What a blessed day we had at the 21Wilberforce Speak Freedom Conference held July 9th on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. We met people from New Zealand, Honduras, the UK, Brazil, Thailand, Nigeria, Belgium, Canada, Germany. The one-day leadership conference preceded the Baptist World Alliance Annual Gathering attended by Baptist leaders around the world.
Professor Dr Timothy George gave 21W conference attendees an amazing account of Baptist history. Founder and President Dr Randel Everett inspired us with words of wisdom concerning what it takes to be a transformational leader. A lawyer from Brazil spoke of her travels as a missionary from Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq. And Dr. Warren Stewart, Senior Pastor at First Institutional Baptist Church in Phoenix, Arizona, spoke about systemic racism. Watch session one of the conference here.
Our evening ended with a 21Wilberforce informal dinner with Timothy fellows, Michael from Honduras, Timothy from the UK, Filipe from Belgium, Laise from Brazil and Trent from DC. It was such an enjoyable evening hearing their stories and Christian journeys which lead them to this moment in time. Just being among this interesting, international crowd of committed Christian young people was refreshing.
This post, written by Marilyn Burns, is reprinted with permission. 21Wilberforce is grateful for volunteers John and Marilyn Burns who traveled from Texas to Alabama to assist with the one day Speak Freedom Conference.