Advancing in Freedom- Anchorage City Church Ladie's Retreat

I was invited to be a part of Anchorage City Church's Ladies Retreat at the Sheraton Hotel. Originally, I was asked to be a part of a modesty fashion show, but that snowballed into me being a part of the planning committee and being a part of several of the weekend's events. The Retreat's theme was Advancing in Freedom as was based on knowing God and living freely in Christ. The Bible (1 Thess. 5:11) instructs us to "encourage one another and build each other up" and this retreat was designed to do just that. Our society is so focused on competition that it was certainly refreshing to spend the weekend among women seeking God's direction in their lives and focusing on supporting and building up others.

I was able to participate in several sessions, including sitting on a relationship panel where we fielded relationship questions from the audience. As women, we are engineered to be communicators and we focus so much on relationships. It was such a honor to be considered an experienced, woman of wisdom and to be able to offer advice to the women in our audience.
One of the goals of the retreat was to try to bring together the older and younger generations of women in our congregations. Oftentimes a divide develops when the two generations don't have an understanding for the value the other can bring to our lives. I developed the fashion show activity to help be a visual, fun representation to illustration how similar we all really are. We are women, after all, and that alone joins us by a very strong thread!

The fashion show featured "older" generation models wearing fashion trends from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Each "older" generation model was paired with a "younger" generation model who wore updated, current fashion trends from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Fashion trends are often recycled every 30 years or so today, we see alot of tunic shirts, flowy bohemian skirts, leggings, sweater dresses, mini skirts and boots- all trends passed on from former generations. Fashion was just one example of how the "older" generation continues to be an influence on the "younger" generation. The crowd really loved the fashion show because it not only featured music and fashion they were familiar with, but the models were all folks from our churches, including both our women's pastors, which were a real riot!