Executive Director Highlights 2021

A Season of Transition and Growth

2021 bears witness to the reality that life is never static! Life truly is made up of seasons that unfold, develop and come into full fruition, or fade into the next season, and 2021 was a year of transition into a new season for Canadian Baptist Women of Ontario and Quebec. In April, Jennifer Shewan finished her term as Board President and Dr. Darlene Maxey began her term as our President. Also in April, Rev. Diane McBeth announced that she was coming to the end of her time of leading CBWOQ, and in September, I officially began my tenure as Executive Director.

Transition can feel unsettling, and I am very grateful for the CBWOQ staff and board who have stayed steady and weathered these changes well. As a relative newcomer to the world of Canadian Baptists, I am especially thankful for the warm welcome I received, for the many people who took time to answer my questions, and for the incredibly dedicated, gifted and Christ-loving team of women I now have the privilege of being part of.

Even in the ongoing transition, however, 2021 proved to be a busy and productive year. Our theme for 2021, Encourage Love | Inspire Good (based on Hebrews 10:23-24), was accomplished in spades. We supported Canadian Baptist Ministries projects internationally, several refugee centres locally, gave to international work through Canadian Baptist Women, participated with Baptist World Alliance—Women’s World Day of Prayer, and had a full year of programming.

Annual Baptist Women’s Conference At our virtual conference in April, women were uplifted, equipped, blessed and challenged by plenary speaker Karen Wilson, workshop leader Mee Yun Kim and drawn into God’s presence through Jenna Cowan’s inspired worship leading. We had 446 women who registered and, since then, over 600 views on our YouTube channel and website. We learned that while we missed being together in person, there were also many advantages to meeting online as women who would not have been able to travel to attend were able to join in.

We took the feedback from 2021’s conference to plan a hybrid conference for this spring—April 22 and 23—in which women everywhere will be able to access the conference and

gather to experience it together. Currently, we are extending an invitation for women to host these gatherings. Would you prayerfully consider if this is something God is calling you to do?

Soul Sisters online “Intimacy with the one who shaped our heart will truly and deeply satisfy your soul.” (Jennifer Rothschild).

Soul Sisters is a program in which spiritual friendships and intimacy with God are cultivated. In 2021, 15 women journeyed into deeper intimacy with God and each other through Soul Sisters 1. From this group, nine to 10 women continued in the spring and through the fall to complete Soul Sisters 2 and 3.

This month our new cohorts will begin and our leaders will have enjoyed some coaching time with spiritual director, Kathy Gust. (Read Kathy’s latest spiritual formation article on page 12 in this issue.) The Soul Sisters program is available on our website for anyone to download and use, so if you are also longing for deeper relationships, feel free to access it there and start your own group. Please let us know if you do, so we can be praying and offering support to your group.

Complete Complete is a discipleship program to support women as they journey towards spiritual maturity. It is designed to help women discern God’s personal call to them and also to equip them to answer it. Seventeen women began meeting as the pilot cohort of Complete in September 2020 and they completed this journey in May 2021. Women learned from visiting speakers, from each other and from a selection of excellent resources. This time together proved so rich and fruitful that we’ve developed it further in anticipation of a new cohort of Complete to begin in February 2022.

Racial justice The Racial Justice team worked hard in 2021 to respond to events and to shed light on issues that are so prevalent in our world. They hosted two intercessory prayer events to support Black History Month and in response to the discovery of the bodies of the Indigenous children. They co-hosted two live book club events in partnership with CBOQ’s intercultural awareness working group. In September, they hosted a panel discussion with experts on the topic of how to talk with our children about racism. Finally, with input from Black, Indigenous, Brown and Asian Baptist women, the team facilitated a weekly Advent experience called We Are One that launched on Sunday, November 28.

As we continue in our commitment to inform, educate and advocate for racial equity and justice, please visit our website or join our Facebook group for information on our resources and upcoming events.

Book club Another highlight this year was the online events for our Book Club—six in total. We cohosted two events with CBOQ,

q Uptick Baptist Women cohort