BETH MOORE VISITS OKC
An estimated 3,800 women attended Beth Moore's twoday “Living Proof Live” conference
It's one thing to read a Bible teacher's books or join a small group exploring one of her Bible study guides.
It's quite another to see Beth Moore i n person, with her charm and love of Scripture on full display.
This was the mindset for many women who flocked to Moore's “Living Proof Live” conference held Oct. 11-12 at the Cox Convention Center.
“We do her video Bible studies a lot at our church. Some of us, like me, had never seen her in person, so we just thought it would be a neat thing to do,” said Jane Shull, who attended the event as part of a group of 18 from First Baptist Church of Cordell.
Moore's simulcast conferences are often a big draw at Oklahoma churches large and small so it was not surprising that an estimated 3,800 women attended the two-day live event in downtown Oklahoma City.
Moore, founder of Houston- based Li vi ng Proof Ministries, had not conducted alive conference in Oklahoma City for 13 years. Local event coordinators said about 10 Living Proof Live conferences are scheduled each year by LifeWay Christian Resources, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Contemporary Christian recording artist Travis Cottrell led worship and welcomed the crowd to Moore's last “Living Proof Live” conference for 2019. Drawing cheers from the crowd, he said he and Moore were excited to be in Oklahoma “where the Holy Spirit comes weeping down the plain.”
As for Moore, she began almost instantly poring through Scripture to share the truths she gleaned there. The vivacious Bible teacher's sense of humor was evident, but her message was a serious one.
She told attendees there were powerful lessons to be learned from Mary, the mother of Jesus, who was only a teenage girl when the Angel Gabriel told her she would bear God's son, according to the Bible.
Moore said people often see Mary as onedimensional. The crowd chuckled when she said seeing this important biblical figure through a narrow lens was like seeing her as a type of “Flat Mary .” She was making a comparison to the popular “Flat Stanley” literacy project which uses a “flat” image of a person suing paper or cardboard.
“You've heard of `Flat Stanley?' We have `Flat Mary,' but we stop right there and make sure we don't get any closer to her. We see her as a kind of Mona Lisa holding Jesus, but she's deep, she's courageous, she's conflicted at times. She's torn. She's human,” Moore said.
Through Mary's life, believers learn that “God loves turning things downside up,” Moore said, honing in on her conference theme, “Downside Up.”
Though she was from a poor village and had yet to marry, Mary accepted Gabriel's proclamation, trusted the Lord and simply told the angel “Let it be so.”
“God deserves the right to favor the unfavorable. If you look like you are completely looked over, you are a really great candidate for a mighty work of God,” Moore said.
Also she said Mary was gutsy, sort of like the fictional character Katniss Everdeen in “The Hunger Games.”
“It takes guts to agree to be part of what God's doing,” Moore said.
“Do we have the guts to stand before God and say `I'm in' — with all the complications?” Moore asked.
“Let's quit confusing submission and humility with such passivity that we're ignoring courage. ... This is a gutsy girl, and nothing about her is in contradiction to her submission and humility.”