CCEF-day 2

Well, after the first day, I exhausted. Grace asked how I could feel so exhausted just from talking, and I corrected her that it was actually from listening.

Tim Lane presented about calling unto God and others. He pointed out that we fall into the trap of either "me" centered or "couple" centered marriages, rather than God centered marriages. He said "true Biblical change is not less than behavioral, it's more; it's not less than cognitive, it's more. It is relational and covenantal. He noted that when first things are put first, second things are not supressed, but increased. We need to be reminded that God created each of us, including our differences. We need to remember that God is sovereign, even when our marriages seem hard. He stated, "the isolated Christian is limited. Your marriage is a community, but it is too small a community to meet all the depths of community. So we need to be careful not to isolate ourselves."

Mike Emlet presented the second general session of the day and he focused on unity, not just in marriage, but in the church. Frankly, I was really tired during this session. He exhorted us to seek out those brothers and sisters with whom we are most conflicted and work toward reconciliation because God cherishes unity. He rightly reminds that if you are unified in your church, you can fight the real enemy.

I also attended a couple of electives. The first was by Ed Welch on avoiding th mundane in conversations. He also centered on the importance of peace and unity. He made the foillowing points. 1) God speaks, so words are a big deal. 2) He also listens and is not distracted as we so often are. 3) conversations imitate our communication with God and are our primary means of growth in unity. 4) conversations are a skill. Do we pray about that skill? 5) conversations can take planning. 6) conversations draw the others person out and they go deeper. 7) conversations require a basic knowledge of people. 8) conversations should sneak in a personal blessing--a specific blessing. 9) if you are distracted, talk about why. 10) both the speaker and the listener are busy in the conversation. 11) be alert to the tendency to "one up" the other in conversation.

I also attended a talk on singles in the church by Cecilia Barnhardt. This was a good talk that dealt with many of the assumptions of singles in the church. Briefly, she validated the feeling of isolation that is often experienced by singles and encouraged us not to minimize, downplay, or shame those whoe express this feeling. She pointed out the family-centric nature of the church, which minimizes the Biblical focus, where the church is the family that is most often at the center.

Julie Lowe closed the day. I have notes on her excellent talk too, just not with me. I am learning a ton. I pray that I can apply much of what I have learned.