This monthly feature will give you the inside scoop on our events from backstage passes to interviews with our speakers, here’s what happens In Any Event.
Some of you may know Jamie Ivey from her podcast, The Happy Hour with Jamie Ivey. We’re so excited to have her emceeing our Abundance events this year! We took some time recently to sit down with Jamie and talk all things Abundance and to introduce her to you!
Jamie lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband Aaron, who leads worship at her church, The Austin Stone, her four kids, two dogs, and a bunch of cats. She may be best known for her podcast, but she’s also a speaker and a new author. Her book, If You Only Knew, released in January and tells readers about her story, but most importantly points to God’s unfailing love. We loved hearing the message of grace beyond measure—that God loves us no matter what—and Jesus is better than anything this world has to offer us. He is our salvation and our identity.
Jamie got involved with Abundance events this last year as the event emcee. She has said being an emcee is one of her favorite jobs because she gets to be the friendly, familiar face during the conference. We’re thankful she’s using her gifts as an interviewer and host to point women toward Jesus while providing all the necessary information the rest of us may forget (where are the bathrooms?). She also gets to conduct interviews, serve on panels, and introduce each speaker before they come up on stage.
The speakers at our Abundance events drew Jamie to become involved. She saw our speakers—including Lisa Harper, Jackie Hill Perry, Amanda Bible Williams, Angela Thomas-Pharr, Jen Wilkin—and wanted to be involved. Jamie says she looks up to the older women on the platform, but especially loves the camaraderie shared among the speakers. They get to cheer one another on, provide wisdom for one another’s circumstances, and pray with one another. The variety of ages and styles drew her in and that’s what she loves the most about Abundance events. Jamie, like all of us in attendance, loves getting to sit under the teaching each weekend.
While those on stage may all be different in styles, in ages, in life stage, they all point women toward Christ. Jamie’s hope for each woman who attends an Abundance event is that she would fall more in love with Jesus and that she would know God loves her. She desires for each woman to walk away with a greater love of Scripture, knowing she can dive in after our weekend together and learn more about Him. We all want our Abundance events to be a secure place for those who are questioning, for those who have perhaps never felt the love of God, and for those who know He loves them but just need a little reminder that His promises are good and true. We hope, no matter where you are in your faith or in your life, you will know God loves you after our weekend together at Abundance.
In her own life, Jamie talked about the word abundance coming into play the most with parenting. When going through tough times and trials, we often wonder if there’s enough. Is there enough grace? Enough hope? Enough love? Enough goodness? We begin to doubt God’s sovereignty in certain situations. Jamie pointed to the stories in Matthew of Jesus feeding the crowds. In Matthew 14, Jesus feeds five thousand men, plus women and children, from five loaves of bread and two fish. And there are leftovers! Then in Matthew 15, again Jesus is with a crowd and the crowd is hungry. The disciples ask, “Where could we get enough bread in this desolate place to feed such a crowd?” (v. 33). These same disciples had seen Jesus provide in abundance in much the same way in the chapter before this one.
We’re often like that, Jamie says. We have seen God provide before. We know He can provide, but when we get in tough situations, we sometimes ask similar questions. How will there be enough this time? God provides, though, just as He provided for that second crowd. He provides grace and love and hope and peace in abundance. In her life, Jamie has seen God’s faithfulness in this way in the past few years during difficult seasons of parenting.
God provides in abundance. He loves in abundance. We hope, and Jamie Ivey hopes, that any woman who comes to our abundance event knows that truth by the time she leaves. We love to see how God uses each woman who speaks at our Abundance events to point to the truth of God’s abundant love. We’re thankful to get to point to Him beside Jamie this year.
To see Jamie Ivey at one of our Abundance events this year, click here.
Jamie Ivey believes in women and wants big things for them. She wants them to know and believe their worth in this world and to the Father. Through her podcast, The Happy Hour with Jamie Ivey, she uses a raw and intimate approach to connect with her audience. Jamie’s prayer and hope is for God to use her words to encourage and show others that they are not alone, while constantly pointing them to Jesus.
Jamie and her husband, Aaron, worship pastor at The Austin Stone Community Church, live in Austin, Texas with their four kids and two dogs.
