Women set to Gather for Christ this August
Photo: Tina Tatum, one of organizers of the Gather Women’s Conference, to be held at the Landers Center Aug. 23-24. (Bob Bakken/desotocountynews.com)
Women from around the area will be gathering at the Landers Center in Southaven again this August to be encouraged, supported and uplifted with the annual “Gather” Women’s Conference. Dates for the conference will be Aug. 23-24, according to organizer Tina Tatum. She recently spoke to the Southaven Rotary Club meeting at Georgia Blue about the conference.
This year’s theme is “Greater,” based on the Bible verse, 1 John 4:4, “Greater is He in me.”
Tatum said Gather has been held seven previous times since the first conference was held at the Hernando Performing Arts Center with about 400 women taking part.
As well as presenting the Gospel message, Tatum said there has always been an outreach effort to a local non-profit charity.
“Every year we select a different local charity or nonprofit that you may not know about,” Tatum said. “We try to select nonprofits that we can give our platform to that are really doing great work in DeSoto County.”
The first year, the women’s domestic violence shelter House of Grace was the selected nonprofit. Last year, the jail ministry Precious in Pink was highlighted.
Tatum said that this year, Trinity Health Center has been chosen as the nonprofit to support.
“They work to provide medical services, prescriptions, and a lot of the health care to the uninsured and underinsured in DeSoto County,” Tatum explained. “We’re going to create a fund specifically for women’s health care for pap smears, for mammograms, for all things specifically for women’s health and mental health.”
The keynote speaker for the conference, which will start Friday evening and continue during the day Saturday, is Gayle Rogers Foster, the daughter of well-known Pastor Adrian Rogers and herself a Biblically-based writer and speaker.
Tatum points out it is an interdenominational event and expects about 800 women to come.
“It brings relationships together in the community that inspires one another,” she said. “We are empowering women to get outside the four walls of the church, engage in the community and make a difference.”
Tickets for Gather help provide funding to the nonprofit, which the organizing committee presents after setting aside an operational budget for the following year.
Information about Gather is available on the Gather website, and on Facebook and Instagram.
“We think women are uniquely gifted with the heart of passion and compassion to make a difference,” Tatum said. “We want to facilitate that calling, esecpially in women’s lives.”
