By JESSA PEASE / Staff Writer

PELHAM— If fear were not a factor, what would you want to be brave enough to do? When Karen Gray was deciding the theme for this year’s ALPHA Women’s Ministries Retreat, she kept coming back to that question.

As the conference ministries director, Gray has been running the retreat for the past five years. Each year’s theme is different, focusing on networking and fresh, modern ideas for ministry.

“The brave thing kept coming up,” Gray said. “It’s just a time to be brave, to launch out and to be the women that God called you to be. Women have so many distractions with work, their families and all their responsibilities and sometimes you feel overwhelmed.”

The thought for the retreat, according to Gray, is how to help women do something they never thought they could, such as going back to school, launching a business, finding a new job or even losing weight.

Women from churches in Fayetteville, Tenn.; Moss Point, Miss.; Alabama and the Florida Panhandle will gather together at The Connection church in Pelham for a two-day retreat Oct. 9-10.

The ladies will arrive at 3 p.m. Oct. 9 for registration and attend several sessions, meet and greets and services. Hope Jones is the event’s guest speaker from on the churches in the conference in Georgia, Life Center Church.

“(The weekend) is for us to help other women rise up, take their rightful place, be who God has called them to be and to be strong,” Gray said. “You know, you are stronger that you think a lot of times. I want women to know that there is nothing they can’t do.”

Gray said the retreat will focus on ALPHA Women’s Ministries four C’s: Connect, cultivate, celebrate and create. They aim to connect women of all ages and cultures through fellowship, to cultivate positive relationships that provide opportunities for discipleship, to celebrate what God is doing in and through women and to create an atmosphere where women can be released into their callings and passions.

‘That’s what this retreat is going to be about,” Gray said. “We are going to be connecting with each other and we are going to be cultivating those positive relationships because women need their friends.”

The Connection at Pelham is the daughter church of the Connection church in Chelsea. For more information about the “Be Brave” retreat, contact Karen Gray at karenannettegray@att.net.