DALLAS (BP) — Donna Gaines, wife of pastor Steve Gaines, and Gayle Rogers Foster, daughter of the late Adrian Rogers, were the featured speakers at the Pastors’ Wives and Women in Ministry Conference on June 9 at the 2025 Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting.

Kandi Gallaty, author and wife of Tennessee pastor Robby Gallaty, moderated a panel discussion on women in ministry and the challenges of praying for the lost, prodigals, marriage and the church.

Guest panelists included Catherine Renfro, national director of women’s evangelism at the North American Mission Board; Leighann McCoy, author, podcaster and speaker; Missie Branch, author, podcaster and speaker; and Elizabeth Luter, women’s ministry leader and wife of New Orleans pastor Fred Luter Jr.

Foster, author of the recent devotional “In His Footsteps,” related an experience at the 2005 SBC annual meeting that she called “the most moving experience of her life.” The year marked the last time Foster attended the annual meeting with her father.

Foster told of seeing a room full of pastors with hands lifted, praying for the healing of her father. Adrian Rogers died five months later.

Twenty years later, while questions remain in her mind regarding why God did not heal her father, she told the room full of women, “I don’t have to know why. I just have to know Who.”

Today, Foster is the founder of Think on These Things ministries. Her new book includes a final “and insightful” quote from her father.

Though Foster struggled with her own commitment of faith and the difficulty of growing up with a famous pastor/father, she praised him for his lifelong, genuine walk with the Lord. 

“My father was the real deal. He finished strong,” Foster said. “Not once did I see him dishonor the Lord. Not once.”

A turning point came for Foster when her business failed and she “felt lost,” Foster said. Foster told of visiting her father’s grave and pouring her heart out to the Lord in surrender, asking Him to answer every prayer her father “had ever prayed for her.” Foster said she “begged” the Lord that day for her father’s “mantle, baton and ministry.” After circling the cemetery six times in her car that day, Foster told of shouting praise to the Lord on the seventh round.

Foster described the “simple materials” Satan used in her life to sidetrack her faith using an analogy of beavers and “four elements” they use in building dams:

1. Wood, representing idols in life: Foster said that many idols start out as “good gifts meant as an enhancement of life but became a replacement for God.”
2. Mud, the sin polluting and preventing a Spirit-filled life: “The Holy Spirit would not, could not flow in my life until I let (sin) go.”
3. Stones, hard places in the heart: Left unhealed, the hard places “calcify” and lead to a life of “pretense,” Foster said. “It’s time to dig them up,” she urged.
4. Leaves and vegetation, the fillers in life that rob believers of time for prayer: Quoting her father, Foster said, “Every one of us has enough time to do gracefully everything God intends for us to do every day.”

“So, do whatever it takes to tear down the dams Satan’s built,” Foster concluded. “Put on the armor of God, fill yourself daily with the word of God and pray ‘it back’ to Him, and when you do these things … you will experience a river of joy bursting through your soul.”

Panel on prayer

Kandi Gallaty, author and women’s leader, moderated a panel discussion on prayer.

Catherine Renfro emphasized the importance of prayer in reaching the lost. “Live every day with an eternal perspective; we can only get that (perspective) from the Lord,” Renfro said.

Leighann McCoy related how prayer can bring a prodigal back to the faith. “It does not matter where your child is, how far they are, how unreachable they seem,” McCoy said. “God’s got this.”

Missie Branch said believers often pray for the Lord to change their spouse when they need to pray for change for the spouse’s sake, rather than their own. Branch noted the importance of faithfulness in prayer. “I take ‘pray without ceasing’ literally,” Branch said.

Elizabeth Luter began, at the Lord’s leading, rising at 5 a.m. to pray for her church not long before Hurricane Katrina devastated her church and city. Luter has continued that habit. “Some of the most impossible prayers have been answered,” Luter said. “It has been so rich.”

God’s presence the blessing

Donna Gaines, Bellevue Baptist Church, Memphis, encouraged listeners to know that spending time with the Lord in prayer and Bible study is vital. Pointing to the conference theme verse, Psalm 116:2, Gaines reminded listeners that the Lord listens to their requests.

“It should literally embolden us that the God of the universe who spoke all that we know into existence has literally bent down to listen this morning as we prayed,” Gaines said. “And He does that every time you come into His throne room.”

Gaines said that the blessing believers seek when they bring requests to God is God Himself, rather than answered prayers.

Drawing from her favorite passage of John 15-17, Gaines said that believers see prayer requests granted when they “abide in Christ,” but noted that God may correct a believer’s desires through prayer.

Gaines encouraged women to remember that they can be honest before the Lord and pointed to the Psalms that show “raw” emotion. Believers can pray those Psalms “back to God,” Gaines said.

“He is in you. You are in Him,” Gaines said. “So, you are safe.”

Gaines shared stories of difficulties as a parent and as a pastor’s wife and how she learned to depend upon Scripture and prayer.

“Our God moves when we pray. … We must pray,” Gaines said.

Gaines related that her time in prayer led to her founding of the nonprofit Arise2Read, a literacy program mobilizing hundreds of volunteers in 44 schools to help second graders learn to read well. The result has helped children but has also touched lives of teachers and workers and opened doors for the gospel, Gaines said.

Gaines said that through her husband’s journey with recent health issues there have been days of pain and difficulty, but praised God saying, “It’s been glorious and full of joy.”

Gaines closed with a final reminder to seek God’s presence regardless of circumstances.

“The blessing you’re seeking is the Blesser,” Gaines said. “The promise is His presence. His presence is all you need.”