is not to WMU. Our first loyalty is to Jesus Christ, and if we're not committed to him, our work will fail.”