Disciples Women to discontinue quadrennial meetings

The Executive Committee of International Disciples Women's Ministries announced March 11 that they will not be planning a Quadrennial experience for 2018. The news release said, "We celebrate the legacy of the rich memories, ministry and mission of the Quadrennial Assembly experience.

"After an additional time of prayerful discernment the Executive Committee of International Disciples Women's Ministries has determined, with sadness, that the Quadrennial Assembly of 2014 was our last.

"We grieve this loss."

Executive Director Patricia Donahoo said, "The planning of every Quadrennial Assembly has involved long hours of hundreds of volunteers as well as national and regional staff. In 2014 the women of the Georgia Region went above and beyond to ensure that QA 2014 was a blessing of education, networking and worship. The women who put in hours, months, years of planning and work to make it such an amazing event are to be commended on going the extra mile every day."

The Executive Committee adopted a new vision and mission statement that declares: "Disciples Women's Ministries is a conduit for diverse connections empowering each woman to find her voice and live out her call," affirming the connection that makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Like many self-supporting events, attendance has declined over the last decade. In 2006, 2,389 Disciple women attended the joint event with the UCC. In 2010, attendance was 1,887 and in 2014, just over 1,100.

From the executive committee: "We are Disciples Women; let us reach out to each other in this time. God has shown us what is good and has required of us to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with our God. (Micah 6:8) While we grieve, we move forward in discernment as Disciples Women continues to be a conduit for diverse connections.

"In the words of one of those wise women in our history, Claudia Grant: 'The legacy left by our foremothers is not the structure we celebrate. It is the commitment to the mission that always calls for the transformation and a willingness to risk doing what needs to be done in our times to do the mission.'"